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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [D3r f27r]

Furor, & rabies.

Fury and madness

Ora gerit clypeus rabiosi picta leonis,
Et scriptum in summo margine carmen habet:
Hic hominum est terror, cuius possessor Atrida
Talia magnanimus signa Agamemno tulit.[1]

The shield bears the painted face of a raging lion, and inscribed upon the upper margin has a verse: ‘This is the terror of men, and the son of Atreus is its possessor’. Haughty Agamemnon bore this symbolic figure.

Notes:

1.  This poem is based on Pausanias, Periegesis, 5.19.4. For the ‘raging lion’. Cf. Emblem 70,‘Ira’ ([A46a070]). For Agamemnon’s savage temper, see e.g. Homer, Iliad, 1.103-4.


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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [O5v p218]

Musicam Diis curae esse.

The gods care for music

EMBLEMA CLXXXIV.

Locrensis posuit tibi Delphice Phoebe cicadam
Eunomus hanc, palmae signa decora suae.
Certabat plectro Sparthyn commissus in hostem,
Et percussa sonum pollice fila dabant.
Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [O6r p219]Trita fides rauco coepit cùm stridere bombo,
Legitimum harmonias & vitiare melos:
Tum citharae argutans suavis sese intulit ales,
Quae fractam impleret voce cicada fidem:
Quaeque allecta, soni ad legem descendit ab altis
Saltibus, ut nobis garrula ferret opem.
Ergo tuae ut firmus stet honos, ô sancte, cicadae,
Pro cithara hic fidicen aeneus ipsa sedet.[1]

Phoebus, god of Delphi, Locrian Eunomus set up this cicada in your honour, an appropriate symbol of his victory. He was competing in the lyre contest against his rival Sparthys and the strings resounded as he plucked them with the plectrum. A worn string began to buzz with a hoarse rattle and spoil the true melody of the music. Then a sweet-voiced creature, a cicada, flew chirping onto the lyre to supply with its song the broken string. Recruited to follow the rules of musical sound, it flew down from the high glades to bring us aid with its chirping song. Accordingly, so that the honour due to your cicada, o holy god, may last undiminished, on top of the lyre she sits here herself, a minstrel in bronze.

Notes:

1.  This is a translation of Anthologia graeca 6.54. See Strabo, Geography 6.1.9 for the story of Eunomus and the statue he set up at his home town of Locri commemorating this incident in the song contest at the Pythian Games (celebrated near Delphi, in honour of Apollo, Artemis and their mother Leto); also Erasmus, Adagia 414, Acanthia Cicada.


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