(28-10-2016, 09:41 AM)MarcoP wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[deleted for brevity]...
I also don't think there is a "problem" with women and men being naked together: the two pillars here clearly represent alchemical opposites, marked by the Moon (women) and Sun (men) symbols. The separation of the two sexes is functional to the concept being illustrated, not to some kind of prudery. I cannot read the text, so these are just the impressions I get from the illustration.
It's old German, and the spelling is pretty funky (and the handwriting hard to see in some spots), but the parts I can see clearly enough don't really add much to the understanding of the images.
It talks about immersing/dissolving/committing the bodies to/in the water and how the combination of the two kinds of baths/water become one bath ("zweiern wassen macht ein wass") and that whoever understands this is humbled by "riches". It says a bath is good; it refreshes the blood. When through [the action of] the two waters is made the "edel pflaster", all sickness is expelled ("alle kranckheit ist vertreiben").
These days "pflaster" generally refers to things that are hard like pavement or plaster, or to things like adhesives and bandages and plaster (as in a plaster cast), but I've come across it a few times in old manuscripts where it refers to a "poultice". But, if this text is allegorical rather than literal, they might mean "the quickening" or "the hardening". I'm not sure.
Most of it seems fairly literal, however, not particularly allegorical.