Avram Davidson - The Phoenix and the Mirror

“If you would safely capture tiger cubs, you must carry with you a large mirror and place it in the path to be followed by the tigress, for, great as is her rage and grief, on perceiving her reflection, she is sure to forget all else and linger to admire it till the fall of night.… “The best alloy for mirror bronze [“What?” asked Vergil. “No more tigresses?”]… will consist in seventeen parts of copper to eight parts of tin [“This is rather less tin than we in Europe are accustomed to use for ordinary mirrors, but it approximates Egyptian usage quite closely, as well as our bell-metal.”]… Moonlight may be obtained by hanging a well-prepared mirror on a tree during the full of the moon and then distilling the dew which forms on its face. If this is done properly, a translucent container of it will give bright light in the darkness at any time; but if not, it will only shine according to the phases of the moon itself.

“Solar fire for kindling the sacrificial flames may be caught in a concave mirror cast at high noon exactly on the solstice.

“And now we will speak of molds and wax and stamps and clay and potter’s wheels to shape the curvèd surfaces.…

“The bronzefounder borrows from the sculptor and the woodcarver borrows from both, the potter imitating the bronze-founder and in turn being imitated by the lapidary who influences the sculptor; thus turns the wheel, bringing up water to quicken all the fields and furrows… Suquas sayeth that, in casting mirrors, the ancients would give the large mirrors a plane surface and the small ones a convex surface; for all mirrors will relfect a man’s face large if they are concave and small if they are convex; and by reflecting the human face in reduced size, a mirror may be small and yet take in a man’s face complete, though the reflected image will correspond in size to the size of the mirror.”

Clemens looked up from his reading. “This is an important passage,” he said.

Vergil’s small bowl of pease soup had just arrived, he took a mouthful of it. “Yes, most important,” he said, rising and starting across the room toward the furnace.

“Surely it is cool by now,” he said, with a curious air, to his inquiring friend.

Clemens took hold of him by the sleeve and drew him to a halt. “Cool by now? What ails you? You look strange and fevery. It is not even sufficiently heated by now… Or do you mistake the soup for the ore? First the copper must be baked, then smelted, there are the crucibles to make, the residual leads must be further purified, the molds have yet to be designed, let alone made… This is for the moment enough, surely — ”

“ Enough …” Vergil repeated the word with a sick look and a low sigh. But, Clemens representing to him the bad effect that any display of impatience would have upon the adepts and the workmen, he returned to his seat, and to a discussion of the little book On Cathayan Bronze ; a copy of which he presently directed his scribe to make.

Thus, with due precautions both mechanical and astrological, with attentions alchemical and metallurgical, the work slowly proceeded. The crucibles were made, of two parts of raw clay and three of fired clay, kneaded in warm water with hammers and hands to the sound of a rhythmic old Etruscan chant, on the principle that “the voice is good for the mixture”; and the clay molded on wood, covered with dry ashes, and placed near the fire. Meanwhile, the tin was being attended to in accordance with its own peculiar needs. Copper and coals were next put in crucibles and set upon the furnace-hearth, stirred carefully with the wooden-handled long and thin and curved rod. From time to time each crucible was lifted with long tongs and moved a little to prevent its sticking to the hearth, and, by and by all the copper melted and was poured off into the trenches.

“Observe, adepts and workmen,” Clemens pointed out, in a deep, moved voice, “the lesson philosophical which this process teaches us. The metal must die in order to live. It must be destroyed in order for it to be created. Burned in the fire which utterly annuls all manner of form and life, in order for it to be given new form and new life. Where else do we see anything like this? Why, in that seed which is cast into the very earth itself, there to die and there to rot, and there nevertheless to quicken with life again, to grow and to come forth and to flourish. Don’t think, then, when it comes your time to be given to the flames or to the earth, that you will remain ashes or earth forever, for nature and philosophy alike combine to teach you better…”

Vergil listened as carefully and as humbly as the forgeboy seemed to, and for all his attention yet something stirred in a corner of his mind and he could neither focus on it nor hear what it had to say. Clemens went on to declare that to alchemy there was no distinction between organic and inorganic life, that the ore which came from the earth and the seed which came from the earth were but brother and sister; so, listening, Vergil gradually allowed the oddly summoning thought to vanish once again.

The speculum proper consisted of two parts: the actual reflecting surface and the cover, fastened to the surface with screws and studs and clasps and catches; the entire product rather resembling a large locket. Some of these smaller pieces would be wrought by hand, some cast in molds like the larger pieces. In preparation for making the molds they now began the refining of the wax. Tallow, coarse and stinking, would not do; nothing but pure wax of bees would do. In many matters concerning the artificing of a major speculum, The Text-book of Rufo, the Chalceocicon of Theodorus, and The Manual of Mary of Egypt differed, but in this one point they were unanimous: the wax must be gathered from the combs of bees that had fed on Mount Caucasus — and nowhere else. Certain vertue hath the soil of this Great Mount, Mary had written. Great is that vertue, and is passed along to all plants and herbs nurtured in that soil, and from nectars of said plants passed on to the wax of bees feeding thereon, and thence to all things molded therewith. Rufo said that certain substances derived from the mineral content of the mountain passed into the clay molded around the wax at the time that the wax itself melted in the fiery heat of the kiln, and were in turn passed on to the metal founded in the clay molds when the heat of the founding activated these residues once again. Theodorus attempted to connect the matter with the blood of Prometheus, shed upon the crag of Caucasus when the eagles tore at his liver for his presumption in bringing fire hid in fennel stalks to the children of men — the flowers thus fructified by this blood forever after retaining what Mary called vertue. And certain it is, he concluded, that no other fire but that of fennel will do for working this wax if it is to be of most effect.

Now, if the only use of such Caucasian beeswax was to be employed as “lost wax” in casting virgin mirrors, it might have remained forever among the mountaineers — except when some rare, infinitely rare, artisan chose to engage upon the work of such a speculum. But it happened that wax of Caucasus had other employment as well… for example, in making a supporting medium for the fashioning of those silvern cups which in an instant turn black when any poisoned drink is poured into them… or for waxing the ends of threads (the better to pass them through a needle’s eye without fraying) used to sew cerements intended to preserve bodies from corruption… and sundry, and costly other uses.

There was, accordingly, a certain trade in it, and this trade in Naples was in the hands of one Onofrio, an apothecary, whose combination ware- and counting-house seemed more like some strange and odorous cave than any place of business. “We have it,” he told Vergil, winking and nodding. “We haven’t much of it, of course. Our wife was saying to us not a week ago, ‘Onofrio, put Caucasus on the list, it’s running low.’ So we did, we’re sending out work, there’ll be a bit more by and by. A year. Or two. Or three. Eh?” another wink. And, “How much? Hmm. Mmm. A lump the size of a man’s head. Don’t know its present weight, been scraping at it here and there and now and then as the need arises. Why? How much d’ye need, Dr. Vergil? What? All of it? Impossible. Impossible. Impossible. Impossible. Can’t be entirely without, no, we can’t.”