Hold the picture of liquid mercury, the silver metal that will not sit still. Tip a drop onto a table and it runs; try to press it down and it splits and slides away. It is bright, it is fast, and it is impossible to keep in one shape. English even gave it a second name, quicksilver, which means 'living silver'. Every use of mercurial can be held next to that drop: the chemistry one names the metal itself, and the two about people borrow the way it moves.
From the word’s history
Mercurial comes from Latin mercuriālis, 'belonging to the god Mercury'. The packet also records Mercury as the Roman god of commerce, communication, and trickery, and the same name is carried by the planet and by the metal, which is why one adjective can cover a chemical and a character.
mercurial 來自拉丁文 mercuriālis，意思是「屬於羅馬神 Mercury 的」（依 Wiktionary 詞源）。資料同時記載 Mercury 是掌管商業、溝通與機巧的神，而這個名字後來也落在行星和水銀這個金屬上。所以同一個形容詞才會既能講化學品，又能講一個人的性情。這裡談的是概念上的相通，不是主張其中一個意思在歷史上先於另一個。
Wiktionary, "mercurial"
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