“He
that endeavors to enter into the Philosopher’s Garden without a key, is like
him who would walk without feet.”
The
above quotation and image are from a 1617 alchemical “emblem book” by Michael Maier (aka Michael Majerus) titled “Atalanta
Fugiens, The Flying Atalanta or Philosophical Emblems of the Secrets
of Nature.”
It
consists of 50 emblems (what we might call epigrams) each with an illustration
(by Matthäus Merian) along with a discussion or discourse
about the emblem, and then a related piece of music in the form of a
fugue.
Alchemy isn’t exactly an open book to me, but that emblem above
- “Emblema XXVII” - sounds fair enough. You
need a key to alchemy, you need feet for walking. However a couple of observations emerge from looking
at that image.
First, the fellow there doesn’t seem to be much hindered by the
lack of feet. He’s standing up well
enough and could presumably put one stump in front of the other. It probably wouldn’t be the easiest
locomotion, and I imagine he couldn’t get very far very fast, but since he can
stand he would, in some way or other, be able to walk.
Second, although the scale in the image seems a bit wayward,
it looks as though anybody, preferably (though not necessarily) somebody with
feet, could get over that wall without too much trouble.
Mind you, I expect most alchemists are not great climbers; or walkers.
