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UNUM NIHIL, DUOS PLURI-
mum posse.
One can do nothing, two can do much.
Emblema. 41.
Laertae genitum, genitum quoque Tydeos una[1],
Hac cera expressit Zenalis apta manus.[2]
Viribus hic praestat, hîc pollet acumine mentis,
Nec tamen alterius non eget alter ope.
Cům duo coniuncti veniunt, vîctoria certa est,
Solum mens hominem, dextrave destituit.[3]
The son of Laertes together with him that Tydeus begot, the skilful hand of Zenas expressed in this moulded form. One of them is superior in strength, the powers of the other lie in sharpness of mind, yet neither of them can do without the other’s aid. When the two come united, victory is assured. Mind or strength in isolation has often left man in the lurch.
1. ‘The son of Laertes...him that Tydeus begot’, i.e. (the cunning) Odysseus and (the strong) Diomedes. They collaborated in a successful night raid raid into Troy, for which see Homer, Iliad 10.218ff. See further Erasmus, Adagia 2051, Duobus pariter euntibus. (This title translates Iliad 10.224, a line which appears in Greek in the woodcut)
2. ‘the hand of Zenas’. Two unidentified busts signed by Zenas are in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. Two sculptors of the second, or third century AD, possibly father and son, are known by this name.
3. ‘Mind or strength in isolation has often left man in the lurch’. Cf. Horace, Odes 3.4.65: force without counsel is destroyed by its own might.
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