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NON VULGANDA CON
SILIA.
Keep counsels secret.
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Limine quod caeco obscura & caligine monstrum[1],
Gnosiacis clausit Daedalus in latebris.
Depictum Romana phalanx in praelia gestat,
Semiviroque nitent signa superba[2] bove,
Nosque monent debere ducum secreta[3] latere,
Consilia auctori cognita techna[4] nocet.
The monster that Daedalus imprisoned in its Cretan lair, with hidden entrance and obscuring darkness, the Roman phalanx carries painted into battle; the proud standards flash with the half-man bull. These remind us that the secret plans of leaders must stay hid. A ruse once known brings harm to its author.
1. ‘The monster that Daedalus imprisoned’, i.e. the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull monster kept in the famous Labyrinth at Knossos, which Daedalus, the Athenian master-craftsman, constructed for King Minos.
2. According to Pliny, Natural History 10.5.16, before the second consulship of Marius (104 BC) Roman standards bore variously eagles, wolves, minotaurs, horses and boars. Marius made the eagle universal.
3. Cf. Festus, De verborum significatu (135 Lindsay): the Minotaur appears among the military standards, because the plans of leaders should be no less concealed than was the Minotaur’s lair, the Labyrinth.
4. Corrected from the Errata
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REVERENTIAM IN MATRIMO
NIO REQUIRI .
Respect is required in marriage
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Cum furit in Venerem, pelagi se in littore sistit,
Vipera, & ab stomacho dira venena vomit.
Murenamque ciens ingentia sybila tollit,
At subito amplexus appetit illa viri.[1]
Maxima debetur thalamo reverentia, coniunx,
Alterum debet coniugi & obsequium.
When the viper is sexually aroused, it stations itself on the seashore and ejects the dread poisons from its gut. To summon the moray eel, it raises a loud hissing, and suddenly she comes to the embrace of her mate. - Great reverence is owed to the marriage bed, and the partners owe each other mutual respect.
1. For the mating of the viper with the moray eel, see Pliny, Natural History 9.39.76; Aelian, De natura animalium 1.50; 9.66. The viper spits out the poison in order to be gentle and safe for the union.
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