JF Ptak Science Books Post 2413
The poem asks some good and thoughtful questions that could lead a person to re-evaluate their self-centered existence, all the while mentioning "God" and the everlasting only twice (though it does invoke the concept of "piety" up at the very beginning and again at the end), so to me this strikes me as being a half-way morality-of-consumption consideration on the one hand and a plea for repentance for "new life, with endless glorie" on the other.
This fine emblem book was found for me this morning by the wonderful Public Domain Review site. George Wither (1588-1667) published his book A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne, Quickened with Metricall Illustrations, both Morall and Divine, and Disposed into Lotteries.... in 1635 in London by Henry Taunton, and engraved by William Marshall (1617-1650). It is a lovely and surprising book, filled with sprinkled gems, not the least of which is the lottery-maker (referred to in the title), which we will come to below.
The emblems were meant to be striking metaphorical/allegorical images to spark ideas and reflection, and illustrated with a poem to make that process longer and deeper. For example, consider the aspect of the death that awaits us all and how we live our lives:
In an odd occurrence of the word "overvaluing", the writer (and skeleton) asks us right away if we are "overvaluing so thy person, or the beauty of thy brow?" and "Why dost thou live in riotous excesse?" There are a few other provocative questions from and for the future ("Why so oppresse, and o'er thy fellow-Creatures, dominere?") delivered to us from us from our "fleshless raw bone thou shalt bee"--our skeleton seeing things clearly though its "sightlesse eye holes from within". Mostly though what remains for us in the poem are admonitions/suggestions about what we might do with our time before we have none. For example, "of thy Proportion boast not and (for shame) repent thee of thy sinful vanity", and "renew thy spirit ere thy flesh decays". There's a lot going on in the 36 lines of this poem, more so than you'd expect, and it certainly gives the reader something to think about as they slink towards their own exposed anatomies.
The poem asks some good and thoughtful questions that could lead a person to re-evaluate their self-centered existence, all the while mentioning "God" and the everlasting only twice (though it does invoke the concept of "piety" up at the very beginning and again at the end), so to me this strikes me as being a half-way morality-of-consumption consideration on the one hand and a plea for repentance for "new life, with endless glorie" on the other.
Now to one aspect of the "Lotteries" referred to in the title: the book comes with its own chance-maker. That is, at the very end there are two movable-paper circular calculators (volvelles, actually), paper disks made to turn one on top of the other, that the reader would move to select an emblem to read by chance:
and he text:
The book is segmented into four parts, with each section having about 50 emblems each, so the reader would determine which book they would go to by the direction of the wind or some other whimsy, and then choose the numbered emblem by turning the pointer on the larger dial, which would send them off to the found/appropriate emblem.
Overall the book grows its own comparative form of "curious", and is an enjoyable read, and an uncommon one. As the Public Domain Review points out, "Of Wither’s mostly forgotten literary talents the Scottish author and poet George Gilfillan wrote that “Wither was a man of real genius, but seems to have been partially insane”. It happens.
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