Alchemical Knight Slays the Primordial Dragon, 1625
The Book of Lambspring is well known for its series of fifteen emblematic plates which have been interpreted many ways. Emblem 2 is entitled: Here you straightway behold a black beast in the forest. Putrefication. The alchemical knight slays the primordial dragon in order to release the tincture which leads to the alchemical gold or the fight between the inner dragon and an armed knight in the Forest of the Soul. The image is from De lapide philosophico triga chemicum (1599, reprinted in 1625) by the German philosopher Lambsprinck. Dragons represent non-transmuted base metal in alchemy and the knight represents the alchemist seeking to transmute it. Or the polarities of body and soul struggling to overcome each other. The Book of Lambspring is a work of spiritual alchemy, has few references to physical alchemical processes. Its verses point to the soul and spirit involved in the alchemical transformation and its fifteen emblems are evocative symbols of these inner processes
