Section: LE PRINCE. View all emblems in this section.
Link to an image of this page [M4r p183]
La clemence du Prince.[1]
Ce que le Roy des guespes rien ne poingt,[2]
(Quoy qu’il soit grand.) Et d’aguillon n’ha poinct
Monstre ung Seigneur doulx aulx siens, comme amys:
Et les sainct [=sainctz]
droictz à gens de bien commis.
Le Roy des guespes, & aveilles est deux fois
plus grand, & fort que les aultres, & si n’ha
point d’aguillon picquant, & veneneux, com
me les aultres. Ainsi ung bon Prince plus est
puissant, plus est clement, & moins nuysant,
tel que fut le Magnificque Jule Caesar.
1. In the 1549 French edition, this emblem has no woodcut.
2. According to Pliny, Natural History, 11.21.74, wasps do not have ‘kings’: it is the ‘mother’ wasps that are without stings. On the other hand, the ‘king’ bee (the ancients believed the queen bee to be male) and its lack of sting, or refusal to use its sting, was often mentioned; e.g. Aelian, De natura animalium, 5.10; Pliny, ibid., 17.52. For the analogy with kingship, see e.g. Seneca, De Clementia, 1.19; Erasmus, Adagia, 2601 (Scarabaeus aquilam quaerit).
Related Emblems
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Iconclass Keywords
Relating to the image:
- insects: wasp (+ animals used symbolically) [25F711(WASP)(+1)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- insects: wasp (+ postures, positions of animal(s)) [25F711(WASP)(+53)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- trees [25G3] Search | Browse Iconclass
- low hill country [25H114] Search | Browse Iconclass
- farm or solitary house in landscape [25I3] Search | Browse Iconclass
- clouds [26A] Search | Browse Iconclass
- dove-cote [34B2311] Search | Browse Iconclass
- farm (building) [41A17] Search | Browse Iconclass
- bee-hive [47I242] Search | Browse Iconclass
- swarm ~ bees (+ postures, positions of animal(s)) [47I243(+953)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- pedestal of a piece of sculpture (perhaps in the form of a herm) (+ variant) [48C244(+0)] Search | Browse Iconclass
Relating to the text:
- poison ~ product of animal [25F(+92)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- virtues of the ruler [44B10] Search | Browse Iconclass
- ruler and his subjects [44B1270] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Indulgence, Clemency; 'Clemenza', 'Clemenza & Moderatione', 'Indulgenza' (Ripa) (+ emblematical representation of concept) [57A73(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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