Brewer's: Hermes

(2 syl.). The Greek Mercury; either the god or the metal.

So when we see the liquid metal fall Which chemists by the name of Hermes call.

Hoole: Ariosto, book viii.

Milton (Paradise Lost, iii. 603) calls quicksilver “Volatil Hermes.”

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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