Pulter’s sixteenth emblem takes up the cockatrice, also known as the basilisk. The emblem focuses on the legendary weakness of the basilisk—it can be destroyed with a mirror that turns its poison back upon itself—in order to explore sin and the defenses humans may (or may not) have against it. Identifying the cockatrice as sin, the poem describes two different methods for defeating it: first, the active discovery of its “deceits” and, second, a reliance on the shield of faith.
Consider how this poem functions both as an emblem and also as a performance of the use of emblems. The first eighteen lines of the poem are addressed to an unnamed friend; the repetition of the second-person pronoun “you” suggests that readers should incorporate the lessons of the poem in their own lives. But in the final seven lines, the speaker intrudes into the poem and tests the applicability of the emblem to her own situation, questioning whether she will “crush” sin or rely upon the shield of faith.
— Leah Knight and Wendy Wall