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QUI ALTA CONTEM-
plantur cadere.
Those who contemplate the heights come to grief
Dum Turdos visco, pedica dum fallit Alaudas,
Et iactam [=iacta]
altivolam figit harundo gruem
Dipsada non prudens auceps pede perculit ultrix,
Illa mala [=mali]
emissum virus ab ore iacit.
Sic obit extento qui sydera respicit arcu,
Securus fati quod iacit ante pedes.[1]
While he tricks thrushes with bird-lime, larks with snares, while his speeding shaft pierces the high-flying crane, the careless bird-hunter steps on a snake; avenging the injury, it spits the darting venom from its jaws. So he dies, a man who gazes at the stars with bow at the ready, oblivious of the mishap lying before his feet.
1. See Anthologia graeca 7.172 and Aesop, Fables 137.
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- snakes (+ animal with prey) [25F42(+452)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- arm stretched forward (+ holding something) [31A2512(+933)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- one leg in front of the other (+ standing) [31A2621(+51)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- drawing, pulling something [31A2747] Search | Browse Iconclass
- stretching (movement of the human body) [31A2752] Search | Browse Iconclass
- looking upwards [31B6211] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- animal killing man [34F13] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- bird hunting (+ bow and arrow) [43C1113(+4112)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- fowling, fowler [43C13] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- contemplating the firmament [24F10] Search | Browse Iconclass
- shore-birds and wading-birds: crane [25F37(CRANE)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Rashness, Imprudence, Recklessness (+ emblematical representation of concept) [52AA21(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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Link to an image of this page [E3r]
IMPOSSIBILE.
The impossible
Abluis Aethiopem quid frustra? ah desine, noctis
Illustrare nigrae nemo potest tenebras.[1]
Why are you washing an Ethiopian in vain? Oh, do stop. No one can turn the shades of black night into light.
1. This is a translation of Anthologia graeca 11.428. See also Aesop, Fables 11; Erasmus, Adagia 350, Aethiopen lavas.
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- washing and bathing - AA - in the open air [31AA54] Search | Browse Iconclass
- looking downwards [31B6212] Search | Browse Iconclass
- adult man (+ three persons) [31D14(+73)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- white races and peoples (+ men) [32B31(+51)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- African negroes (with NAME) (+ men) [32B321(ETHIOPIAN)(+51)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- day and night [23R] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Impossibility (+ emblematical representation of concept) [52BB42(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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