The first sentence of this emblem is very indicative of the book's humanist tendency to call upon the knowledge of the Ancients implicitly and explicitly, in this case with a vague reference that does not refer to specific persons or texts. I was also interested in the moral parallels drawn between the serpent and society. What consequences awaited thieves and murderers for their transgressions, and how were those similar or dissimilar to those the serpent faced?

I was interested in how this passage speaks to Early Modern European narratives surrounding gold, painting gold as something that exists in foreign places but is usually unobtainable so has to be acquired through alchemical knowledge. It also reveals thinking about imperialism and explicitly ties imperialism to attempts, whether successful or unsuccessful to extract gold.

I thought it was interesting how the sentence structure drew parallels between wealth in the world and health in medicine, perhaps implying an initial scarcity of the former in the latter but the potential for more of each through the philosopher's stone, which is in this case portrayed by the lions.