Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Wolf and the Dog in Maier
The wolf and dog of Maier’s forty-seventh emblem grapple in an open landscape. Its motto brings them from east and west, while the epigram calls them two stones. The discourse identifies the eastern wolf with sulphur and the western dog with Mercury. Their contest changes advantage: each wounds the other, and the later explanation makes one the other’s nourishment. Maier uses animal conflict to describe related yet opposed tendencies within his philosophical subject. The image’s violence serves that particular allegory, rather than establishing a fixed meaning for every wolf or dog in alchemical art.
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In the sources
Opposite directions
DocumentedThe motto brings the wolf from the east and the dog from the west; the epigram calls them a pair of stones.
Sulphur and Mercury
DocumentedThe discourse names sulphur and Mercury and develops their conflict into a relation in which each feeds the other.
Context & interpretation
This entry follows the wolf–dog pair in Emblem XLVII. Its correspondences belong to Maier’s explanation of these two animals. The animals’ directions, rivalry and mutual nourishment define the particular relationship examined here.
Original passages
Source 1
Atalanta Fugiens
Lupus ab Oriente & Canis ab OccidenteOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Atalanta Fugiens (1618), Emblem 47, motto, engraving and epigram, printed p. 197
Original scan and printed heading inspected; short Latin quotation normalizes spacing and ligatures. Historical English text consulted in Furnace and Fugue.
- Edition
- IMJ-0287-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0287-E001-P0198
- Original scan leaf
- 205
- Recorded leaf number
- 205
- Current Reader position
- 198
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
Atalanta Fugiens
Sulphur ab Eoo, Mercurius ab Hesperio tractu venitOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Atalanta Fugiens (1618), Emblem 47, Latin discourse, printed p. 198
Original scan and printed heading inspected; short Latin quotation normalizes spacing and ligatures. Historical English text consulted in Furnace and Fugue.
- Edition
- IMJ-0287-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0287-E001-P0199
- Original scan leaf
- 206
- Recorded leaf number
- 206
- Current Reader position
- 199
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 3
Atalanta Fugiens
alter alterius alimentum fiat & cibusOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Atalanta Fugiens (1618), Emblem 47, Latin discourse, printed p. 199
Original scan and printed heading inspected; short Latin quotation normalizes spacing and ligatures. Historical English text consulted in Furnace and Fugue.
- Edition
- IMJ-0287-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0287-E001-P0200
- Original scan leaf
- 207
- Recorded leaf number
- 207
- Current Reader position
- 200
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Illustrations
Continue exploring
Ceres, Thetis and Alchemical Nurture
Maier pairs the nurture of Triptolemus and Achilles with the gradual strengthening of his philosophical stone.
Same subject and traditionFour Guides to Alchemy in Maier
Nature, reason, experience and reading become a guide, staff, spectacles and lamp in Maier’s image of inquiry.
Same subject and traditionMercury and Vulcan at the Hearth
Two Mercuries and a furnace introduce Maier’s distinction between the subject’s inward qualities and the heat applied from outside.
Same subject and traditionNaaman’s Washing in Maier
The biblical washing in Jordan becomes Maier’s analogy for the purification of the philosophers’ brass.