From the book
Nine Books on the Nature of Things
Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
Eagle and lead give contrasting motions to the two bodies separated at death: one rises, the other falls. The judgement scene reuses the contrast for blessed and cursed. The recurring concrete image connects the book’s beginning and end without making a heavenly body literally a bird or a condemned person literally metallic matter.
Places to read
- Book 8 · Separation · Passage 7Latin“in sublime evolat ut Aquila”