I do not despise the German translation of the Prophets, which has just appeared at Worms, except that the German is quite obscure, perhaps because of the dialect used. The translators are diligent, but who can do all things? I am now girt up to translate them myself, and shall lecture on Isaiah, too, not to be idle. Pray the Lord for me and for His Church. May Christ grant that your child be safely bom. My Katie is with child again. Greet Spengler and thank him for the seed he sent ; all have sprung up except the melons and gourds, although these plants flourish in other gardens. Farewell.
Martin Luther.
758. LUTHER TO WENZEL LINK AT NUREMBERG. Endcrs, vi, 52. (Wittenberg), May 19, 1527.
Grace and peace. I have received the planes and the quad- rant with the cylinder and the wooden clock, for which I thank you. You only forgot one thing, to tell me how much money I ought to send you, for I do not suppose that the two gulden I sent you before were enough.^ I shall not order any more instruments at present, unless you have a new kind of lathe which will turn itself while Sieberger snores and neglects it. I am a past-master of cfock-work myself, especially when I have to point out the lateness of the hour to my drunken Saxons, who look more at the tankards than at the clock, and do not mind in the least the course of the sun or of the clock or of its master.
There is nothing new here except your picture-book on the Papacy.* I approve of my picture with the sickle, for it shows that it was long ago foretold that I would be sharp and bitter, but I doubt whether the rose can be interpreted as an emblem of myself; I should think it applies rather to my office. The other things are well, if your reports are true. Farewell in the Lord. Martin Luther.
^ In his former letter to Link he had spoken of only one gulden. Supra, no. 746.
'This was a book of thirty pictures satirising the papacy, which was published at Nuremberg in 1527. The pictures were said to have been discovered in a monastery at Nuremberg, and were believed to be very old. Osiander, who pro- cured their publication, regarded them as a prophecy, and Hans Sachs provided them with rhymes. The figure which was interpreted as Luther's was that of a monk carrying a sickle In one hand and a rose ia. the other.
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