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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [C5r p41]

Iusta vindicta.[1]

Just recompense

Cyclops being stabbed in the eye
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Dum residet Cyclops sinuosi in faucibus antri,
Haec secum teneras concinit inter oves,
Pascite vos herbas, sociis ego pascar Achivis,
Postremumque Utin viscera nostra ferent.
Audiit haec Ithacus, Cyclopaque lumine cassum
Reddidit, en poenas ut suus author habet[2]. [3]

Sitting in the mouth of his arching cave, the Cyclops sang thus to himself amidst his gentle sheep: Do you feed on grass; I shall feed on the Greek companions, and last of all my belly shall get No-man. The man from Ithaca heard this and made the Cyclops eyeless. See how the one who plotted misfortune collects it himself!

Notes:

1.  From 1536 onwards, Wechel editions have a different picture depicting the Cyclops being blinded, more correctly, with a stake rather than an arrow.

2.  A proverbial sentiment: cf. Erasmus, Adagia 3091, Di tibi dent tuam mentem.

3.  For the story of Ulysses (the man from Ithaca) in the Cyclops’ cave and his escape by blinding the Cyclops, see Homer, Odyssey 9.177 ff. Ulysses had told the Cyclops his name was No-man. (Utis l. 4).

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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [C4v p40]

In illaudata laudantes.

Praising the wrong things

Armour hanging on tree and elephant
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Ingentes Galatum semermi milite turmas,
Spem praeter trepidus fuderat Antiochus.[1]
Lucarum cum saeva boum vis,[2] ira, proboscis,
Tum primům[3] hostiles corripuisset equos.
Ergo trophaea locans Elephantis imagine pinxit,
Insuper & sociis occideramus ait.
Bellua servasset ni nos foedissima barrus,
At superasse iuvat, sic superasse pudet.

Antiochus, in spite of his fears, had beyond all expectation routed the huge squadrons of Galatians with his light-armed troops, when the savage might of elephants, their raging and their trunks, for the first time ever fell upon the enemy’s cavalry. So when he set up the trophy, he adorned it with the picture of an elephant and furthermore said to his troops: “We would have fallen, if this revolting beast, the elephant, had not preserved us. Pleasing as it is to conquer, it is galling to conquer like this”.

Notes:

1.  For this incident, see Lucian, Zeuxis sive Antiochus 8-11. In 276 BC Antiochus I won against fearful odds by directing his sixteen elephants against the Galatian horsemen and scythed chariots. Not only did the horses turn in panic and cause chaos among their own infantry, but the elephants came on behind, tossing, goring and trampling. Although he had won an overwhelming victory, Antiochus did not consider it a matter for congratulation.

2.  ‘Might of elephants’, lit. ‘might of Lucanian cattle’, supposedly so called by the Romans because they first saw these strange beasts in Lucania in south Italy, when King Pyrrhus of Epirus made use of them in his defeat of the Romans at the battle of Heraclea in 280 BC. See Pliny, Natural History 8.6.16.

3.  ‘For the first time ever’. The Galatians, Celtic tribes who had invaded Asia Minor, had never seen elephants before. Elephants had often been used in battle on other occasions.

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