27 Aug /15

Elixir

Elixir – Word of the day - EVS Translations
Elixir – Word of the day – EVS Translations

Elixir is definitely not a word which we use on a daily-basis. But every time when we come across it, the associations are as fancy as can be. A regular liquid can be named an elixir only by creative marketers, but for those of us not working in marketing departments, the word brings images of small bottles in fancy shapes containing liquids in bright colours with some magical abilities. (Just think of all the Drink me portions in Alice in Wonderland.)

The history of the word elixir will not disappoint our expectations, as, indeed, is related to magic.

The word is believed to originate from the late Greek xerion, literally translating as “powder for drying wounds” and obviously used as a medical remedy to help heal opened wounds.

Elixir, as a word, was firstly used around 7th century A.D. in Mediaeval Latin as a direct derivative from the Arabic word for a substance with miracle abilities, named “al iksir”.

The first usages were related to biblical texts and referred to the Water or Fountain of Life.

Who wants to live forever? Raise your hands. The elixir of the eternal life to serve as a panacea for all illnesses, and even able to create life or revive youth was sought to be discovered since the human kind existed and was always covered in mystic – all myths named a fancy combination of factors to be fulfilled, e.g. drinking it from a certain vessel, at a certain time and under certain conditions – maybe a once in 1000 years opportunity.

Most of the actual attempts, in different cultures, led to non-magical collateral damages, for example numerous Chinese emperors are known to had died as a result of mercury-enhanced elixir poisoning.

But what would be an eternal life worth if spent in poverty? And here we come to the search of the Philosopher’s stone – alchemists trying to ensure the eternal life would also be a wealthy one. The legendary alchemical substance, among from ensuring immortality, had to also turn the owner into a fortunate King Midas. The Magnum Opus (the Great Work) was the alchemical term for the process of creating the philosopher’s stone and was indeed a great and lengthy work, with the first written references to attempts dating to 300 AD.

A 13th-century, the scientist and philosopher Albertus Magnus, in his writings recorded that had witnessed the creation of gold, but it is only a legend that he had actually discovered the substance able to convert base metals into gold.

Elixir – legend

The first written reference to the word elixir, into the English language is of course related to the search of the Philosopher’s stone and the contradiction to the religious dogma and comes from 1386, from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman Tale.

We will end the gold fever with a 1676 lines of wisdom, Matthew Hale Contemplations moral and divine: “A Good Man is like the Elixir, it turns Iron into Gold. “

In the last 5 centuries, the term elixir came to name a medical tincture with more than one base (Joseph Du Chesne , The practise of chymicall, and hermeticall physicke , 1605 “[Mercury, sulphur, and salt]..brought into one body (which the Arabians call elixir)..will be..a medicine, etc. “) or the quintessence, the main principle of a person or thing (1638, William Chillingworth The religion of protestants a safe way to salvation “The Spirit and Elixir of all that can be said in defence of your Church and Doctrine “)

In the last half of a century, the cosmetic industry gave us all the fancy elixirs promising eternal youth and shine; while the entertainment one kept drinking from the successful elixir of love plot.