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It was impossible to express the alchemical ideas in any language save that of far-fetched allegory. The alchemical writings abound in such allegories. Here are two of them. The first allegory is taken from The Twelve Keys, of Basilius Valentinus, the Benedictine: "The eleventh key to the knowledge of the augmentation of our Stone I will put before you in the form of a parable.
This assembly of persons stopped opposite Vetranio's palace; and then such members of the mob who watched them as were not yet entirely abandoned by hope, heard the inspiring news that the procession they beheld was a procession of peace, and that the two men who headed it were the Spaniard, Basilius, a governor of a province, and Johannes, the chief of the Imperial notaries appointed ambassadors to conclude a treaty with the Goths.
At this moment, Euarchus, King of Macedon, arrived with a small escort, on a visit to his friend, King Basilius, and, by common consent, was asked to deliver judgement on the several prisoners.
With respect to the birds I refer to Matthew XIII, 4: “And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside and the fowls came and devoured them up.” In the text of Basilius Valentinus, the fourth key, there is mention of the rotting and falling to pieces with which we are familiar. The idea of dismemberment is not infrequently clearly expressed, more clearly than in our parable.
Geissler narrates that the prisoners in the Basilius monastery into which soldiers of all nationalities had been driven, during 13 days received only a little hardtack, but neither wood nor a drop of water; they had to quench their thirst with the snow which covered the corpses in the yard.
The Englishman Wilson, of whom I have spoken already, who had come to Wilna with Kutusow's army, says: "The Basilius monastery, transformed into a prison, offered a terrible sight 7,500 corpses were piled up in the corridors, and corpses were also in other parts of the building, the broken windows and the holes in the walls were plugged with feet, legs, hands, heads, trunks, just as they would fit in the openings to keep out the cold air.
Vain were the dignified remonstrances of the grave Basilius, futile was the persuasive rhetoric of the astute Johannes, addressed to the slaughtering and vainglorious Goth!
Complications, moreover, have already arisen, Basilius falling in love with the supposed Amazon, while Gynecia sees through the disguise and falls in love with the concealed Pyrocles.
Secondly, it may be observed that the amorous confusion is even greater than in Menaphon, Pyrocles disguising himself as an Amazon in order to enjoy the company of his beloved Philoclea, which leads to her father Basilius falling in love with him in his disguise, and endeavouring to use his daughter to forward his suit, while her mother Gynecia likewise falls in love with him, having detected his disguise, and becomes jealous of her daughter, who on her part innocently accepts her lover as bosom companion .
Now, by the laws of the Arcadians, both the princesses and their lovers had forfeited their lives by their indiscretions, but King Basilius was removed from the seat of judgement by drinking a potion of drugged wine, which the Queen, not without warning to the King, had prepared for Zelmane.
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