The Willful Poverty
Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712
Image Title: The Willful Poverty
Scripture Reference:
- Luke 15 (further images / scripture text)
Description: Willful Poverty man poor pigs vat food World globe house country chickens Jan Luiken Josephine V. Brown William G. Stryker Josephine Brown William Stryker Jan Luyken Joannes Luiken Joannes Luyken emblem emblem-book A man kneels in the middle of pigs and obtains his food from an open vat in the form of the World; in the background a woman feeds chickens in front of a large country house. 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 text is Luke 15:18-19.
Poem:
Long enough have you eaten the swill,
That is thrown in front of the Swine,
Oh Poor Soul, lost Son!
That swill of vanity and sins,
In your wrongful lust devoured,
And offered by the Devil.
That bad swill of the husks,
Of nearly rotten earthly things,
In imperfect desire and joy.
Rethink and consider it further,
Return again, to God, your worthy Father,
And eat the pure sustenance of virtue;
That pure sustenance of God’s pleasure,
So as to carry away the eternal nourishment.
Leave the abomination and the stench,
That to your strayed, miserable life
Would give no true enjoyment,
And the apparent-enjoyment doesn’t endure.
It’s all too wicked, that slovenly wandering,
To finally die from want,
Since Father’s house overflows so,
With riches and full blessing,
Even doubly stacked,
Where wealth and joy grow and bloom.
(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)
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