Emerald Tablet — Tabula Smaragdina
Arabic version c. 6th–8th century CE; Latin versions from 12th century CE · Medieval transmission (c. 6th–8th century CE); claimed antiquity · Unknown; transmitted through Arabic alchemical tradition
Tis true without lying, certain and most true. That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracle of one only thing. And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the earth to the heaven and again it descends to the earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. So was the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations where of the means is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended.
notes
The Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina) is one of the most influential texts in the Western alchemical and Hermetic tradition. Its compact verses — particularly the axiom "that which is below is like that which is above" — became the foundational principle of Hermetic philosophy and the doctrine of correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm. The earliest known Arabic version appears in the Kitab Sirr al-Khaliqa (Book of the Secret of Creation), attributed to Pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana (Balinus), compiled around the 6th–8th century CE. The text entered Latin Europe through 12th-century translations made in Toledo and Sicily. The most widely transmitted Latin version, the so-called vulgate, circulated in numerous alchemical compendia from the 13th century onward. Isaac Newton (1642–1727) translated the Emerald Tablet from the Latin into English around 1680, as part of his extensive private alchemical studies. Newton's annotated copy of this translation survives in the Keynes MS 28 at King's College Library, Cambridge (acquired at the 1936 Sotheby's sale of Newton's papers by John Maynard Keynes). Newton's alchemical work remained unpublished in his lifetime and was largely unknown until the 20th century. The translation given here is Newton's, as preserved in the Keynes MS 28 and cited by Lawrence Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy (2013), p. 31; Shane Linden, ed., The Alchemy Reader (2003), p. 27. Translated by Isaac Newton (c. 1680). Source: Keynes MS 28, King's College Library, Cambridge. Public domain.
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