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| Anonymous Netherlandish artist Design for cup ca. 1500-1600 drawing on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Bernardo Parentino Venus and Cupid trampling on a serpent before 1531 drawing on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
The Serpent
There was a Serpent who had to Sing.
There was. There was.
He simply gave up Serpenting
Because. Because.
He didn't like his Kind of Life;
He couldn't find a Proper Wife;
He got no pleasure Down his Hole;
He was a Serpent with a Soul;
And so, of course, he had to Sing:
And Sing he did, like Anything!
The Birds they were, they were Astounded;
And Various measures they propounded
To stop the Serpent's Awful Racket:
They bought a Drum, he wouldn't Whack it;
They sent, – you always send, – to Cuba
And got a Most Commodious Tuba;
They got a Horn, they got a Flute,
But Nothing did that Serpent suit.
He said, "Look, Birds, all this is futile;
I do not like to Bang or Tootle."
And then he cut loose with a Horrible Note
That practically split the Top of his Throat!
"You see," he said, with a Serpent's Leer,
"I'm Serious about my Singing Career!"
And the Woods resounded with many a Shriek
And the Birds flew off to the End of Next Week!
– Theodore Roethke (1950)
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| Robert Pyle Apotheosis of Henry VIII ca. 1546 drawing on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| attributed to Étienne Delaune Design for salt-cellar with satyr on tripod before 1595 drawing on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Cruyl Lieven River Tiber looking toward St Peter's and Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome ca. 1667-1700 drawing on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Johann Wilhelm Baur Miniature painting - Port Scene ca. 1620-40 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Bartholomaus Dietterlin Miniature painting of bandits sacking a German village 1638 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Nicholas Dixon after Hans Holbein Miniature painting - Noli me tangere ca. 1673-80 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Sarah Stanley Miniature painting of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife 1727 pigment on vellum, mounted on panel Victoria & Albert Museum |
The Exile
The young prince is placed under a bed.
He wonders if he is an heir, or the residue of the maid's neglect?
Should he sleep? Or should he simply do nothing?
Even so, time empties out of the banishment. The solitude grows weary and decays out of caring, and the kingdom in the distance merges with other distances.
One cannot help wondering if he had not been meant to be someone else.
And now the laughter of women in the hallway. The movement of feet, the rush and the flush of the living.
And he wonders if he is not just some of the darkness that floats in a dark room, that hangs by mirrors and drifts through the spokes of chairs . . .
Time gives the blossom its final ornament . . .
– Russell Edson (1973)
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| Pieter Pietersz Portrait miniature of Anna Cernohorska of Boskovic 1589 pigment on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Anonymous French artist Portrait miniature of Anne of Austria ca. 1620-60 pigment on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Anonymous British artist Portrait miniature of William and Mary ca. 1690 watercolor on vellum, mounted in brooch Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Jean-Étienne Liotard Profile portrait, said to be of Sir Everard Fawkener ca. 1750 pastel on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Jean-Louis Fesch Mr Garrick as Benedict in Much Ado about Nothing ca. 1770 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |