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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.
Notes:
1. This is a translation of Anthologia graeca 11.428. See also Aesop, Fables 11; Erasmus, Adagia 350, Aethiopen lavas.
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- water (one of the four elements) [21D] Search | Browse Iconclass
- stretched forward (+ holding something) [31A2512(+933)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- gripping someone by the arm [31A2541] Search | Browse Iconclass
- brush, sponge, etc. (toilet articles) [31A5462] Search | Browse Iconclass
- 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
- African negroes (with NAME) [32B321(MOOR)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- jug and basin; wash-basin [41A2415] Search | Browse Iconclass
- bed [41A761] Search | Browse Iconclass
- sheet [41A7633] Search | Browse Iconclass
- head-gear [41D221] Search | Browse Iconclass
- clothing for the upper part of the body (+ men's clothes) [41D223(+81)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- clothing for the lower part of the body [41D23] Search | Browse Iconclass
- (showing oneself) undressed, quasi-nude [41D9] Search | Browse Iconclass
Relating to the text:
- (personifications of) 'Vanitas', the vanity of human life; Fragilit� humana, Fugacit� delle grandezze & della gloria mondana, Meditatione della morte, Opera vana, Piacere vano, Vana gloria, Vanit� (Ripa) [11R5] Search | Browse Iconclass
- day and night [23R] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Impossibility (+ emblematical representation of concept) [52BB42(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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