I am a Dragon, poisonous, everywhere present, and to be bought for the smallest price

By Albert Pike – I am a Dragon, poisonous, everywhere present, and to be bought for the smallest price, that on which I rest and which rests above me, let him who shall rightly investigate discover in myself: My Water and Fire destroy and compound, from my body thou mayest extract the green and red lion ; although thou shalt not know me accurately thou destroyest five senses with my fire.

Premature poison issues from my nostrils, which to very many causes death. Therefore, separate artificially the Dense from the Subtile, unless thou art delighted with extreme poverty.

The Forces of Males, as well as of Females, and verily those of the Heavens and the Earth, do I bestow upon thee .

Undauntedly and with a lofty spirit my mysteries are to be managed, provided that thou desirest I should vanquish the Force of Fire, in which affair very many have squandered their estate and labor.

I am the Egg of ‘Nature, known to the Sages only, who, pious and modest, engender from me the Microcosm prepared verily for me by God the Best and Greatest, although to very few (though very many in vain desire it) given ; that of my Treasury they may benefit the poor, and not fasten their affections on perishable gold .

By the Philosophers I am called by the name of Mercury, my husband is the (philosophical) gold, the old Dragon everywhere on the earth present I am, Father and Mother, young and aged, most strong and feeble, death and restoration, visible and invisible, hard,soft, descending upon the Earth, and ascending to Heaven, the Highest and the Lowest, the lightest and heaviest, in me the order of nature is often inverted, in color, number, weight and measure containing the natural Light, obscure and lucid, issuing forth from Heaven and Earth, known and wholly nonexistent, all colors glow in me, and all metals through the rays of the Sun. The Solar Carbuncle, the most Noble Purified Earth, by which thou shalt be able to transmute copper, iron, alloy of silver and lead, or lead, into gold .