TO THE HONOR, PIETY, AND MEMORY

OF THE BEST AND MOST UPRIGHT MAN, WHO DESERVED SO WELL

OF THE PUBLIC LITERARY GOOD, AND THE GREATEST

artist of our times, JOHANN THEODOR de Bry, citizen

of Frankfurt, who on the 8th day of the month of August, in the year

1623, was translated to the dwellings of the blessed. original: "ad beatorum sedes translatus est"; a common 17th-century euphemism for passing away into heaven.

An engraved portrait of Johann Theodor de Bry at age 62. He is depicted with a beard and mustache, wearing a formal ruff and a patterned doublet. He is seated at a table, holding an engraved plate that depicts a skull and a child with the motto "QVIS EVADET" Latin: "Who escapes?"—a "memento mori" motif reminding the viewer of the inevitability of death.. On the table are several large volumes, two of which are titled "INDIA ORIENTALIS" and "INDIA OCCIDENT" These refer to De Bry’s most famous publications, the "Great Voyages" and "Small Voyages" series documenting the East and West Indies.. An inscription on the table contains a short Latin text. To the right of his head, the engraving notes "ÆTATIS SVÆ LXII" "At age 62" and "A° CHRI. 1623" "Year of Christ, 1623.". Below his arm is his motto "NVL SANS SOVCY DE BRY" French: "None without care" or "No De Bry without care," a play on words regarding his meticulous work..

Many sculptors are often skilled enough at fashioning the likeness of the body; but they cannot depict the soul. | Yet this little tablet, Johann Theodor, reflects yours through your own art: the likeness of both body and soul.

Let others accuse the cruel fates in verse—
Fates that know not how to spare illustrious men—
And let them draw out a mournful song through light Elegies,
While so many monuments groan, orphaned of their father.
Others will mourn the loss and the public damage;
They will weep for the talent and the artist’s hand.
Oh, my longed-for father-in-law original: "Socer"; De Bry was the father-in-law of the poem's author., Theodor de Bry,
Whom a sad disease and a black day have snatched away.
A closer cause squeezes wet tears from me,
And weighs down my breast with a mass of sadness;
For your piety, love, indulgence, and virtue
Desert me, and press upon me with a more intimate grief.

Alas, uprightness! Alas, ancient faith! Alas, the pure
Fiber of the mind lies here, to be lamented on no day enough.
Scarcely had I, Holy Old Man, been chosen for you by a favorable divinity
As a son-in-law, and your daughter had not yet been made a parent; The author, Johannes Ammonius, notes that he had only recently married into the family and they had not yet had children before De Bry's death.
You fall, and break the fellowship of the pleasant table,
Oh Father-in-law, and father to be revered by me more than any other!
Thus sometimes hostile Death snatches away boys
Who have scarcely attained the light of the Sun at the beginning of life.
Therefore, take these tears, and these little verses
As witnesses of a bitter fate, mottos placed with a trembling hand:
And farewell; and may Christ (nor will the delay be long)
Place you, snatched from the tomb, in the citadel of the ethereal Heaven.