Originally posted January 30, 2012
In order to attain the Golden Fleece, Jason was tasked with three … um … tasks. He had to yoke up a couple of fire-breathing oxen and have them plow a field. Then he had to plant the field with dragon’s teeth, which quickly grew into an army that attacked him. Finally, he had to get past the dragon that guarded the fleece. Jason couldn’t do any of this on his own. His lady-companion-friend Medea had to help him along the way. She gave him an oil that kept the oxen’s fire from harming him. Medea showed him how to use a rock to defeat the crop of soldiers. Finally, she helped him with a potion that sedated the savage dragon.
“Jason and the Argonauts” movie poster. Source
I can imagine an overzealous chemist describing their latest molecular conquest in such a manner. The viscious battle is waged to secure a final product (the golden fleece). At each step, new reagents (dragon teeth, oil, and sleeping potion) are combined in more exotic flasks (field, oxen fire, dragon’s lair). And, of course, there’s the importance thing. We chemists are prone to believe that the projects we are working on are the most important ever in the history of the world.
Jason bringing Pelias the Golden Fleece; a winged victory prepares to crown him with a wreath. Side A from an Apulian red-figure calyx crater, 340 BC–330 BC. Source
So, one could forgive the alchemists for claiming that this story told some secret for how to produce the philosopher’s stone (the golden fleece). The tools and the land where Jason battled all signified different materials and alchemical techniques. Maurice Crosland, in his book “Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry“, describes how many alchemists adopted Jason’s mythology as a grand allegory for some alchemical preparation. Taken from Packe’stranslation of Glauber’s “Work”:
Jason in this ingenious Fable, Hieroglyphically represents the Philosophers; Medea, accurate Meditations; the laborious and perilous Navigation, signified manifold Chymical Labours; the watching Dragon vomiting Fire, denotes Salt, Nitre and Sulphur; and the Golden Fleece is the Tincture or Soul of Sulphur, by the help of which, Jason restored Health to his Aged Father and acquired to himself immense Riches. By the Pills of Medea is understood the Preparation of Sulphur and Sal Mirabile. By the total submersion of the Dragon in the Stygian Lake is intimated the Fixation of Sulphur by Stygian Water, that is Aqua Fortis.Whence it is sufficiently clear how obscurely the Ancient Philosophers did describe their Fixation of Sulphur by Nitre, and how secretly they hid it from the Eyes of the unworthy.
Many alchemists in the 1500′s believed that alchemy, and the synthesis of the philosopher’s stone, had been carried out in every advanced civilization in history. And, because they themselves practiced allegory to simultaneously describe and conceal their own work, they thought the ancients must have done the same thing. I mean, a literal translation of most mythological stories is ridiculous. Fire-breathing dragons. Centaurs. Snake-haired women whose gaze turns you into stone. Who would believe such things? So the alchemists found ways to co-opt the messages and place meaning in these stories. Many practitioners believed that all sacred texts were, in actuality, allegories for alchemy. (Paging Dan Brown!)
The wolf devouring the dead king In one allegory of alchemy, the wolf (antimony) devours an old king (gold), who is reborn from the ashes of the wolf in the fire. Source
Of course, no one has ever gotten alchemy to work. No one has ever produced a substance that could turn imperfect metals into gold. And as time progressed, the alchemists kept obscuring their work through deeper and deeper layers of allegory.
Looking back at a science whose history is written in obfuscation, its amazing that chemists ever learned how to tell people what they do.
We are good at that now … aren’t we???
-mrh