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Section: PAIX. View all emblems in this section.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [O4r p215]

De guerre Paix.

APODEIXE.

Bees using a helmet as a hive.
[Click on image to enlarge]

Voy, Que le heaulme en guerre souvent mis
Tant de fois tinct du sang des ennemis:
En temps de Paix sert de rusche, à la mousche
Contenant cire: & miel doulx à la bouche.
Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [O4v p216]Armes soient loing: Mais permise soit guerre,
Car aultrement, on ne peut paix acquerre.[1]

Une mesme chose peut avoir deux usa
ges contraires, comme l’espée porte
paix par craincte & Justice: & porte
guerre par injure, & audace. Pource
guerre est necessaire pour avoir paix.
Ce que demonstre ung heaulme, en
temps de guerre servant aulx armes:
en temps de paix aux aveilles, miel, &
cire.

Notes:

1.  Cf. Anthologia graeca, 6.236, where bees nest in what were once the beaks (projections at the prow) of war-galleys.

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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [Aaa3v p742]

Ex pace ubertas.

Prosperity as the result of peace

EMBLEMA CLXXIX.

Bird building its nest from vines on a small rocky island
[Click on image to enlarge]

Grandibus ex spicis tenues contexe corollas,
Quas circum alterno palmite vitis eat.
His comptae Alcyones[1] tranquilli in marmoris unda
Nidificant, pullos involucresque fovent.
Laetus erit Cereri, Baccho quoque[2] fertilis annus,
AEquorei si rex alitis instar[3] erit.

From fat ears of corn weave supple garlands, and let the vine encircle them with alternating stems. Decked out with these the halcyon birds build their nests on the wave of the glassy sea, and cherish their unfledged chicks. - The year will be rich for Ceres and fertile for Bacchus too, if the king is the image of the bird of the sea.

Notes:

1.  ‘halcyon birds’. For these see Aelian, De natura animalium 1.36; 9.17; Pliny, Natural History. 10.47.89-91; and for the legend of their transformation, Ovid, Metamorphoses 11, 410ff, esp. 728ff. Halcyons were supposed to build a nest and launch it on the sea at a time of calm peaceful weather provided for them about the time of the winter solstice. See Erasmus, Adagia 1552, Halcedonia sunt apud forum.

2.  ‘for Ceres...and for Bacchus too’, i.e. rich with crops of corn and wine.

3.  ‘is the image of the bird of the sea’, i.e. diffusing peace, love and concord. Before their metamorphosis into seabirds, Alcyone and her husband were a deeply loving royal couple ruling a peaceful country. This love persisted after the change, symbolised by the calm weather associated with their nesting.

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