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| Philippe de Champaigne Charity 1635 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy |
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| Marcantonio Franceschini Charity 1683-84 oil on canvas Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel |
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| Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl Charity ca. 1820 oil on panel Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel |
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| workshop of Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Charity ca. 1666 oil on canvas Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève |
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| Augusto Grossi Bankers as Vipers 1893 lithograph National Gallery, Athens |
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| Jacques de Lajoue Allegory of Optics ca. 1730 oil on canvas Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel |
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| Michelangelo Maestri Allegorical Figure of Night ca. 1800 gouache on card (adaptation of Pompeian fresco) Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
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| Marcantonio Raimondi Allegory of Music ca. 1502-1504 engraving Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Rosalba Carriera Allegory of Fire 1744 pastel on paper Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden |
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| Simon Vouet Allegory of Wealth ca. 1630-35 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| François Boucher Allegory of Painting ca. 1750 oil on canvas (sketch) Palais des Beaux-Art de Lille |
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| Theodor Boeyermans Allegory of Antwerp nurturing Painters 1665 oil on canvas Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp |
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| Abraham Bosse Allegory of Touch 1638 engraving National Museum, Warsaw |
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| Anonymous Russian Artist Health Care for Workers on a New Track ca. 1930 lithograph (poster) Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Hans Canon The Circle of Life ca. 1883 oil on canvas (study for mural) Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
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| Mihael Stroj God's Care 1842 oil on canvas National Gallery of Slovenia, Ljubljana |
Chorus:
Why, why does this fear
persistently hover about,
standing guard in front of my prophetic heart?
Whence comes this presaging song, unbidden, unhired?
Why can I not spurn it,
like a dream hard to interpret,
and let optimism persuade me and seat itself
in command of my mind within?
Time has grown old since the mooring-ropes
were shipped and the sand flew up,
when the seaborne army
set out for Ilium:
and I have learned of its return
from my own eyes, witnessed it in person;
yet still within my soul, self-taught,
sings out the Fury's lyreless lament –
it is completely devoid
of its natural confident hope.
And my inwards, my heart whirling
in eddies that betoken fulfillment
around a mind that understands justice, do not speak in vain.
I pray that this may be proved false
and fall away from my expectation
into the realm of the unfulfilled.
– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)