Atalanta Fugiens, Emblem 46: The Two Eagles of East and West
A crowned, bearded figure stands on a small rock in the middle of the sea, arms spread wide. An eagle rises from each hand, one flying to the left and the other to the right. Far off on both horizons, thin lines of coast and town can be seen.
This is the forty-sixth emblem of Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, and its motto says: two eagles, one from the rising sun and one from the setting sun, come together.
The book was printed in 1617 at Oppenheim. It has fifty emblems, and each one joins an engraving, a Latin verse, a prose discourse and a fugue for three voices. The engravings are attributed to the workshop of Matthäus Merian. Maier, a physician at the court of Emperor Rudolf II, built the book to be seen, read and sung.
The Motto
The Latin line is simple. There are two eagles. One starts in the east, the other in the west. They meet.
The picture shows the beginning of the journey. The figure sends out two birds in opposite directions, and the motto says where they will end up: in the same place.
The Eagles of Zeus
The scene echoes an ancient Greek story. According to the tale, Zeus once wished to find the center of the world. He released two eagles from the opposite ends of the earth and let them fly toward each other. They met at Delphi, and the place was marked by a sacred stone, the omphalos, the navel of the world.
The engraving does not name Zeus. But a crowned bearded man with two eagles belongs to that story, and a reader of Maier's day would have thought of it.
East and West
East and west are the two ends of the sun's path. Everything that rises there will set here. Old thought treated them as a pair of opposites, like day and night, like birth and death.
An eagle from each side suggests that opposites can be sent out and called back. They are not enemies. They are the two ends of a single path.
The Eagle in Alchemy
Alchemists often used the eagle as a sign of the volatile, the part of matter that rises as vapor. A bird that flies was a natural picture for something light and quick. The "eagle" was also a name given to a stage of purification, when the matter was sublimed again and again.
Two eagles may stand for two such volatile principles, sent out from different directions. Their meeting stands for a union that brings the Work to its center.
A Reading for Today
The emblem fits anyone who has felt pulled in two directions: a wish to go forward and a wish to hold back, a call from the world and a call from within. The advice is surprising. Let both go out, and trust that they will meet.
What seems like a conflict may be two halves of one search. The center is not found by choosing one eagle. It appears where both arrive.
The Engraving
The engraving gives the figure the pose of a priest or a king. His arms are open, his feet are bare, and the cloth around his body moves with the wind. Each eagle rests on one hand for a moment, wings spread, ready to launch.
The two lines of coast on either horizon give the scene a map-like feeling, as though the sea were the whole world and the rock its center. The balance of the composition matches the balance of the motto.
The Fugue
Maier did not want his book to be only looked at. Each emblem has a fugue for three voices, and the title Atalanta Fugiens means Atalanta fleeing, and also Atalanta in fugue. In the myth, she ran from her suitors until Hippomenes threw golden apples to slow her.
The voices of the fugue run after each other in the same way. Recordings exist, and listening while studying this picture is a quiet way to take it in.
Contemplating the Emblem
For those who wish to work with this image:
- Look at the two eagles leaving the hands of the central figure.
- Ask which two directions pull at you.
- Imagine sending both out, one east and one west.
- Ask where they might meet.
Closing
A crowned figure on a rock, two eagles in the sky, a meeting at the center. Maier took a famous myth and made it a lesson of the Work. For the seeker, the teaching is a quiet reassurance: send out both of your eagles, east and west, and wait for the place where they come together.
Related Esoteric Inquiries
- Atalanta Fugiens, Emblem 47: The Wolf and the Dog
- Atalanta Fugiens, Emblem 45: The Sun and its Shadow
- Atalanta Fugiens, Emblem 49: The Philosophical Child with Three Fathers
Lux Esoterica.
2026.
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