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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [B3v f11v]

Concordia insuperabilis.

Concord is insuperable

A three headed man.
[Click on image to enlarge]

Tergeminos inter fuerat concordia fratres,
Tanta simul pietas mutua, & unus amor:
Invicti humanis ut viribus ampla tenerent
Regna, uno dicti nomine Geryonis.[1]

There was concord between triplet brothers, such mutual care, one love between them all; and so, unconquerable by human force, they held wide realms and were called by the one name of Geryones.

Notes:

1.  This is a rationalisation of Geryones, the unconquerable giant with three heads or three bodies, who dwelt on the island Erytheia of the mythic Hesperides, eventually vanquished and killed by Hercules during his abduction of Geryones’ famous cattle. See Emblem 25 ([A46a025]).

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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [n1v p194]

Strenuorum immortale
nomen.

Achievers have an immortal name

XVII.

Aeacidae tumulum Rhoetaeo in littore cernis,[1]
Quem plerunque pedes visitat alba Thetis.[2]
Obtegitur semper viridi lapis hic amarantho,[3]
Quòd nunquam herois sit moriturus honos.
Hic Graium murus,[4] magni nex Hectoris, aut [=haud] plus
Debet Maeonidae, quam sibi Maeonides.[5]

You see the tomb of Aeacus’ descendant on the Rhoetean shore, which white-footed Thetis often visits. This stone is always covered with green amaranth, because the honour due to heroes shall never die. This man was‘the wall of the Greeks’, and the destruction of great Hector, and he owes no more to the Lydian poet than the poet does to him.

Notes:

1.  ‘Aeacus’ descendant’, i.e. Achilles, the greatest warrior on the Greek side in the Trojan War. Rhoeteum was a promontory on the Trojan coast (though normally associated with the tomb of Ajax).

2.  Thetis, a sea-nymph, mother of Achilles, called ‘silver-footed’ by Homer.

3.  amarantho: the name of the plant means ‘never-fading’. See Pliny, Natural History, 21.23.47.

4.  ‘the wall of the Greeks’, translating Homer’s description of Achilles at Iliad, 3.229.

5.  Maeonidae, ‘to the Lydian poet’, i.e. Homer, who told in the Iliad the famous story of Achilles’ wrath and refusal to fight during the Trojan War, and of his eventual slaying of Hector, the chief warrior on the Trojan side. (For which see Emblem 057, [A56a057]). For the sentiment that great deeds need to be sung in order not to be forgotten, see Horace, Odes, 4.8.20ff; and that great literature needs great themes, see Tacitus, Dialogus de oratoribus, 37.

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