The masterpiece on the cover of this, from the workshop of Albrecht Dürer, shows a mother absorbed in love for her child. Yet, as Rosemary Crumlin writes, around them lurk symbols of the sorrow to come she sits in the gardenshe is the roseshe is the motherher right hand on her left breastbarehe is naked, little one,she is cloaked in crimson, the colour of bloodan artist’s study of draperyher fair hair flies in the windall else is stillno leaf moves, no grasses bendthe fragile irises stand in wondera serene and carefully poised masterpiecemore an advertisement than atestimony of beliefyet also a compendium of medievalsymbols –a butterfly sits on her trainpresaging her child’s resurrectionanother, newly emerged, on her leftthe light that is Christ, the dawn, streakst