Mercury
image credit:
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Plate 17 starts with an image of Mercury in a chariot. The wheels of the chariot have the symbols of Virgo and Gemini, both signs of Mercury and both traveling in the same direction (so the Centers and the Vortices for Mercury are brought into alignment).
The text describes the Plate:
Sixthly: The Heat warms the cold earth, that while cold was half dead.
This plate is overwhelmingly red, the color of Rubedo. From war to athletic competition to reconciliation (leading to marriage), the characters on the Plates have been transforming. Now the characters are uniting as a society and images show music, literature, geography, and geometry. The gallows of Plate 12 has been replaced with the spires of a cathedral.
In the flask is a Queen, holding a scepter and an orb and cross, reminiscent of the young Prince on Plate 7. She is clothed in blue and stands on the face of the Sun.
The text instructs the alchemist to distill seven times. Distillation is often associated with Hermes, since he travels back and forth between the worlds.
Zeus agrees (with stipulations) that Eros and Psyche can marry and sends Hermes to bring Psyche to Olympus.