The Sleeping Hermaphrodite

A recumbent, two-headed nude figure lies outdoors under a crescent moon, motionless as a corpse. The motto is spare: "Hermaphroditus mortuo similis, in tenebris jacens, igne indiget" — the hermaphrodite, like one dead, lying in darkness, needs fire. This is the Rebis (from the Latin res bina, "double thing"), the fused male-and-female body that recurs across alchemical literature as the sign of two contrary natures — commonly glossed as sulfur and mercury, fixed and volatile — united into a single substance. Union alone was not completion: the accompanying text insists this joined body is inert, "dead," until heat is applied to rouse it toward its final, perfected state. The double head is the detail worth lingering on; it marks the figure as still two natures sharing one body, rather than a single new one.

Maker

Michael Maier (author); engraved by Matthäus Merian the Elder

Medium of the original

Engraving

Original held by

Wikimedia Commons

Credit

Wikimedia Commons · via Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-00515