Mathers assigns green to Venus and names copper as its corresponding metal. The 5 figures cover Venus spirits, favor, desire, attraction, and compelled presence. Those claims belong to the historical edition; the diagrams can still be analyzed as arrangements of text, script, and geometry without treating the promised effects as measured results.
The Venus group compresses names and relationship verses into radial, pentagram, and interlaced geometries. Mathers’s inability to decipher two names in the fifth figure gives unusually visible evidence of editorial uncertainty.
How the Venus sequence changes
The collection is not one emblem repeated 5 times. Its centers range from an open central hub to a lettered square at the center. The framing systems likewise move between eight spokes end in Venus characters and a larger turned square and circular frame nest the names. Reading the group in order makes those structural choices visible.
The perimeter often does a different job from the center. In the first figure, four angel names form the circular border; in the last, the melting-heart verse closes the design. A plate crop becomes misleading when those outer words are discarded as decoration.
5 Venus figures at a glance
First Pentacle of Venus
The first Venus figure is a general control and invocation figure for the spirits named around it.
Second Pentacle of Venus
Mathers assigns the figure to favor, honor, Venusian matters, and the accomplishment of desire.
Third Pentacle of Venus
The caption says displaying the figure attracts love and names Monachiel as its angel.
Fourth Pentacle of Venus
Mathers gives the figure a coercive claim: compelling Venus spirits and forcing a desired person to come.
Fifth Pentacle of Venus
The last Venus caption claims that merely showing the figure excites love.
Text and plate comparison
| Figure | Mathers’s stated theme | Textual anchor | Plate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. First Pentacle of Venus | Venus spirits, variant spelling, planetary characters | No biblical verse is identified | IX, fig. 39 |
| 2. Second Pentacle of Venus | desire, pentagram, Song of Songs | Song of Songs 8:6 | IX, fig. 40 |
| 3. Third Pentacle of Venus | attraction, Monachiel, Genesis | Genesis 1:28 | IX, fig. 41 |
| 4. Fourth Pentacle of Venus | coercion, union verse, partial transcription | Genesis 2:23–24 | X, fig. 42 |
| 5. Fifth Pentacle of Venus | love, undeciphered names, Passing of the River | Psalm 22:14 | X, fig. 43 |
What the plate can and cannot establish
The crops preserve the figures as Mathers printed them, including damaged or uncertain readings he discusses in his notes. The linework establishes the edition’s layout. The accompanying prose supplies names, script identifications, and claimed purposes that may not be recoverable from shape alone.
Different manuscript witnesses can change spelling, letter shape, color, order, or even the set of figures. The individual pages therefore distinguish visible evidence from Mathers’s interpretation and from the broader Clavicula tradition.