2In the pictura of the collection’s final emblem, a hand ex nubibus holds a victor’s wreaths, headed by the motto “The Garland, He alone shall weare, / Who, to the Goale, doth persevere,” while the subscriptio dwells on the necessity of perseverance:

Nor on Good beginners, nor on those
That, walke halfe-way, (much lesse on him, that goes
No stepp at all) will God this gift conferre;
But, onely, unto those that persevere. (258)

The primary, topographical interpretation of these lines harks back to the frontispiece (Figure 1), the very first picture in the volume, an intricate engraving teeming with life composed by none other than William Marshall, who also provided the engravings for Francis Quarles’s emblem books in the 1630s and the frontispiece to the Eikon Basilike, a text attributed to Charles i, executed ten days prior to its publication in 1649.

4The engraving, covering an entire page, is designed according to vertical two-point perspective. It figures a landscape culminating in twin mountain peaks in the background. Groups of figures follow two paths leading up the mountain. The peak on the left is drenched in divine light. There is an eagle carrying one of the figures aloft. Dark clouds brood over the other peak, atop of which a grim skeleton awaits travellers venturing too far up. In the foreground at the bottom is a grotto with various figures swimming in a spring, idling under a tree or engaged in what seems to be ludic or amorous play. A child rides a hobby-horse, suggesting the grotto is to be construed as a Platonic allegorical representation of childhood prior to the age of reason. On either side of the grotto and emerging from it are larger figures, their clothes suggesting adulthood, moving up towards the middle section of the engraving where paths intersect just below the centre. I have extensively commented elsewhere on the scene taking place at the intersection, in which two allegorical figures, usually identified as Fortune (right) and Virtue (left), encourage pilgrims to draw lots from a large ewer (Figure 2). As the volume includes a lottery game inviting the reader to pick an emblem at random by turning a lottery wheel attached to the last page, the allegorical interpretation of the ewer is straightforward enough and allows for an extrapolation viewing the frontispiece as an elaborate, emblematic mise-en-abyme of the work as a whole.

5Noticeable as well is the division along the vertical axis of the picture’s second and third horizontal sections, somehow resulting in manichean symmetry. In the middle section, the seven cardinal virtues stand on the left, facing the seven cardinal sins on the right (Figure 3). Beyond them on the left, a minister awaits the pious on the doorstep of a plain Protestant church, while a nude female figure, accompanied by Cupid and seemingly holding an effigy of the moon, lures travellers to a temple of carnal lust on the right (Figure 4).

6The vertical divide is even more obvious in the uppermost section as it is built into the very structure of the twin peaks. On the left, the rugged, exhausting climb gradually turns into a pleasant walk up the mountain, atop which a pilgrim is being carried upwards by a large bird, while rays of heavenly light shine down from the white clouds. On the right, the broad, inviting alleyway lined with trees becomes increasingly impracticable, and unfortunate travellers encounter more and more fighting, misery, torture and death only to be greeted by a flaming skeleton with a sword and a bow, and by black clouds from which eerie smoke seems to be devouring the tokens of earthly wealth and pleasure.

7The broad, inviting avenue leading only to death and damnation, and the rocky, arduous climb required to reach salvation derive from Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” But the shape of the mountain, together with the ewer scene half way up put an original spin on the idea. Bath suggests the myth of Hercules at the crossroads may be an additional iconographic source of inspiration here (114-15), a hypothesis supported by the fact that the episode is depicted in Emblem I-xxii (22). The myth, whose earliest version is recorded in Xenophon’s Memorabilia (I.ii), has the demigod meet the allegories of Virtue and Pleasure that try to sway him with a series of promises. Hercules, the embodiment of physical prowess but also of virtue in the early modern period, makes the corresponding choice. It is precisely the notion of choice that is emphasised in the myth and in the frontispiece, together with its seemingly awkward coexistence with Fortune – one’s lot in life. The twin peaks with their characteristic shape reminiscent of the “Pythagorean Y” further reinforce the idea. The notion is expounded in a poem commonly attributed to one Maximinus, who may or may not be one of the two Roman emperors by that name (Kean 128-29, and 184-85):

The Pythagoric Letter two ways spread,
Shows the two paths in which Man’s life is led.
The right hand track to Sacred Virtue tends,
Though steep and rough at first, in rest it ends;
The other broad and smooth, but from its Crown
On rocks the Traveller is tumbled down.
He who to Virtue by harsh toils aspires,
Subduing pains, worth and renown acquires:
But who seeks slothful luxury, and flies,
The labor of great acts, dishonor’d dies. (Guthrie and Fideler 158)

After the initial section leading from birth to the age of reason, the road forks, forcing travellers to make a choice and bear the consequences, the increasing distance between the upper branches of the “Y” suggesting there is no way back once the decision is made. However, the peaks only come clearly separate a short distance from the top and there is a road below the pass between them which would allow pilgrims on one side to move over to the other side if they so elected. Right in the middle, a cross seems to be a final incentive to make the right choice before it is too late. This is reminiscent of the similarly upward perspective in the title page of the Tablet of Cebes allegorising the journey of human life through a maze-like structure made of successive rings, at various points of which Fortune, Virtue, Sorrow, or Instruction await the travellers to either lead them to salvation or tempt them to sin and ultimate destruction. In the Greek text, it is Fortune that pushes the pilgrims that trust her uncertain favours towards a slippery slope where they successively encounter Incontinence, Luxury, Avarice, Flattery, and eventually Punishment, accompanied by Sadness, Sorrow, Anguish, and Desperation. Yet, even at this point, hope is not forlorn:

• 3 Quoted from John Healey’s 1610 translation, Epictetus his Manuall, and Cebes his Tablet, Out of the (...)

From thence they driue him farther, into the Iayle of Infelicity, and there shall his captiuity be endlesse vnlesse Repentance bee his baile. Why, what can she do? Mary shee can deliuer him out of this huge deluge of miseries, and bring him acquainted with another Opinion, and another Desire, who will guide him vnto the pallace of True Instruction and will also profferre to conduct him vnto False Instruction. And how then, quoth I? If hee embrace that Opinion that giueth him directions in the way of True vnderstanding hee shalbe thereby purified, and reformed, and runne the rest of his liues course in the plenitude of perfection, beyond the reach of all future calamity (Healey, G2r-v).3

Let no man walke in doubt,
As if Gods Arme of Grace were stretched out
To some small number: For, whoe’re begins
And perseueres, the profer’d Garland winns:
And, God respects no persons; neither layes
A stumbling blocke in any of our Waies. (Wither 258)

9The landscape of the frontispiece calls for a multi-layered interpretation however, the next level of which gradually emerges as one peruses the volume. Many of the figures and items in the engraving where merely copied by Marshall from De Passe’s original engravings. The man carried aloft by an eagle is reminiscent of Ganymede as a symbol of the virtuous soul flown to heaven (156) in Emblem III-xxii (Figure 5).

The couple sharing a glass of wine outside the temple of Venus is similar to the figures in the background of Emblem II-vi. The men fighting with rapiers and daggers next to the figure falling off the side of the mountain appear to be modelled on the swordsmen fighting over a “Strumpet” – adding immorality to violence – in Emblem I-xxvii, Where Hellen is, there will be warre (Figure 6).

The skeleton with extended arms on one of the mountain tops similarly resembles the skeleton in Emblem I-viii (Figure 7), while the child riding a hobby-horse in the grotto seems to echo a point Whither makes in his address “To the Reader”: “For, I know that the meanest of such conceites are as pertinent to some, as Rattles and Hobby-horses to Children; or as the A.B.C. and Spelling were at first to those Readers, who are now past them” (A1v). Not having joined the figures on the path, the child – possibly a representation of the reader – is still in darkness, but the hobby-horse seemingly leads him towards the exit where a figure of the same child closer to adulthood is seen to embark upon the pilgrimage to the twin mountain peaks. Likewise, the frontispiece may, once interpreted with a knowledgeable and practiced eye, lead the reader on to the emblems proper and to the lottery.

10In their paratext, Rollenhagen and De Passe note that a total of five centuries of emblems was originally planned. Therefore scholars have argued that any comments on the order in which they appear, which Wither kept unchanged, could only be tentative (Harms 49). But I would like to suggest that some considerations on the subject tie in rather well with our interpretation of the frontispiece, and that some emblems appear to be strategically placed. The first book of fifty emblems in the Collection opens with a composition emphasising the role of instruction in attaining salvation regardless of one’s lot in life:

Though obscured thou appeare, awhile,
Despised, poore, or borne to Fortunes low,
Thy Vertue shall acquire a nobler stile,
Then greatest Kings are able to bestow:
And, gaine thee those Possessions, which, nor They,
Nor Time, nor Death, have power to take away. (1)

“Obscured” harks back to the grotto at the bottom of the frontispiece, a state from which the readers may liberate themselves if they follow the persona’s initial advice, and “in holy Studies exercise [their minds]” and “that Knowledge and that Treasure seeke to find, / Which may enrich [their Hearts] with perfect Ioy” (1). Interestingly, it matters not from the start whether one is “borne to Fortunes low.” Diligently perusing the emblems and steadily abiding by the persona’s instructions will overcome adversity and endow the reader with “Vertue,” a general disposition towards life and hardships which, according to the Stoics Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, is a combination of wisdom, fortitude, constancy, and courage (Montsarrat 10-17). It is hardly a coincidence that the advice to show constancy in life and labour is the most frequent by far with over a quarter of the emblems dedicated to it. Nor is it surprising that only a year after A Collection of Emblemes, Wither completed his English translation of De Natura Hominis by the Church Father Nemesius which, albeit not strictly Stoical in outlook, adamantly upholds the power of human beings to overcome contrary Fortune through perseverance and wisdom.

11Book I then closes with a first emblematic signal acknowledging the readers’ efforts so far and encouraging them to persevere:

They, that will to Greatnesse rise,
A Course, not much unlike to this, must keepe:
They ought not Small-Beginnings to despise;
Nor, strive to runne, before they learne to creepe.
By many single Eares, together brought,
The Hand is fill’d; by Handfulls, we may gaine
A Sheafe; with many Sheaves a Barne is fraught:
Thus, oft, by Little, we doe much obtaine. (50)

The emblem’s warning against “running, before one learns to creep” recalls the overconfident travellers in the frontispiece who, even as they choose the path of virtue, foolishly presume to ride up the mountain in a horse-drawn chariot. Two of them along with their unfortunate drivers are seen to plummet down the mountain side, while others prudently choose to “creep” up the rocks to the path’s more pleasant section (Figure 8).

Given Wither’s reiterated intent to “please and profit vulgar iudgements” (*3r) and grant them access to the moral and religious teachings enshrined in the pictures, the advice can equally be viewed as didactic encouragement: while deciphering allegorical engravings may appear challenging at first, it will gradually become easier, but only to such as are not over-hasty. Skimming too quickly through the emblems without investing the time and effort necessary to acquire the required hermeneutic skills can only result in failure to derive any useful advantage from them.

12Book II begins with an emblem urging readers eager to amend themselves to remain impervious to the scorn and mockery of others, and ends with the image of the crocodile, whose impenetrable skin metaphorically stands in for the “Coat of Maile” that is true virtue. Lest the reader by then be discouraged, Wither’s persona offers a personal pledge:

Without, let Patience durifie thy Skin;
Let Innocencie, line thy heart within;
Let constant Fortitude, unite them so,
That, they may breake the force of ev’ry blow:
And, when thou thus art arm’d, if ill thou speed;
Let me sustaine the Mischiefe, in thy steed. (112)

This distinctly Stoic piece of advice merely reiterates Seneca’s point at the end of letter LIII of the Epistulae morales ad Lucilium:

It is amazing what power there is in philosophy to beat back all the assaults of chance. No weapon lodges in its flesh: its defenses cannot be penetrated. When fortune’s darts come in, it either ducks and lets them pass by, or stands its ground and lets them bounce back against the assailant. (155)

13With the first half of the allegorical path to the twin peaks now behind the reader, the emblem anticipates that the arduous climb to the summit of salvation – here the perusal and deciphering of one hundred more such compositions – might prove discouraging. The pilgrims lured by the initially inviting path leading to damnation may beckon those scaling the steep cliffs on the other side to join them, and perhaps mock or scorn them for refusing to do so. Book III opens with a glimpse of the garland promised to those who stay the course, and the subscriptio fully endorses an encouraging message (Figure 9):

• 7 The motto reads: “If well thou dost, and well intend, / Thou shalt be crowned, in the end” (Wither (...)

[T]his our Emblem’s Motto,7 doth implie,
That, nothing Man possesseth outwardly
Can purchase him the Crowne, that should be sought,
Like rightly-doing, what is rightly-taught.
And, that, God never passed any doome.
To barre their blesse, who righteous would become:
For, ev’n to Cain he said (of sinne detected)
If well thou dost, thou shalt be well respected. (135)

14Book III then ends on a graver note with a memento mori, mimicking the approach of the final opportunity to join the path of virtue before it is too late, that is before the twin peaks branch out. The subscriptio ends with an unequivocal reference to the frontispiece, urging even a young, healthy reader to take heed:

[Y]ou deferre your ends; and, still contrive,
For temp’rall things; as if you thought to live
Sixe Ages longer: or had quite forgot,
That, you, and others, draw one common-Lot.
But, that, you might not, still, the same forget,
This Emblem, and this Motto, here were set. (184)

15Finally, the first emblem of book IV, which shows a marigold turning towards the warming rays of the sun (209), could be viewed as an indication that the reader is now approaching the left-hand summit of the frontispiece, likewise basked in heavenly light, before he finally earns the garland in the last engraving (Figure 10). Its subscriptio ends with a meditative address to God, notably shifting from floral to topographical imagery:

But, oh my God! though groveling I appeare
Vpon the Ground, (and have a rooting here,
Which hales me downward) yet in my desire,
To that, which is above mee, I aspire:
And, all my best Affections I professe
To Him, that is the Sunne of Righteousnesse.
Oh! keepe the Morning of his Incarnation,
The burning Noone-tide of his bitter Passion,
The Night of his Descending, and the Height
Of his Ascension, ever in my sight:
That imitating him, in what I may,
I never follow an inferiour Way. (209)

As was mentioned above, the “Sunne of Righteousnesse” and the “Ascension” as depicted in the frontispiece guide those among the pilgrims who have overcome the hardest part of the climb to the left peak. They have successfully eschewed the “inferiour Way” leading to Fire and Brimstone, and every step becomes lighter and easier as they approach the journey’s end. Likewise, the last fifty emblems will not be much of a challenge to the reader who has successfully taken in the previous ones. Even the accompanying lottery verse is uncharacteristically laudatory:

Thou, of a noble minde, art thought,
Which, heav’nly things, hath chiefly sought.
And, scorn’st thy vertue to debase,
By loving those of lower place.
If so, thine Emblem doth expresse
Thy Wisdome, and thy worthynesse. […] (259)

16As the reader reaches the final emblem and the promised wreath of laurels, the persona ends with another meditative address to God, where it takes on the role of a pilgrim and invites the reader to fully identify with it:

LORD, by thy Grace, an entrance I have made
In honest Pathes; and, thy assistance had,
To make in them, some slow proceedings too.
Oh grant me, full abilitie, to doe
Thy sacred Will; and, to beginn, and end
Such Workes, as to thy glory, still, may tend.
That (Walking, and continuing in the Path,
Which evermore, thine approbation hath)
I may that Garland, by thy grace, obtaine,
Which, by mine owne desert, I cannot gaine. (258)

17The volume’s chief claim to originality, however, is the way it offers an alternative, non-linear experience, as the reader is invited to spin the pointer of the lottery wheel that will then indicate the emblem to which he or she must turn. The game can be played on one’s own as a randomized mode of selection to determine which emblem to ponder on a given day, but Wither also envisions it as a collective pastime where each player in turn would cast their lot and read out the designated emblem for all to hear. The poet anticipates that the emblems attributed by Fortune may now and again be particularly fitting and urge players to amend faults of which they are known to be guilty. If so, this is likely to involve for them a degree of humiliation amounting to ill fortune. But it would still give them the opportunity henceforth to eschew the same vice. From this perspective, every round of the game is a new lot drawn from the ewer represented in the frontispiece and a fresh opportunity to choose the path of virtue over that of vice. This interpretation of the frontispiece echoes the subscriptio of Emblem I-iv, in which a sister-allegory of Fortune, Occasio, representing opportunities to be seized at the right moment (Figure 11), is understood within a cyclical time frame. Wither’s persona thus comforts readers who may have missed their chance to amend themselves in the past:

Yet, if an Opportunity be past,
Despaire not thou, as they that hopelesse be;
Since, Time may so revolve againe, at last,
That New-Occasions may be offred thee. (4)

18The allegorical landscape in the frontispiece thus lends itself to various exegetical conclusions. As a topographical rendition of the pilgrimage of life, it asserts human choice and responsibility, while hinting at the distinctly stoic view of Fortune held throughout the volume. As a mise-en-abyme of the book and its lottery device, it encourages perseverance in the reader, and maps out the journey and its most notable sign posts along the way. These will already be familiar when the reader encounters them among the emblems, assisting the process of interpretation. The allegorical landscape finally figures a pedagogical and reassuring cyclicity that requires neither perfection nor immutability, but only honest perseverance.