
Que presto viene el mal y el
remedio tarde.
Ottava rhima.
Despues que Juppiter echō d’el cielo
A Atis,[1] ay gran mal en los mortales,
Que ella volando, no ay en este suelo
Cosa que no la enturbie con mill males
Tras esta las tres Litas con buen zelo
Remedian los desastres humanales.[2]
Mas no pueden hasta muy largos aņos
(Porque son cojas) soldar tantos daņos.
1. ‘Despues que Juppiter echōd’el cielo / A Atis’. See Homer, Iliad 19. 125ff.
2. ‘las tres Litas’. See Homer, Iliad 9.502ff. Ate means ‘Mischief’, Litae, ‘Prayers’. Ate was cast out of Olympus to bring harm to mankind, a personification of humans being led astray. The Litae were a personification of prayers offered in repentance.
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REMEDIA IN ARDUO MALA.
in prono esse.
Remedies are hard, damage is easy

Aetheriis postquam deiecit sedibus Aten,
Iupiter[1] heu vexat quām mala noxa viros.
Evolat haec pedibus celer & pernicibus alis,
Intactumque nihil casibus esse sinit.
Ergo litae proles Iovis hanc comitantur euntem,[2]
Sarcturae quicquid fecerit illa mali.
Sed quia segnipedes strabae[3] lassaeque senecta,
Nil nisi post longo tempore restituunt.[4]
Once Jupiter had cast Ate down from the heavenly abode, what an evil bane thereafter assailed poor man! Ate flies out fleet of foot with fast-beating wing and leaves nothing untouched by mishap. So Jove’s daughters, the Litae, accompany her as she goes, to mend whatever ill she has brought about. But they are slow-footed, poor of sight and weary with age, and so they restore nothing until later, after long passage of time.
1. ‘Jupiter had cast Ate down’. See Homer, Iliad 19. 125ff.
2. ‘the Litae accompany her’. See Homer, Iliad 9.502ff. Ate means ‘Mischief’, Litae, ‘Prayers’. Ate was cast out of Olympus to bring harm to mankind, a personification of humans being led astray. The Litae were a personification of prayers offered in repentance.
3. Textual variant: luscae.
4. The woodcut is puzzling. Possibly the monster is supposed to represent Ate; in later editions she appears as a harpy-like figure. The Litae feature, in later editions, as old women. The old man presumably represents the suffering of mankind.
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