LIBER LV                                                                                                                     

                          The Chymical Jousting of               

                              BROTHER PERARDUA
           
                           With the Seven Lances
                               That He Brake

                       (A.A. publication in class C)


He slayeth Sir Argon le Paresseux

Now Brother Perardua, though he was but a Zelator of our ancient Order, had 
determined in himself to perform the Magnum Opus, and to procure for himself 
one Tincture of Double Efficacy. Not fully did he yet comprehend the Mysterium 
of our Art, therefore imposed he upon himself the painful sevenfold regimen.
For without the Bell of Electrum Magicum of Paracelsus how should, the adept 
even give warning to the Powers of the Work of his entry thereunto.

Yet our brother, being of stout heart- for he had been a soldier in many 
distant lands- began right cheerfully. His head that was hoary with eld he 
crowned with five petals of white lotus, as if to signify the purity of his 
body, and went forth into that place where is no field, nor any furrow 
therein; and there he sowed a scroll that had two and twenty seeds diverse.


                       He slayeth Sir Abjad the Saracen

Nor for all his care and labour could he gather therefrom more than seven 
planets, that shone in the blackness; and each plant beareth a single blossom 
that hath seven petalsİ one would have thought them stars; for though they 
were not of a verity in themselves brilliant and flashing, yet so black was 
that wherein they grew that they seemed brighter than suns. And these were
placed one above the other in a single line and straight, even according unto 
seven centers of his intention that he bare about him in the hollow tube that 
hath thirty and two joints.


                       He slayeth Sir Amorex le Desirous

These plants did our brother Perardua pluck, as the mystic rites ordain; and 
these did he heat furiously in his alembic, yet with vegetable heat alone, 
while he kept them ever moist, dropping upon them of his lunar water, whereof 
he had three and seventy minims left of the eight and seventy that his Father 
had given him; and these he had borne upon a camel through the desert unto 
this place where he now was, which is called the Oasis of the Lion, even as 
the whole Regimen that in the end he accomplished is in the form of a Lion.

This then his Lion waxed exceeding thirsty, and licked up all the dew. But the 
fire being equal thereunto, he was not discomforted.