I am sending you two emblems or engravings, number 9 and number 59, both from the book Selectorum emblematum – ‘Selected Emblems’ – written by the German poet Gabriel Rollenhagen.
“Nil sit in ore, qvod non prius in sensu” (There is nothing in the mouth that has not been in the sense before)
I send you this forty-fifth emblem from Daniel Cramer’s book of emblems entitled: “Nil sit in ore, qvod non prius in sensu” (There is nothing in the mouth that has not been in the sense before)
“Pavpertate premor subleuor ingenio” (I am brought down by poverty, and lifted up by natural inclination)
On this occasion, I am sending you a drawing that appears in another book of emblems entitled Selectorum emblematum ─’Selected emblems’─. The texts belong to the German poet Gabrielis Rollenhagi (1583-1619), and the engravings to Crispijn van de Passe and Jan Jansson (1588-1664).
“Spes et patientia vincit” (Hope and patience win)
In 1630 a book of emblems by Daniel Cramer was published called OCTOGINTA EMBLEMATA MORALIA NOVA ─’eighty new moral emblems’─.
This is the emblem number 31.
“Reciproca sponsae sponsiqve ad hortum suum invitatio” (A mutual invitation from the bride and groom to their garden)
To experience the CHRISTIC LOVE we will need to be betrayed ─hence the bag of coins that appears in the Christic garden─, we will need to experience the three nails of the Redeemer’s cross, we will suffer the crown of thorns ─internally speaking─, we will be victims of the insolence of the Ego ─see the whip─, we will have to acquire the Christic will ─marked by the hammer─, etc., etc., etc.
We see in the center of it a winged female figure on an anchor, with a laurel wreath on her head, sowing wheat and pointing to the sky. She is the VIRGIN MOTHER NATURE ─that is why she wears laurels on her head─ and at her feet the ANCHOR that, in addition to allegorizing the three primary forces, represents in Masonry the end of the hermetic work.
“Speculum sophicum rhodostauroticum” (Mirror of Rosicrucian wisdom)
I am pleased to send you this engraving entitled: “Speculum sophicum rhodostauroticum” (Mirror of Rosicrucian wisdom). The book was signed with the name Theophilus Schweighardt Constanties.
I am sending you this image of the God Mercury, bas-relief in the Chapel of the Zodiac of the Malatestian Temple in Rimini, Italy. The author is the Italian sculptor Agostino di Duccio (1418-1481).
“Nicomaxia vitae” (The victorious battle of life)
The title of our engraving invites us to fight for our lives, to fight for our Christ, and the Latin words, translated, tell us that everything is, in truth, an absolute vanity…
The foolish world prefers the temporary good
The character who gives his heart is the so-called foolish world ─humanity in general─, who, in addition to having his psyche always bottled up in various stupidities that the Mayavic illusion provides him, wears glasses trying to correct his myopia, but they are of no use to him.