Alchemy: Negative Transformation--the Nihilixir
I finally found the John Donne poem that describes his despair and descent to nothingness when his love dies. Here’s the great Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day.
Love’s alchemy had once transformed him to “Sun”--to ”a quintessence even from nothingness.” A normal, positive transformation.
But now he has been transformed in reverse. a negative transformation.
For I am every dead thing...
He ruined me, and I am rebegot
Of absence, darkness, death, things which are not....
I, by love’s limbecke, am the grave
Of all, that’s nothing.
(”Limbecke” is another word for the alchemical vessel, the alembic.)
The reverse of the Philosopher’s Stone, the Elixir, is the Nihilixir. I just learned this word today; its source is Johann Ambrosius Siebmacher, The Sophic Hydrolith (1619). Cited in Charles Nicholl, The Chemical Theatre (1980).
Probably the best known negative transformation in fantasy literature is Frankenstein’s Monster. Ser Gregor Clegane is clearly in that tradition as well. Cersei Lannister in the books fits too.
