The Important Distinction
Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712
Image Title: The Important Distinction
Scripture Reference:
- Proverbs 10 (further images / scripture text)
Description: The pious Spirit, with his feet still on the World, stretches his wings out in order to ascend as soon as Death, knelt next to him and following the direction of Time, has cut the last remaining tie. A man sinks in a pool at the right side, although he keeps clutching the World, and thereby catches the few drops of a liquid given to him by Vanity. The Dutch artist and poet Jan Luiken (1649-1712), whose initials are at the lower right, was responsible for drawing and etching this emblem and for the poem that accompanies it (below). The attendant scripture texts are Proverbs 10:28 and Luke 21:28.
Poem:
The pious Spirit, elevated to his God,
Has longingly spread his wings;
To glide free and liberated, in the open sky,
When Death cuts the tie of the earth.
Through one act, by one single cut,
A substance of twofold nature is separated;
The one rises, and the other sinks down,
Like joy and suffering, born through one passage.
The earthly being, imprisoned on the same chunk,
Is constantly threatened with his downfall,
And with passion continues to hang onto his prison,
Through false hope; anxious and scared of separation.
Still vanity, called pleasure and joy,
Stops with some sweets, the gaping of his mouth,
And makes him only forget the great danger,
Until he begins to sink to the ground.
Oh Difference! how large you are experienced!
As the one hopes, and the other anxiously fears,
To be cut loose from the ties of the earth
This is the fruit of the seed, in flesh or spirit.
Virtue’s Child is steady, on his feet;
But the earthly child is steady in his desires:
Examine these, when they must separate,
By one path welcomed, and surprised.
(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)
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