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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [E5v f37v]

Aemulatio impar.

Competing on unequal terms

Two birds of prey flying one above the other.
[Click on image to enlarge]

Altivolam miluus comitatur degener harpam, [1]
Et praedae partem saepe cadentis habet.
Mullum prosequitur qui spretas sargus ab illo, [2]
Praeteritasque avidus devorat ore dapes.
Sic mecum Oenocrates agit: at deserta studentum
Utitur hoc lippo curia tanquam oculo.[3]

An ignoble kite accompanies the soaring hawk and often gets a piece of the prey as it falls. The sargus follows the mudfish and greedily devours the food that it scorns and passes by. Oenocrates behaves like this with me - but the lecture-hall I’ve abandoned treats him like a runny eye.

Notes:

1.  For the association of the kite and the hawk see Aristotle, Historia animalium, 9.1.609.

2.  For the sargus’s habit of following the lutarius (the mudfish) and eating the food it disturbs as it burrows in the mud, see Pliny, Natural History, 9.30.65; Erasmus, Parabolae, p. 253.

3.  lippo...tamquam oculo, ‘like a runny eye’, a proverbial expression. See Erasmus, Adagia, 4100 (Lippo oculo similis): a runny eye is something you would prefer to be rid of, but while you have it you cannot leave it alone; similarly there are people you do not like, but you find yourself obliged to make use of them.

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  • animal with prey «« KEY (452) TO 25F animals [25F(+452)] Search | Browse Iconclass
  • bony fishes (+ dying animal; death of animal; dead animal) [25F62(+63)] Search | Browse Iconclass
  • bony fishes (with NAME) (+ animal with prey) [25F62(BREAM)(+452)] Search | Browse Iconclass
  • bony fishes: mullet (+ animal with prey) [25F62(MULLET)(+452)] Search | Browse Iconclass
  • wine-testing, wine-grading [47I4251] Search | Browse Iconclass
  • Imparity, Inequality (+ emblematical representation of concept) [51BB3(+4):54EE33(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
  • Sponging, Parasitizing (+ emblematical representation of concept) [57AA6122(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
  • historical person (with NAME) other representations to which the NAME of a historical person may be attached (with NAME of person) [61B2(ALCIATUS, Andreas)3] Search | Browse Iconclass
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Section: LUXURE. View all emblems in this section.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [F8r p95]

Les biens des prodigues mal
employéz.

Sur un hault roch, faict d’un mont sec & maigre:
Fruictz sans saveur porte le figuier aigre.
Que mangent tous corneilles, & corbeaux
Au genre humain inutiles oyseaux.
Ainsi Putains, flateurs, mangent le bien
Des riches folz, & les bons n’en ont rien.[1]

Des biens du riche fol personne
ne s’en sent sinon, Canailles, Mac-
quereaulx, Putains, & flateurs.

Notes:

1.  This is based on an idea in Anthologia Graeca, 12.185.

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