Within a crowned flask with open top, the white-crowned, bare-breasted Queen stands holding an orb and sceptre within a golden egg-shaped aura with an inner yellow band and outer blue band. She stands on a deflated solar face. Her sceptre is the same as the ones held by Ahasueros in Plate 5 and the King saved from drowning in Plate 7. The chariot of Mercury with caduceus wand and sickle (a reference to Saturn) is drawn by two cocks. The wheels represent Virgo and Gemini. Mercurial scenes depicted: masons, geometers, geographers, scholars, and musicians. (Stephen Skinner's Splendor Solis commentary)
"This scene of city life and industry is a fitting representation of what we mean by the activities animated by the Logos Principle. Here the focus is not on interpersonal relating but upon an inner capacity for work, the performance of skilled tasks with joy and inspiration in a context ruled by a principle of discipline."
"The beautiful queen in the alembic corresponds psychologically to the Creative Feminine. In particular, she may personify the 'muse' in creative men, which can feel to them a very personal relationship."
"The life force is manifest within the individual, who lives in a loving relationship to the feminine qualities of grace, patience, wisdom, and creativity. When these themes emerge in analysis, the patient may search for a more suitable vocation or feel the need of a change from one form of creative activity to another."
The muse can also be the animus or Logos principle in creative women, as in the Reasoner. When the animus is unconscious it can lure the woman into the imagination of the Believer, with the magic of the Cheshire cat – the hidden nature of reality, occult knowledge, which plays a trick on the rabbit and the raccoon.
Note: the quotes in italic are from the book by J.L. Henderson and D.N. Sherwood, Transformation of the Psyche: The Symbolic Alchemy of the Splendor Solis
