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Amicitia etiam post mortem durans.[1]

Friendship lasting even beyond death

Emblema clix.

A vine twined around a tree.
[Click on image to enlarge]

Arentem senio, nudam quoque frondibus ulmum,
Complexa est viridi vitis opaca coma:[2]
Agnoscítque vices naturae, & grata parenti
Officii reddit mutua iura suo.
Exemplóque monet, tales nos quaerere amicos,
Quos neque disiungat foedere summa dies.

A vine shady with green foliage embraced an elm tree that was dried up with age and bare of leaves. The vine recognises the changes wrought by nature and, ever grateful, renders to the one that reared it the duty it owes in return. By the example it offers, the vine tells us to seek friends of such a sort that not even our final day will uncouple them from the bond of friendship.

ID ex Graeco Antipatri: quo docemur amicos nobis
esse deligendos, qui nec temporis diuturnitate, &
ne quidem post mortem ipsam amare desinant: quod
dictum fuisse Phocionis retulit Stobaeus.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [X4v f220v]

L’amitié permanente voire apres la mort.

UN gros Orme tout vieil, & par tout desseché,
Contre une vigne basse estroittement branché,
Fut d’elle soustenu, comme en recognoissance
Qu’ell’ avoit prins par luy sa premiere accroissance.
C’est pour enseignement, qu’il nous fault acquerir
Des fidelles amis, qui jusques à mourir,
Voire apres nostre mort, de nous aymer ne cessent:
Aussi pour rien que soit, jamais ne nous delaissent.

CEcy est translaté du Grec d’Antipater:
dont sommes enseignez que nous de-
vons choisir des amis, qui par longueur de
temps, mesmes apres la mort ne cessent de
nous aymer. qui estoit le dire de Phocion,
comme escrit Stobée.

Notes:

1.  See Erasmus’ famous variations on this theme in De copia (CWE 24. pp. 354-64).

2.  In ancient Italy young vines were often supported by elm trees. See Vergil, Georgics 1.2.

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IN AVAROS, VEL QUIBUS ME-
lior conditio ab extraneis offertur.

On the avaricious; or being treated better by strangers.

Figure astride a dolphin playing a harp.
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Delphini insidens vada[1] cerula sulcat Arion[2],
Hocque aures mulcet frenat & ora sono.
Quam sit avari hominis, non tam mens dira ferarum est,
Quique viris rapimur, piscibus eripimur.

Astride a dolphin, Arion cleaves the dark blue waves, and with this song charms the creature’s ears and muzzles its mouth: “The mind of wild beasts is not so savage as that of greedy man. We who are savaged by men are saved by fish”.

Notes:

1.  The earlier Augsburg editions read unda.

2.  The crew of the ship on which the celebrated musician Arion was travelling, after robbing him, prepared to throw him overboard. He persuaded them to allow him to play his lyre for the last time. Then, after invoking the gods, he jumped into the sea, whereupon a music-loving dolphin conveyed him to land. See Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 16.19.

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