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 Knucklebone

Scripture Reference:

• Isaiah 31 (further images / scripture text)

Description: Three girls play knucklebones on the stoop, while two women watch. In the background three youths throw bones on the ground. 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 Isa 31:6-7; Ezek 7:17-19; and Rom 12:1-2.

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Motto:
Be wiser than the ignorant Child,
Who finds Play in dead bones.

Poem:
The Knuckle from the Sheep’s bone,
Is merely thrown away by the big one:
But it has value for the little one:
Thus the little Child’s mind gathers
The things discarded by a wiser hand,
The baser Things of the earth.

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

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