The Tablet of Cebes, the Pythagorean Y and Hercules at the Crossroads as Allegories of the Way of Human Life in the Early Modern Bohemian Lands

Abstract

The most frequent allegories of the journey of human life included in the early modern period are the Tablet of Cebes, the Pythagorean Y and Hercules at the crossroads. They all, in their own way, depict the crisis of choice. Their popularity in Europe is reflected in moral philosophical and emblematic literature, as well as in book culture and the visual arts. However, the Tablet of Cebes (Tabula Cebetis) rarely appears in the literature of the Bohemian lands and is documented first in the mid-seventeenth century in the works of Johannes Amos Comenius. Before that, perhaps the intellectual influence of the University of Wittenberg on Bohemian Humanists played a role in the lack of interest in this allegory. However, by a peculiar mistake of the editor, probably Beneš Optát, the term Tabula Cebetis was used in Bohemia and Moravia for the multiplication table, more commonly called Tabula or Mensa Pythagorae. The place of the Tabula as an allegory of the journey of life in the Bohemian lands was taken by the Pythagorean Y throughout the long sixteenth century, and to the greatest extent by the moralizing story of Hercules at the crossroads. The accompanying Latin text to the engraving of the Tabula Cebetis from 1640 is published in the appendix of the article.