Emblem of the Day
One engraving a day from Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618), an alchemical emblem book in which every plate comes with a Latin motto, a poem and a discourse.
Today · Emblem XXI
About the Book
Atalanta Fugiens, “Atalanta fleeing,” was published in Oppenheim in 1618 by Michael Maier, physician to the Emperor Rudolf II. Each of its fifty emblems pairs an engraving, generally attributed to the workshop of Matthäus Merian, with a Latin motto, an epigram, a prose discourse and a three-voice musical fugue. It is one of the most elaborate books the alchemical tradition produced, and one Jung returned to often.
The mottos here are transcribed from a scan of the 1618 edition, with the long “ſ” written as “s.” The translations and readings are ours. The readings stay close to what the motto says; they are a way into the image, not a claim about what Maier meant in every case. Emblems XII and XXV are not shown because we could not source a public-domain scan of the same edition.
All the Emblems
Vade ad mulierem lavantem pannos, tu fac similiter.
Go to the woman washing clothes; do the same.
Conjunge fratrem cum sorore, et propina illis poculum amoris.
Join the brother with the sister, and give them the cup of love.
Appone mulieri super mammas bufonem, ut ablactet eum, et moriatur mulier, sitque bufo grossus de lacte.
Put a toad to the woman’s breast, so that she nurses it until she dies, and the toad grows fat on the milk.
Seminate aurum vestrum in terram albam foliatam.
Sow your gold in the white, leafy earth.
Fit pullus a nido volans, qui iterum cadit in nidum.
A fledgling flies from the nest and falls back into it.
Arborem cum sene conclude in rorida domo, et comedens de fructu ejus fiet juvenis.
Shut the old man with the tree in a dewy house, and eating of its fruit he will become young.
Da ignem igni, Mercurium Mercurio, et sufficit tibi.
Give fire to fire, Mercury to Mercury, and it is enough for you.
Aes Philosophorum hydropicum est, et vult lavari septies in fluvio, ut Naaman leprosus in Jordane.
The bronze of the Philosophers is dropsical, and wants to be washed seven times in the river, like Naaman the leper in the Jordan.
Opus figuli, consistens in sicco et humido, te doceat.
Let the potter’s work, which consists of the dry and the wet, teach you.
Ignire ignis amat, non aurificare, sed aurum.
Fire loves to make things fiery, not golden; gold does that.
Si de quatuor unum occidas, subito mortuus omnis erit.
If you kill one of the four, all will at once be dead.
Fac ex mare et foemina circulum, inde quadrangulum, hinc triangulum, fac circulum et habebis lapidem Philosophorum.
Make a circle out of a man and a woman, from it a square, from this a triangle; make a circle, and you will have the Philosophers’ Stone.
Plumbo habito candido fac opus mulierum, hoc est, coque.
Once you have white lead, do women’s work, that is: cook.
Aurum pluit, dum nascitur Pallas Rhodi, et Sol concumbit Veneri.
Gold rains while Pallas is born at Rhodes, and the Sun lies with Venus.
Regem lupus voravit, et vitae crematus reddidit.
The wolf devoured the king and, burned, gave him back to life.
Sapientiae humanae fructus Lignum vitae est.
The fruit of human wisdom is the tree of life.
Qui Rosarium intrare conatur Philosophicum absque clave, assimilatur homini ambulare volenti absque pedibus.
Whoever tries to enter the Philosophers’ rose garden without a key is like a man who wants to walk without feet.
Rex balneatur in Laconico sedens, atraque bile liberatur a Pharut.
The king bathes, seated in the sweat-bath, and is freed from black bile by Pharut.
Ut Salamandra vivit igne, sic lapis.
As the salamander lives in fire, so does the stone.
Sol indiget luna, ut gallus gallina.
The sun needs the moon, as the cock needs the hen.
Rex natans in mari, clamans alta voce: Qui me eripiet, ingens praemium habebit.
The king, swimming in the sea, cries out loudly: Whoever rescues me will have a great reward.
Corallus sub aquis ut crescit et aere induratur, sic lapis.
As coral grows under water and hardens in the air, so the stone.
Hermaphroditus mortuo similis, in tenebris jacens, igne indiget.
The Hermaphrodite, lying in darkness like one dead, needs fire.
In balneis concipitur, et in aere nascitur, rubeus vero factus graditur super aquas.
He is conceived in the baths and born in the air; made red, he walks upon the waters.
Ut Ceres Triptolemum, Thetis Achillem, sub igne morari assuefecit, sic artifex lapidem.
As Ceres accustomed Triptolemus, and Thetis Achilles, to stay in the fire, so the artist [accustoms] the stone.
Lapis projectus est in terras, et in montibus exaltatus, et in aere habitat, et in flumine pascitur, id est, Mercurius.
The stone has been cast onto the earth, raised on the mountains, dwells in the air and is fed in the river: that is, Mercury.
Tria sufficiunt ad magisterium, fumus albus, hoc est, aqua, leo viridis, id est, aes Hermetis, et aqua foetida.
Three things are enough for the mastery: white smoke, that is, water; the green lion, that is, the bronze of Hermes; and the stinking water.
Rebis, ut Hermaphroditus, nascitur ex duobus montibus, Mercurii et Veneris.
The Rebis, like Hermaphroditus, is born of two mountains, of Mercury and of Venus.
Oedypus Sphynge superata et trucidato Lajo patre matrem ducit in uxorem.
Oedipus, having overcome the Sphinx and killed his father Laius, takes his mother as his wife.
Ex duabus aquis, fac unam, et erit aqua sanctitatis.
From two waters make one, and it will be the water of holiness.
Adonis ab apro occiditur, cui Venus accurrens tinxit rosas sanguine.
Adonis is killed by a boar; Venus, running to him, dyed the roses with his blood.
In Chymicis versanti Natura, Ratio, Experientia et lectio, sint Dux, scipio, perspicilia et lampas.
For one who works in chemistry, let Nature, Reason, Experience and Reading be guide, staff, spectacles and lamp.
Audi loquacem vulturem, qui neutiquam te decipit.
Listen to the talkative vulture, which does not deceive you at all.
Dolo Typhon Osyridem trucidat, artusque illius hinc inde dissipat, sed hos collegit Isis inclyta.
By guile Typhon kills Osiris and scatters his limbs here and there; but glorious Isis gathers them.
Aquilae duae, una ab ortu, altera ab occasu, conveniunt.
Two eagles, one from the east and the other from the west, come together.
Lupus ab Oriente et Canis ab Occidente venientes se invicem momorderunt.
A wolf from the east and a dog from the west have bitten each other.
Rex ab aquis potatis morbum, a medicis curatus sanitatem obtinet.
The king, made ill by the waters he drank, is cured by the physicians and regains his health.
Infans Philosophicus tres agnoscit patres, ut Orion.
The Philosophers’ child acknowledges three fathers, as Orion does.
Draco mulierem, et haec illum interimit, simulque sanguine perfunduntur.
The dragon kills the woman and she kills him, and together they are bathed in blood.
Engravings: Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (Oppenheim: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1618). Public domain. Scans via the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons.