And here is nothing but the Kiss of Love, and Wooing, and here the Bridegroom embraces his beloved Bride, and is no otherwise than when the pleasing Life is born or generated in the sour, tart, or harsh Death; and the Birth of Life is thus in Bitterness in the Essence of the harsh astringent Tartness of the Water-Spirit, the Birth attains the sixth form, viz. the Sound or Noise of the Motion. And this sixth a Form is rightly called Mercurius; for it takes its Form, Virtue, and Beginning, in the aching or anxious Harshness, by the Raging, of the Bitterness; for the Rising it takes the Virtue of its Mother (that is, the Essence of the sweet Harshness) along with it, and brings it into the Fire-Flash, from whence the Light kindles. And here the Trial [or Experience] begins, one Virtue beholding the other in the Fire-Flash, one [Virtue] feels the other by the Rising up, by the Stirring they one hear another, in the Essence they one taste another, and by the pleasant, lovely [Source, Spring, or] Fountain, they one smell another, from whence the Sweetness of the Light springs up out of the Essence of the sweet and harsh Spirit, which from henceforth is the Water-Spirit. And out of these six Forms, now in the Birth, or Generating, comes a six-fold self-subsisting Essence, which is inseparable; where they one continually generate another, and the one is not without the other, nor can be, and without this Birth or Substance there could be nothing; for the six Forms have each of them now the Essences of all their sixfold Virtue in it, and it is as it were the only one Thing, and no more; only each Form has its own Condition.

The second Spirit is the Water: And as the astringent or harsh Quality is the Father of the other six Spirits, which attracts or draws them together,...

This Spirit takes its Original in the Fire-flash, that is, in the bitter Quality, and rises up in the Flash through the sweet Water, wherein it...

Understand this rightly.

For in the first four qualifying or fountain Spirits stand the divine Birth or Geniture; therefore they must be very earnest, and strong also, though ...

Now in this rising up of the six Spirits, there rises up also the Mercurius, Tone, or Sound of all the six Spirits, and in the seventh Nature-spirit...

For in the Light in the sweet Water all Astringency, and Hardness, and Bitterness, and Heat, are mitigated and made pleasant, and so there is in the s...

But when the bitter Flash, together with the Astringent and Fire-spirit, tastes this Meekness, there is nothing else then but a mere Longing, Desiring...

VI. Now when it is melted the sixth Time, then it grows somewhat harder, and then the Life moves, which is risen up in the Love, and lifts itself....

There each Spirit tastes of the other, and gets mere new Strength and Power, for the astringent Quality grows now very pliable and yielding, because...

The Seven Forms are the seven qualifying or fountain Spirits of the Body; viz. the astringent Quality, the Water, the Bitter, the Heat, the Sound,...

I. First, there is the astringent Quality, which is always generated from the other six Spirits, which in itself is hard, cold, sharp like Salt, and...