Observations placeholder
Nuremberg Chronicle - Blemyhas
Identifier
010679
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Unravelling this symbolism was fraught with difficulties. It was well known even in Shakespeare's day
"And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders."
-Shakespeare, Othello
"Who would believe that there were mountaineers
Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em
Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men
Whose heads stood in their breasts?"
-Shakespeare, The Tempest
But the meaning seems to have changed, so that on the one hand it refers to a person governed by their autonomic system, on the other it may refer to a person ruled by their heart and not their head. There also seems to be some connection with the symbol of beheading, but where the beheading was none too effective - which probably links better to the first meaning.
So I am afraid I am stumped
A description of the experience
