Arena, barrier and prize

Meaning

Lice is an arena or field of contest. The barrier, entrance and proposed prize figure philosophical initiation as a demanding competition, not as unrestricted admission to a public lecture.

The dedication credits Candale with opening the strong barrier to the spacious philosophical arena, while thrice-great Mercury proposes the prize. Here Mercury is Hermes Trismegistus, the learned authority, not an unqualified material mercury. The passage makes interpretative access itself an achievement: one needs an opener or guide before one can contend. Its relation to other images of keys, labyrinths and guarded treasures is functional rather than a proof that all refer to the same physical apparatus. The reward is praised knowledge and its powers; the competitive language does not supply a contractual promise to readers.

The English arena preserves the older sense of lice, not a bodily parasite. “Prize proposed” retains the contest's prospective reward rather than converting it into an already demonstrated result.