Paracelsus was the last natural healer, revered and loved by the common folk of many places in the late Middle Ages. Outcast and demonized because he did not undergo a traditional academic medical education, instead he wandered about from a young age observing the capacities of wild plants and earth substances via direct spiritual perception. He knew that poison and remedy were the same substance, differentiated only by a matter of dosage, and discerned the correct dose and preparations as if ‘demonically’.

the poison is but the love potion
oh cannot your soul this design see
for if your tincture carries contagion
the wounding will never kill me

what I take is only gotten by giving
and this giving I give you for free
such loving’s immune to obsession
for I’ll never dislike what you’ll be

I can wait the next ship for your ocean
Time’s stream one day sure binds us close
my kiss though illicit outlives lifetimes
for it harbors sin’s remedy’s truest dose

_______RS

[ Image 1: Scene from a 2005 film treatment of Tristan and Isolde. ] (link)
[ Image 2: Detail from 1910 painting by Spaniard Rogelio de Egusquiza titled Tristan and Isolde. ]

Notes: Tristan und Iseult is a medieval legend with origins lost in Celtic myth. The story appears in many incarnations of European arts and drama, including a Shakespeare play and countless paintings. One theme is Tristan’s survival of being poisoned due only to the sheer innocence of his forbidden love for the Irish princess Isolde. A very illuminating short talk by the late comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell sheds intriguing light upon the moral thrust of the work.

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