The Ash Broom
Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712
Image Title: The Ash Broom
Scripture Reference:
- Psalms 18 (further images / scripture text)
Description: Just as a father is diligent to clean the ashes from the hearth, so people should be attentive to purity of the soul before God (Psalm 18:26). The Dutch artist and poet Jan Luiken (1649–1712), whose initials are at the lower right, was responsible 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 wrote the accompanying poem.
Motto: Likewise inside.
Poem:
When it is through scattering not respectable,
One knows how to sweep it neatly together,
So that it will be clean and spotless,
And nobody will, with his garment or feet,
Grub messily in the Ash,
Thus one avoids ugliness and nastiness.
That cleanliness and those ways
Thou sharest with many animals,
But alas! how many sit there esteemed,
In Household, disposition and affairs,
Who touch the Soul’s Eternal part,
So messily around a dirty hearth!
It falls and scatters on all sides,
One knows not of orderliness or avoiding,
The Broom is not handy.
As it lies, so it may stay,
As it wishes, so it may go.
O Man, where is your quick mind!
Or is it only sharpened,
On earthly and temporal tricks.
So that everything pertaining to the flesh,
Is orderly, and proper?
And no desire is born,
That elevates itself above Dust and Ash?
(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)
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