That goddess blind,[[130]]
That stands upon the rolling, restless stone—
Flu. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol, Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.”
Fortune on the sphere, or “rolling, restless stone,” is also well pictured in the “ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ,” editions 1579 and 1584. The whole device is described in the French version,—
“L’oiseau de Paradis est de telle nature
Qu’en nul endroit qui soit on ne le void iucher,
Car il n’a point de pieds, & ne peut se rucher
Ailleurs qu’en l’air serein dont il prend nourriture.
En cest oiseau se void de Fortune l’image,
En laquelle n’y a sinon legreté: