Atalanta Fleeing

...was judged to be amorous original: "amatorius" (just as the Phrygian mode is regarded today), from which we infer that their musical modes have been exchanged for one another. They say that Timotheus of Miletus A famous Greek musician known for his innovations used the Phrygian mode to make Alexander the Great more eager and spirited in matters of war; Cicero mentions this in the second book of On the Laws. Terpander of Lesbos, on the other hand, used the Ionian mode; having been summoned by the Spartans while they were embroiled in civil unrest, he so soothed their spirits with the sweetness of his song that they returned to friendship and ceased their rebellion. Hence, in the judgment of the Spartans, Lesbian singers always earned the first prize. Regarding Music, Fabius The Roman rhetorician Quintilian says thus: "Music," he says, "is an honorable and pleasant pastime, most worthy of free-born minds."

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Therefore, so that we might have these three objects of the more spiritual senses—namely of sight and hearing, and even of the intellect itself—as if in a single view and embrace, and so that we might instill them into our minds for better understanding all at once, behold! We have joined Optics The visual art of the emblems with Music, and sense with intellect. That is to say: things rare to see and hear joined with chemical emblems, which are proper to this science. For while other arts might publish emblems concerning morals or other matters rather than the secrets of nature, this seems foreign to their goal and purpose, since they wish to and should be understood by everyone. Not so with Chemistry Alchemical science, which, like a chaste virgin behind a lattice, or like Diana The goddess of the hunt and the moon, often representing the pure but hidden matter of the Alchemical Work, is not to be seen without a robe of many colors, for reasons expressed elsewhere.

Receive, I say, all four of these at once in this single book and apply them to your use: those things composed, poetic and allegorical; those painted and emblematic, engraved on Venus (that is, on copper) original: "Veneri sive cupro." In alchemy, the planet Venus represents the metal copper, and not without "Venus" (that is, grace); those most secret chemical matters to be investigated by the intellect; and finally, the rarer musical compositions. If your use of them be intellectual rather than merely sensual, it will be all the more [useful]...