Bare body and concealing mask

Meaning

The concluding emblem verses interpret the female figure’s bare upper body as the attractiveness of what she represents: once seen or tasted, she is loved above wealth and difficult to relinquish. The mask indicates that this love is nevertheless concealed. The two attributes deliberately coexist with open-heartedness and plain, truthful speech. Concealment is therefore not simply condemned as deception, nor is nakedness made a demand for indiscriminate disclosure. The English renders Laruen as “mask” in this emblematic setting, where the surrounding verbs of covering and revealing determine its function. Her precarious but recovering stance adds the hostility of the world to this tension between exposure and protection.