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+--- Thread: John Gower the Alchemist (/showthread.php?tid=346)
John Gower the Alchemist - Paul Ferguson - 08-10-2023
"Our display included the first edition of the Theatrum chemicum Britannicum (AlcC52AS.EL), a compendium of alchemical literature. Editor Elias Ashmole envisions John Gower as a skilled user of the craft. In fact, he claims that Gower was Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Master in this Science,” training him in alchemy during their friendship. Excerpted in this book is a passage from Gower’s Confessio amantis, which Ashmole claims to prove Gower “fully understood the Secret, for he gives you a faithfull account… and affirmes the Art to be true.”
https://special-collections.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2023/08/10/fifth-international-congress-of-the-john-gower-society/
John Gower shooting the world, a sphere of earth, air, and water (from a manuscript of his works ca. 1400). The text reads:
Ad mundum mitto mea iacula dumque sagitto
At ubi iustus erit nulla sagitta ferit
Sed male viventes hos vulnero transgredientes
Conscius ergo sibi se speculetur ibi
RE: John Gower the Alchemist - Paul Ferguson - 08-19-2023
"I send my darts at the world and simultaneously shoot arrows;
But mind you, wherever there is a just man, no one will receive arrows.
I badly wound those living in transgression, however;
Therefore, let the thoughtful man look out for himself."