Revivification

Fir-cones and snakes from their very forms were emblems of male fertility; snakes, too, from their habit of gliding out of their own skins with renewed brightness and color were suggestive of resurrection and re-vivification; pigs and sows by their exceeding fruitfulness would in their hour of sacrifice remind old mother Earth of what was expected from her!

I have often beheld as a miracle, that artificiall resurrection and revivification of Mercury, how being mortified into a thousand shapes, it assumes again its owne, and returns to its numericall selfe.