The Oracles of Leo the Wise

Insatiable, wild, wretched mother of cubs,
And always pregnant, yet only appearing as a shadow;
He passed by, he called upon you, light,
Malismoi, prevailing over the blameless whole.

A watercolor illustration depicting a brown bear walking to the right on a patch of green grass. Clustered beneath the bear's belly and between its legs are several small, unformed brown shapes representing cubs, a reference to the medieval and early modern belief that bear cubs were born as formless lumps of flesh and had to be "licked into shape" by their mother. The bear has its mouth slightly open, showing its teeth and a red tongue.

The movement of time by nature is aborted,
For it is written as the guidance of the final soul.