Section: PERFIDIA (Treachery). View all emblems in this section.
Link to an image of this page [D7v p62]
Ei qui semel sua prodegerit, aliena
credi non oportere.
Others’ property should not be entrusted to a person who has once squandered his own
Colchidos in gremio nidum quid congeris? eheu
Nescia cur pullos tam malč credis avis?
Dira parens Medaea suos saevissima natos
Perdidit, & speras parcat ut illa tuis?[1]
Why do you build your nest in the bosom of the woman from Colchis? Alas, ignorant bird, why do you entrust your nestlings so mistakenly? That frightful mother, Medea, in her savagery slew her own children. Do you expect her to spare yours?
1. This is based on Anthologia graeca 9.346, a much-translated epigram, on the subject of a swallow that built her nest on a representation of Medea. Colchidos, ‘of the woman from Colchis’, refers to Medea, from Colchis on the Black Sea, who slew her children by Jason, leader of the Argonauts, to avenge his unfaithfulness. See further [A50a078].
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Section: PERFIDIA (Treachery). View all emblems in this section.
Link to an image of this page [D7r p61]
In adulatores.
Flatterers
Semper hiat, semper tenuem qua vescitur auram,
Reciprocat Ghamaeleon[1],
Et mutat faciem, varios sumitque colores,
Praeter rubrum, vel candidum.[2]
Sic & Adulator populari vescitur aura,[3]
Hiansque cuncta devorat.
Et solųm 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.
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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