#Dance of Mythological Figures and Villagerss

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, 1499, page 34: At the beginning of his dream, Poliphilo has a vision of the entire moving Alchemy machine: fourteen discordant dancers taking origin from their opposite. Every man is connected with a woman but untied to her. Every smiling face turns into a crying face. But every simile restarts from a dissimilar. Like night and day. Summer and Winter. Sun and Moon. Philosophical time needs rhythm and pace, while alchemical time demands strict proportions.

One of the best-known engravings from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is undoubtedly that of the enigmatic bi-faced group of dancers. We are still in the incipit of the first book. When walking out of the dark forest, having been drinking at the river, Poliphilo enters the huge pyramid to see some wonders. After a winged horse with putti and two squared stone pillars, he can glaze at a group of men and women with two faces. One smiling, the other crying. He was dancing in two oscillating semi-circles, not in a round.

From the quaint (even for a Venetian) language, which is not quite Latin and neither Italian in which Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has been written: "sul lato destro da poscia coelate erano alcune figure di homini & di damigelle chorigianti, cum due facie per uno. Quella dinanti ridibonda, la posteriora lachrymosa" On the right side were some presences of dancing young men and young ladies, each with two faces. The front one is smiling; the back one is crying. And in the round, they were dancing, holding my arms, a man with man and woman with a woman—a man’s arm under a woman’s, and the other arm over the woman’s one. And so holding, they move in that way, one by one. That is always one happy face as opposed to the sad face of the previous. There were seven and seven of them, so perfectly carved of ancient sculpture, with living movements and flying garments. They didn’t burden the artist with any other inaccuracy than not giving them voice and tears. The dance, as mentioned earlier, was shaped in two semi-circles and an interposed partition, egregiously scratched.

This forms the predicate for Peter Paul Rubens' Dance of Mythological Figures and Villagers (Antwerp, 1630–35), Museo de Prado, Madrid.

[Robert Scott Horton]

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“The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.” ― William H. Gass, A Temple of Texts

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“Water: 35 liters, Carbon: 20 kg, Ammonia: 4 liters, Lime:1.5 kg, Phosphrus: 800 g, salt: 250g, saltpeter:100g, Sulfer: 80g, Fluorine: 7.5 g, iron: 5.6 g, Silicon: 3g, and 15 other elements in small quantities.... thats the total chemical makeup of the average adult body. Modern science knows all of this, but there has never been a single example of succesful human trasmutation. It's like there's some missing ingredient..... Scientists have been trying to find it for hundreds of years, pouring tons of money into research, and to this day they don't have a theory. For that matter, the elements found in a human being is all junk that you can buy in any market with a child's allowence. Humans are pretty cheaply made.” ― Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 1