Virgin Milk: Milk of the Virgin
The Milk Of Wisdom
“Lapis, ut infans, lacte nutriendus est virginali” The stone, like to an infant, is to be fed with virgin’s milk
"The preparation of the philosophers stone allegorically represented. Represents nature, a great female deity, symbolized as a water-nymph or queen (Venus rising from the ocean), out of which she is born. From her breasts are running two continuous streams of white milk and red blood. The two must be boiled together until they are transformed into silver and gold. Happy is he who surprises the incomparable queen in her most secret retirement and obtains possession." — Cosmology or Universal Science, c. 1888 by Franz Hartmann
An alchemical symbol, the feminine principle - Nature / Sophia / Philosophia / Queen / Luna / Earth - as nursing mother who feeds, tames, and transforms the matter of the Work.
“But here the Philosophers say that a Toad must be put to the Woman's breasts, that she may Nourish him as an infant with her Milk.” - Atalanta Fugiens
“…sprinkled drop-by-drop with the milk of the vine, you will extract the red blood. From the new wine, you will mix and marry the two serpents and decoct the green dragon by the fire of the lamp of Hermes…” - The Glaive Of Mars
“The Earth is the Nurse of this Birth of the Air, by whose Breasts it is Nourished, whence it Sucks the Mercurial Milk” - Salmon's Commentary on the Emerald Tablet
“…. our Serpent is of all created things the nearest subject of Feminine Nature to our Dragon … Our Virgin Milk, or Metallic Water, being brought to a perfect Spirituality, and excellent Diaphanity, is called the true Chaos of the Philosophers: for out of that alone, without any addition of any created, or artificially prepared thing, we are to prepare and separate all the Elements, which are required to the Formation of our Philosophical Microcosm.”
- Aphorisms of Urbigerus
“But of this water thou must beware
Or else thy work will be full bare
He must be made of his own kind
Mark thou now in thy mind
Acetome of philosophers men call this
A water abiding so it is
The maidens milk of the dew
That all the work doth renew
The Serpent of life it is called also
And other names many more”
- Ripley Scroll
“When the Medicine and Stone of all the Sages has been perfectly prepared out of the true virgin's milk…”
- Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine
Cleopatra
Antoine Dufour: The Life of Famous Women
Date : 1504
Illuminator: Jean Pichore, Paris 1504-1506
Musée Dobrée, Nantes.