Venus
image credit:
https://www.moleiro.com/vista/estaticos/formateadas/SS_5c0fc432cba14_venus_6.jpg
Plate 16 starts with an image of Venus in a chariot. The wheels of the chariot have the symbols of Taurus and Libra, both signs of Venus and both traveling in the same direction (so the Centers and the Vortices for Venus are brought into alignment).
The text describes the Plate:
Fifthly: The Heat works elevatingly, for by its force
the spirits hidden in the Earth are raised up into the air.
Mars’ Plate showed people in conflict; Venus’ Plate shows people in couples, their polarities reconciled. Since the heat raises spirits up into the air, the flask is chained down. Near the table (in the bottom left corner of the Plate), pitchers are placed in a heated water bath, showing some evaporation.
In Psyche’s previous task, she retrieved a dose of beauty from Persephone (spirits hidden in the earth). This dose was stored in a small golden box. Psyche had been warned not to open the box, but she yielded to her temptation and opened the box. The ‘beauty’ released was the Deathly Sleep of the Underworld (a ‘black cloud’ raised up into the air). Psyche was covered by the Cloud and fell into a Stygian Sleep (the Sleep of the Dead).
Eros finds Psyche and wipes the Cloud from her and places it back in the box. He gives the box to Psyche (so she can take it to Aphrodite). He then travels to Olympus to beseech Zeus to allow him to marry Psyche.