EXPOSITION OF THE IMAGES.

and strives to resist in the highest degree, acting no differently than a deceitful and fraudulent woman, who bears the just punishment of her husband with difficulty, seeking help from strangers who might defend her in her malice, having found how to overcome her husband. The Pope strives to protect himself with the Gauls against the Emperor, so that the Emperor’s tongue and mouth might be bound, and his power, already made weak, might not be able to harm him. Thus, the Emperor is forced to desist from his undertaking, lest he perchance acquire war and foreign hands upon his head. According to this, all who have touched the mark of the Pope, when anyone wishes to rule over them, know how to act so cautiously that a bridle is placed into the mouth of the ruler, and they escape his power by this path. This representation of the occlusion of Emperors and Kings by this image is taken from the first initiates of incantations, and signifies the incantation of those who use it for their own defense against Lords and superiors. For you do not see any woman enchant her husband so that he might be gentle toward her; rather, she will excite another against him with her incantations. You see the ecclesiastics do the same. They do not wish any good to come to those who deserve well of them by the best right, but rather direct anger and hatred toward their benefactors; they cannot carry this out without sorcery, which they indeed draw from the initiates of the Phitonißa Pythoness/Sorceress, for which reason those whom they enchant are blinded.