The Unstable Support
Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712
Image Title: The Unstable Support
Scripture Reference:
- Jude (further images / scripture text)
Description: Death holding a scythe kicks the World over. As a result a human heart, a crown, a coin purse and other objects, fall to the ground from a tabouret or stool that was situated on the World; in the background, some people are trying to catch the falling objects. 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 Jude 20-21.
Poem:
He who rests on the World, leans on a revolving sphere,
A Wellbeing where Fortune never stood firmly for long.
Although it doesn’t fall as a result of storms
From the East and West, from the North and from the South,
Such as frequently occur in life,
So Death nevertheless knocks it, unexpectedly, over with his foot.
There it rolls away, that object of hoarding;
What doesn’t rest on God, decays with its pillars.
Where does the Heart then remain, which in the middle of its Treasure,
Sat raised up like a King on his throne,
Surrounded on both sides with pleasure and respectability,
(The right Nest of blind and ignorant living)
And which hasn’t cared for itself, nor arranged
For what would serve him in the other world,
But which bare and empty from comforts released,
Was expelled miserably from his possessions and dwelling?
It’s like the one who used to luxury,
And descends from his Status, into Poverty and Misery.
They experience that, who after the flesh descended into that.
But, woe! The Poverty and Misery of the Soul!
If only each one would not set his Pillars
On this world, it being, a cover of hell;
But would prepare his Abode, in tranquility and peace
On even ground, above, not below.
(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)
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