Book Title: Des menschen begin, midden en einde : vertoonende het kinderlyk bedryf en aanwasch in eenenvyftig konstige figuuren, met goddelyke spreuken en stichtelyke verzen / door Joannes Luiken ; met het leven van den autheur

Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712

Image Title: The Balloon

Scripture Reference:

• Isaiah 39 (further images / scripture text)

Description: As one child blows up a pig’s bladder, a second child is already playing with a blown-up bladder. Two men comment on this scene. The Dutch artist and poet Jan Luiken (1649-1712) was responsible for drawing and etching this emblem and for the brief poem that accompanies it (below). The attendant Scripture texts are Isaiah 39:6-8; Hosea 8:7; 12:1; and James 1:8-11.

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Motto:
How strongly thou dost blow, O world’s child!
Yet thou dost catch nothing but wind.

Poem:
What is the World, to him who sees it?
Nothing but a Bladder full of wind:
Let the ignorant Child play with it:
But the wise and adult mind
Should not hold on to trash,
To share in child’s play.

(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)

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