Three Birds Contend Within the Vessel

The story

Sealed inside a glass vessel, three birds grapple on the ground, wings beating, while above them a chariot drawn by peacocks carries a driver marked with the zodiac signs for Sagittarius and Pisces, identifying him with the planet Jupiter. The border adds a scene of a pope crowning a king and figures counting coin. The Fourth Treatise runs through the traditional seven planets and metals one vessel at a time, and this plate marks the Jupiter stage: the fighting birds were read as the volatile spirits or elements struggling and separating out inside the sealed flask, a necessary turbulence on the way toward a purer, more stable substance. That the vessel is sealed is the point worth noticing — the alchemist’s role here is to watch a self-contained process, not intervene in it. It is one of a run of seven such plates, each keyed to a different planet.