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Filles doibvent estre gardees.

EVIDENCE, ET DIALOGISME.

Figure of a woman in armour holding a lance and a shield with a gorgon's head. Dragon at her feet. Standing guard outside a temple.
[Click on image to enlarge]

C’est l’effigie a la vierge Pallas.[1]
Et son Dragon mis a ses piedz a bas
D. Tel animal, Pourquoy ha la Deesse?
R. (Des lieux sacrez, & temples la garde est ce.)[2]
Les vierges fault garder diligemment
Car amour tend ses rhetz incessamment.[3]

Pallas vierge represente les filles, & le vi-
gilant serpent sapience, Par laquelle les fil-
les doibvent estre vigilamment gardées.

Notes:

1.  Pallas Athene, virgin goddess and protectress of the city of Athens, represented with helmet, spear and aegis. Pallas Athene was equated with Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. Pausanias, Periegesis 1.24.7 mentions such a statue with a snake.

2.  See Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.20.3: ‘the snake with its keen and ever-watchful sight has assigned to it the custodianship of temples, shrines, oracles and treasures.’ Ancient Greek holy sites often housed a snake.

3.   ‘Love lays his snares on every side’ - a proverbial saying.

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