Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS

[RobGea]

These last few posts caught my eye, so i will cheekily add my two penn'orth.
1. Alchemical allegories and symbolism were always deliberately a bit vague / obscure / ambiguous.
2. Chemical reactions can be greatly affected by even small amount of impurities and back then i imagine having pure reagents was not so simple.

In this link the author suggests that,
 "a green dragon devouring the Sun means that the gold was dissolved in aqua regia"..."the gold probably contained copper, which turns the acid blue-green"
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In this short  video "Gold Chemistry: Gold in Aqua Regia"[ 41s ]  by "Colorful Chemistry" . YT link -> You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
the green color of the solution can be seen, and a chemical explanation is in the video description, ( copper impurites in gold foil are suggested ).

Whilst here on the alchemy website animal symbolism page ->https://alchemywebsite.com/animal.html
we are informed that  "Green Lion was usually a name for vitriol",   but also that   "The Green Lion devouring the sun ...can be thought of as aqua regia dissolving the solar gold".

There are also the 2 meanings of "green lion" that the vegetable matter alchemists use , 'plant sap' is one, 'the raw energy of nature' is the other (see alchemywebsite link).