Undine by John William Waterhouse 1872

"Our nymph was a water woman. She promised herself to von Staufenberg and stayed also with him, until he married another wife, and took her for a devil. Taking her for a devil and considering her such, he married another woman and thus broke his promise to her. Therefore, at the wedding, she gave him the sign, through the ceiling, during the banquet, and three days later, he was dead. It requires great experience to judge in such matters, for the breaking of a pledge never remains without sanction, whatever it may be, to uphold honor and honesty and to prevent other evil and vice. If she had been a ghost, from where would she have taken blood and flesh? If she had been a devil, where would she have hidden the devil’s marks which always go with it? If it had been a spirit, why should it have needed such a being?

She was a woman and a nympha, as we have described them, a woman in honor, not in dishonor, and this is why she wanted duty and loyalty to be kept. Since they were not kept, she herself, from divine destiny, punished the adulterer (for no judge would have passed a sentence at her request, since she was not from Adam). Thus God granted her the punishment that is appropriate for adultery, and permitted her to be her own judge, since the world repudiated her as a spirit or devil. Many more such things have happened that are despised by men, badly so and it is a sign of great stupidity."

-Paracelsus (1493-1541). Four Treatises of Theophrastus Von Hohenheim Called Paracelsus (p. 237). Johns Hopkins University Press. Kindle Edition.

Undine by John William Waterhouse 1872

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