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EMBLEMA CXCIII [=192] .

Aëre quandoque salutem redimen-
dam.

Sometimes money must be spent to purchase safety

Beaver biting off its own testicles which are eaten by hunting dogs.
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Et pedibus segnis, tumida & propendulus alvo,
Hac tamen insidias effugit arte fiber.
Mordicus ipse sibi medicata[1] virilia vellit,
Atque abicit, sese gnarus ob illa peti.
Huius ab exemplo disces non parcere rebus,
Et vitam ut redimas, hostibus aera dare.[2]

Though slow of foot and with swollen belly hanging down, the beaver nonetheless escapes the ambush by this trick: it tears off with its teeth its testicles, which are full of a medicinal substance, and throws them aside, knowing that it is hunted for their sake. - From this creature’s example you will learn not to spare material things, and to give money to the enemy to buy your life.

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Das CXCIII [=192] .

Man sol zu zeiten kein Gelt ansehen
daß man sich ledige.

Ein Biber ob er wol ist träg
Auff sein Füßn und hat ein bauch, läg
Jedoch so kan er artlich frey
Der Hünd empfliehen groß geschrey
Sein Hödlin er im selbs hrauß reist
Und herab hauwt dieweil er weist
Daß man darumb nachstellen thut
Im, dann in der Artzney seinds gut
An diesem nim ein Beyspil ebn
Das du zu erretten dein lebn
Vor deinem Feind kein Gut noch Gelt
Erkargen noch ersparen sölt.

Notes:

1.  Corrected from the errata.

2.  This is based on Aesop, Fables 153, where the same moral is drawn. For the information about the beaver, see Pliny, Natural History 8.47.109; Isidore, Etymologiae (Origines) 12.2.21.

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Mediolanum.

Milan

A pig with wool on its shoulders.
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Bituricis vervex Heduis dat sucula signum.
His populis patriae debita origo meae est,[1]
Quam Mediolanum Sacram dixere puellae,
Terram: nam vetus hoc gallica lingua sonat.
Culta Minerva fuit, nunc est, ubi numine Thecla
Mutato matris virginis ante domum.[2]
Laniger huic signum sus est,[3] animalque biforme
Acribus hinc setis, lanitio inde levi.

A ram provides the symbol for the Bituriges, a pig for the Aedui. My home country owes its origin to these peoples, a land sacred to the maiden, which they called Milan, for the ancient Gallic tongue names it so. Minerva was worshipped where now, with a change in presiding deity, Thecla is found before the house of the Virgin Mother. The city’s symbol is a woolly boar, an animal of double form, with sharp bristles at one end, smooth wool at the other.

Notes:

1.  patriae meae, ‘my home country’. Alciato was born near Milan, and wrote a history of the city and the surrounding area. His populis...debita origo...est, ‘owes its origin to these peoples’. In the classical period Northern Italy was occupied by Celtic tribes from Gaul. The Bituriges and Aedui were two Gallic peoples, whose language would be a form of continental Celtic. See Alciato, Historia Mediolanensis, col.1ff. Biturgia is the Latin name for the modern Bourges; Aeduorum civitas or Hedua were two of the Latin names used for modern Autun.

2.  The name of Minerva, the Roman virgin goddess, was transferred to a local Celtic divinity with some similarities. For the particular devotion of the early inhabitants to the worship of Minerva see Alciato, Historia Mediolanensis, col. 10. Tecla or Thecla was a Christian virgin martyr, supposedly a follower of St. Paul.

3.  Laniger huic signum sus est, ‘The city’s symbol is a woolly boar’. This is based on a supposed etymology of the Celtic name Mediolanum (Milan), as if from medio- ‘middle’ and lana ‘wool’, .i.e. ‘half-covered in wool’. (This is found in Claudian, Epithalamium, 180ff; Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae 7.17.2; Isidore, Etymologiae, 15.1.) The name probably means ‘in the middle of the plain’.

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