Ovid, Metamorphoses X.560-704 CLASSICAL
cited in 13 emblems
Ovid's Metamorphoses, composed in the first century CE, provides the mythological narrative of Atalanta and Hippomenes that Maier adopts as the overarching frame story for his entire emblem book. De Jong (1969) demonstrates that Maier reads the footrace allegorically: Hippomenes represents the fixed Sulphur pursuing the volatile Mercury (Atalanta), while Venus's golden apples serve as the catalytic agent enabling their union. The frontispiece engraving by Merian depicts this race alongside the couple's transformation into lions by Cybele, signaling that the mythological narrative encodes the complete alchemical process from pursuit to transmutation.
Cited in
Emblem V NIGREDO
Woman suckling the toad
Put a toad to the breasts of a woman, that she may suckle it, and the woman may die and the toad grow big from the milk.
Emblem VII CITRINITAS
Young bird flying from nest and falling back
A young bird flies up from the nest and falls back into the nest again.
Emblem VIII NIGREDO
Emblem VIII
Take the egg and pierce it with a fiery sword.
Emblem XII ALBEDO
Emblem XII
Make Latona white and tear up the books.
Emblem XXIII CITRINITAS
Emblem XXIII
It rains gold when Pallas is born at Rhodes.
Emblem XXIV NIGREDO
Alchemical King (garbed)
The wolf devoured the king, and after the wolf had been burnt, it returned the king to life.
Emblem XXVI RUBEDO
Lady Sapientia / Tree of Life
The fruit of human wisdom is the Tree of Life.
Emblem XXXI RUBEDO
King transformation continued
The king, swimming in the sea, calling in a loud voice: He who saves me will receive a great reward.
Emblem XLI NIGREDO
Emblem XLI
Adonis is killed by a boar, and Venus, rushing up to him, painted the roses red with her blood.
Emblem XLII RUBEDO
Emblem XLII
What Nature, Reason, Experience and Reading teach you, let that be the fire, the vessel, the water and the earth.
Emblem XLIV NIGREDO
Osiris killed and resurrected
Typhon kills Osiris by a ruse, and after that he scatters his limbs far and wide, but Is is gathers them together again.
Emblem XLIX CITRINITAS
Emblem XLIX
The Philosophical Child acknowledges three fathers, just as Orion.
Emblem L NIGREDO
The Dragon kills the woman
The Dragon kills the woman, and she kills it, and together they bathe in blood.