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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [N8v p208]

In receptatores sicariorum.[1]

Those who harbour cut-throats

XCIIII.

Deer with a man's face being attacked by dogs
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Latronum furumque manus tibi Scaeva[2] per urbem
It comes, & diris cincta cohors gladiis.
Atque ita te mentis generosum prodige censes,
Quòd tua complureis allicit olla malos.
En novus Actaeon, qui postquàm cornua sumpsit,
In praedam canibus se dedit ipse suis.[3]

An evil-minded band of ruffians and thieves accompanies you about the city, a gang of supporters armed with lethal swords. And so, you wastrel, you consider yourself a fine lordly fellow because your cooking pot draws in crowds of scoundrels. - Here’s a fresh Actaeon - he, after he grew his horns, became the prey of his own hunting dogs.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [O1r p209]

Wider auffenthalter der todschleger.

XCIIII.

Trotzlich gewaffend dich belaydt
Moerder und dieb ein grosse rot,
Das achst du dich stoltz und gemayd,
Das du soelch nerst von deinem brot:
Sich fal nit in Actaeons not,
Den in eins hyrschen gstalt verkert
Sein aygen hunnd bissen zu tod,
Wer schelmen nert, ist unglucks werd.

Notes:

1.  Before the 1536 edition, Wechel editions used an earlier version of the woodcut in which the horns were more like a goat than a deer’s antlers.

2.  Scaeva, ‘evil-minded’. The capital letter suggests that the Latin word could be taken as a proper name in the vocative case, i.e addressing one Scaeva.

3.  For the story of Actaeon turned into a stag and killed by his own hounds, see Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.138ff. Similarly, the hangers-on will destroy the one who has fed them.

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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [X5v f165v]

IN ADULATORES.

Flatterers

Emblema. 53.

A Chameleon superimposed on the countryside with towns and villages.
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Semper hîat: semper tenuem qua vescitur auram.
Reciprocat cameleon[1],
Et mutat faciem: varios sumitque colores,
Praeter rubrum, vel candidum.[2]
Sic & adulator populari vescitur aura,[3]
Hiansque cuncta devorat.
Et solum 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.

Notes:

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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