ALCHEMY - MUTUS LIBER, OR SILENT BOOK - PLATE 11. To some extent, plate eleven of the Mutus recapitulates and echoes the themes in plate 8. Within the dewdrop, the image of Sun and Moon (under the feet of Hermes) seem to recapitulate the theme of the last plate. On either side, the birds seem to offer gifts to these cosmic bodies - to the left, a bird offers the sigil for Libra, and the symbol for Sulphur to the Sun. To the right, a bird offers an eight-pointed star, which (in this context) represents Salt. Mercury will harmonize the two extremes of Salt and Sulphur in the developed human being: this is the whole matter of the triadic work, involved with the three principles of Salt, Mercury and Sulphur. In the lower register the couple still pray before the transforming furnace - but now there is nothing hidden, for the drapes or curtains have disappeared. The windows have changed - there are now two oval windows, which (in terms of the symbolism of the 10, we have just discussed) suggest the cosmos, and perhaps even the idea of the eyes of the spiritual world, peering into the laboratory. This is a very different spiritual activity to that which we studied in the lower register of plate 8. The alchemical masterpiece, Mutus Liber (or Silent Book) first appeared in print during 1677 - probably brought into the light of day by the French alchemist, Jacob Saulat, as a book with 13 plates, which was later increased to one of 15 plates (as in the series available here). The book is almost without words, and such words as appear are rarely what they seem to be, and are certainly susceptible to more than one level of interpretation. The alchemical importance of the images resides in the subtle graphic symbolism. A clear exposition of this symbolism may be found in Adam McLean, A Commentary on the Mutus Liber, 1982.