Emblems Divine and Moral (page 2/2)

Title Page Detail: Francis Quarles

A supposed portrait of the author, Francis Quarles, taken from the title page. He is shown with a goatee beard in appropriate seventeenth-century style, and holding a book. [more...]

The Invocation.

The illustration for “The Invocation” at the start of the first book shows a person lying on the ground resting against a tree, barefoot, with a lute on the ground nearby, and an heraldic shield hung over another tree, together with a laurel wreath. The sun’s rays shine down. [...]Majora Canamus, which is, Let us sing of great things. On the right are the Latin words Vix ea nostra, an allusion to Ovid’s Metamorphoses: [more...]

Emblem 1. Serpent. Eve.

This woodcut shows a naked woman (the Biblical Eve) near an apple tree; a snake or serpent coils round the trunk of the tree. In the background ar a palm tree, a camel, and, in the far distance, a man whom we make [...]
Totus mundus in maligno (maliligno) positus est.
Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed—James i. 14. [more...]

Emblem 2. Sin brings forth death.

In the background, a face of a storm-god blows a wind and makes a sailing ship race atop a giant wave; lightning and rain are in the background, and a building burns. In the foreground stands a naked man with a conveniently placed and eminently suitable cock’s head obscuring part of his anatomy. He holds an apple: he is Adam. In front of him a giant [...]
Si malum cecuit unicium in omne malum
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death., James i. 15. [more...]