In this painting the two fleets are engaged in battle. The principal vessel in the foreground on the left flies the St George flag from the foremast. The other flag from the stern is possibly the striped ensign of the East India Company. The other ship on the left flies the three striped flag of the Dutch Republic.

In the foreground there are two sea monsters in the dark green waves. The dangers of the passage are represented by the monster. As such the subject matter appears to repeat the moralist belief, perpetuated in contemporary emblem literature, of the occasional necessity to sacrifice all one’s riches in order to save one’s life. The inclusion of the monsters points to the implicit allegory of the ship as a vessel bearing mankind and the human soul across the perilous seas of life.

There are also poets like William Shakespeare who make frequent and complex use of mentions of the sea and things associated with it. The following, From Ariel’s Song in Act I, Scene ii of The Tempest, is felt to be “wonderfully evocative”, indicating a “profound transformation”:

                                   Full fathom five thy father lies:                                    Of his bones are coral made:                                    Those are pearls that were his eyes:                                    Nothing of him that doth fade                                    But doth suffer a sea-change                                    Into something rich and strange.