The overall meaning of the painting will remain a mystery if one is unfamiliar with certain underlying texts. No naive understanding is possible; no innocent eye would be able to contribute significantly to a full identification of the individuals portrayed here without having first read certain literary sources.
[The figure on the far left is] Mercury, the messenger of the gods …[who] was reputed to drive away the winter winds and was regarded as the harbinger of spring. More detailed information on his activities and on his snake-entwined rod may be found in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is described as a god dividing the winds and the clouds with his wand.
"Then he took his wand; the wand with which he calls the pale souls forth from the Nether World and sends others down to grim Tartarus, gives sleep, and takes sleep away, and unseals eyes at death. So shepherding the winds before him with his wand, he swam through the murk of the clouds."
The flying [boy] . . . is......
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