Ceres Triptolemum, Thetis Achillem, ut sub igne morari assuefecit, sic artifex lapidem
Fire as the central motif, with the King and the Queen in a secondary part. From Atalanta Fugiens.
What is happening
Michael Maier, 1618 “Ceres Triptolemum, Thetis Achillem, ut sub igne morari assuefecit, sic artifex lapidem.”
Symbolica, 2026 Maier’s Latin, put into English here: As Ceres did Triptolemus and Thetis Achilles, so the artist accustoms the stone to the fire.
Michael Maier, 1618 “Respice Triptolemum, durumque in praelio Achillem,
Matre docente, aestus ut didicere graves.
Illum Diva Ceres, Thetis hunc durabat in igne
Noctu, lacte ferens ubera plena die:
Haud secus assuescat medicina beata Sophorum,
Quam puer ad mammas, ut queat igne frui.”
Symbolica, 2026 Maier’s epigram, put into English here: Look at Triptolemus, and at Achilles hard in battle, and how, with a mother teaching them, they learned to bear heavy heat. Divine Ceres hardened the one in fire by night, Thetis the other, and by day carried breasts full of milk. In just this way let the blessed medicine of the Sages be accustomed, as a child is to the breast, so that it can enjoy the fire.
Key · 2 motifs
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- Primary motif
- Secondary motifs · 1
The picture
The nurse with the child at her breast and, at the right, the child held over the flames. By eye
The reading
The picture read whole, in the archive's words, from the sources quoted on the marks. Read on, and the picture follows: the motif under discussion keeps its colour.
‘Ceres Triptolemum, Thetis Achillem, ut sub igne morari assuefecit, sic artifex lapidem’: as Ceres accustomed Triptolemus and Thetis Achilles to stay under the fire, so does the artist his stone. A nurse with a child at the breast sits at the left; at the right another woman holds a child over the flames.
‘Respice Triptolemum, durumque in praelio Achillem’, look at Triptolemus, and at Achilles hard in battle, and how, with a mother teaching them, they learned to bear heavy heat. ‘Illum Diva Ceres, Thetis hunc durabat in igne / Noctu’, divine Ceres hardened the one in fire by night, Thetis the other. The fire on the mountain is that hardening, and the child is held into it on purpose.
By day the same child is fed: ‘lacte ferens ubera plena die’, carrying breasts full of milk by day. ‘Haud secus assuescat medicina beata Sophorum’, in just this way let the blessed medicine of the sages be accustomed, ‘Quam puer ad mammas, ut queat igne frui’, as a child is to the breast, so that it can enjoy the fire. Milk by day, fire by night, until the fire is something the child enjoys: the stone is raised, not made.
Decoded: every motif is marked, and each mark carries the reading its author gave it, quoted from the text, or says that it is observed on the picture and not read. The reading above is the archive's own, made from those sources and no others.
A count, a catastrophe, or the visible part of something that has no body. Note whether the flames are arranged in a number, breaking something, or standing where a figure would be.
In plain words At the right a woman holds a child out over a fire on the mountainside. She is Thetis, or Ceres, hardening her nursling in the flames by night, as the old stories say they did with Achilles and Triptolemus. The fire is a hardening, not a burning, and the child is being taught to bear it.
Michael Maier, 1618 “Illum Diva Ceres, Thetis hunc durabat in igne / Noctu, lacte ferens ubera plena die:”
Symbolica Maier's Latin, put into English here: Divine Ceres hardened the one in fire by night, Thetis the other, and by day carried breasts full of milk.
In the alchemical pictures a child is the thing being made. In the Apocalypse it is the thing under attack.
In plain words At the left a nurse sits with a child at her breast. It is the same child as the one over the fire, fed by day and hardened by night, and Maier says the medicine of the sages is brought up the same way: accustomed to the fire as a child is to the breast.
Michael Maier, 1618 “Haud secus assuescat medicina beata Sophorum, / Quam puer ad mammas, ut queat igne frui.”
Symbolica Maier's Latin, put into English here: In just this way let the blessed medicine of the Sages be accustomed, as a child is to the breast, so that it can enjoy the fire.
Also carrying Fire
44 works carry it. The 6 where it is the central motif are here. The symbol.
Where the detail is the subject
This is in the picture without being what it is about. Below, one work that is about it.
In the same series
Portavit eum ventus in ventre suo
Nutrix ejus terra est
Vade ad mulierem lavantem pannos, tu fac similiter
Conjunge fratrem cum sorore & propina illis poculum amoris
Appone mulieri super mammas bufonem, ut ablactet eum, & moriatur mulier, sitque bufo grossus de lacte
Seminate aurum vestrum in terram albam foliatam
Record
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