Link to an image of this page [Q8r p255]
In adulatores.
Flatterers
EMBLEMA LIII.
Semper hiat, semper tenuem, qua vescitur, auram
Reciprocat Chamaeleon[1]:
Et mutat faciem, varios sumitque colores,
Praeter rubrum, vel candidum.[2]
Sic & adulator populari vescitur aura,[3]
Hiansque cuncta devorat:
Et solùm mores imitatur Principis atros,
Albi, & pudici nescius.
The Chameleon is always breathing in and out with open mouth the bodiless air on which it feeds; it changes its appearance and takes on various colours, except for red and white. - Even so the flatterer feeds on the wind of popular approval and gulps down all with open mouth. He imitates only the black features of the prince, knowing nothing of the white and pure.
1. This creature was supposed to feed only on air, keeping its mouth wide open to suck it in. See Pliny, Natural History 8.51.122. For the chameleon cf. Erasmus, Parabolae pp.144, 241, 252.
2. ‘except for red and white’. See Pliny, ib.
3. ‘the wind of popular approval’. This is a common metaphor in Latin, e.g. Horace, Odes 3.2.20, ‘at the behest of the wind of popular approval.’
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- lizards: chameleon (+ animals used symbolically) [25F41(CHAMELEON)(+1)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- stump, stub [25G(+211)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- groups of trees [25G11] Search | Browse Iconclass
- groups of plants (herbs) [25G13] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- river [25H213] Search | Browse Iconclass
- river bank [25H217] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- colours, pigments, and paints (with NAME) [22C4(BLACK)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- colours, pigments, and paints (with NAME) [22C4(RED)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- colours, pigments, and paints (with NAME) [22C4(WHITE)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- lizards: chameleon (+ animal(s) changing colour) [25F41(CHAMELEON)(+4831)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- breathing, respiration [31A22221] Search | Browse Iconclass
- royal household; courtiers, retinue, train [44B152] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Innocence; 'Innocenza', 'Innocenza o purità ' (Ripa) [57A631] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Flattery; 'Adulatione' (Ripa) (+ emblematical representation of concept) [57AA6121(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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Link to an image of this page [E8r p79]
Cuculi.
Cuckoos
EMBLEMA LX.
Ruricolas agreste genus plerique cucullos
Cur vocitent, quaenam prodita caussa fuit?[1]
Vere novo cantat Coccyx, quo tempore vites
Qui non absolvit, iure vocatur iners.
Fert ova in nidos alienos, qualiter ille
Cui thalamum prodit uxor adulterio.
Whatever explanation has been given for the custom of calling country-dwellers, that rustic race, ‘cuckoos’? - When spring is new, the cuckoo calls, and anyone who has not pruned his vines by this time is rightly blamed for being idle. The cuckoo desposits its eggs in other birds’ nests, like the man on whose account a wife betrays her marriage bed in adultery.
1. See Pliny, Natural History, 18.66.249, and Horace, Satires, 1.7.31, for the use of the word ‘cuckoo’ as term of mockery for the idle man who has failed to finish pruning his vines before the cuckoo is heard calling.
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