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Ignavi.
Good for nothing
XXI.
Ignavi aerdeolam stellarem[1] effingere servi
Et studia, & mores fabula prisca fuit,
Quae famulum Asteria[2] volucris sumpsisse figuram
Est commenta, fides sit penes historicos.
Degener hic veluti qui caevet in aëre falco est
Dictus ab antiquis vatibus ardelio.[3]
There was an old story to the effect that the little starred heron displays the activities and character of a good-for-nothing slave, a story which alleged that the slave Asterias took the form of a bird. Let the [natural] historians vouch for this. This sort of despicable person is like the kestrel quivering in one place in the air, a person called a fussing busybody by the ancient poets.
1. The ‘little starred heron’, which, according to the story, had once been human and a slave, was, because of its sluggish nature, called ocnus, i.e. ‘idleness’. Cf. Emblem 17 ([A56a017]). As it understood human speech, it hated to be called this, or ‘slave’. See Pausanias, 10.29.2; Aelian, De natura animalium 5.36; Aristotle, Historia animalium, 9.18.617.
2. Asterias, ‘starred’, is the Greek name for ardea stellaris, possibly a bittern.
3. ardelio: ‘a fussing busybody’. See Martial, Epigrams, 2.7.7.; 4.78.9: Phaedrus, Fables, 2.5.1. Cf. Erasmus, Adagia, 543, Callipides, on someone who expends a great deal of energy achieving nothing.
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- predatory birds (with NAME) [25F33(BUZZARD)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- predatory birds (with NAME) [25F33(FALCON)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- shore-birds and wading-birds: heron (+ variant) [25F37(HERON)(+0)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- 'Servit?Servit? forza' (Ripa) [46A180] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Sluggishness, Inertia; 'Dapocaggine', 'Pigritia' (Ripa) (+ emblematical representation of concept) [54AA11(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Worthlessness [54BB6] 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(ARDELIO)3] Search | Browse Iconclass
- other metamorphoses of male persons (with NAME) into birds [97D3(ASTERIAS)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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