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Aemulatio impar.

Competing on unequal terms

LXVIII [=69] .

Altivolam miluus comitatur degener harpam, [1]
Et praedae partem saepe cadentis habet.
Mullum prosequitur qui spretas sargus ab illo, [2]
Praeteritasque avidus devorat ore dapes.
Sic mecum Oenocrates agit: at deserta studentum
Utitur hoc lippo curia tanquam oculo.[3]

An ignoble kite accompanies the soaring hawk and often gets a piece of the prey as it falls. The sargus follows the mudfish and greedily devours the food that it scorns and passes by. Oenocrates behaves like this with me - but the lecture-hall I’ve abandoned treats him like a runny eye.

Notes:

1.  For the association of the kite and the hawk see Aristotle, Historia animalium, 9.1.609.

2.  For the sargus see Emblem 29 ([A56a029]). For its habit of following the lutarius (the mudfish) and eating the food it disturbs as it burrows in the mud, see Pliny, Natural History, 9.30.65; Erasmus, Parabolae, p. 253.

3.  lippo...tamquam oculo, ‘like a runny eye’, a proverbial expression. See Erasmus, Adagia, 4100 (Lippo oculo similis): a runny eye is something you would prefer to be rid of, but while you have it you cannot leave it alone; similarly there are people you do not like, but you find yourself obliged to make use of them.

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    Gula.

    Gluttony

    LXVI.

    Curculione gruis tumida vir pingitur alvo,
    Qui laurum, aut manibus gestet onocrotalum[1].
    Talis forma fuit Dionysi[2], & talis Apici,[3]
    Et gula quos celebres deliciosa facit.

    We have here painted a man with a crane’s long gullet and a swollen belly, holding in his hands a gull or pelican. Such was the form of Dionysius, such the form of Apicius, and all those whom gourmet taste makes famous.

    Notes:

    1.  These birds were symbols of ravenous greed. The pelican is called inexplebile animal, ‘insatiable creature’, by Pliny, Natural History, 10.66.131; cf. Emblem 283 ([A56a283]). For the gull, see Erasmus, Adagia, 1133 (Larus: the gull will also fit food-suppliers because it is a bird with an appetite for fish).

    2.  Dionysius II, Tyrant of Syracuse. After his deposition, he lived in Corinth, and many anecdotes were told of his indulgent way of life there, including the story that he died of being overweight.

    3.  Apicius was a famous gourmet of the time of the Emperor Tiberius. See Seneca, De consolatione, 10.8-9 and Martial, Epigrams, 3.22: he spent a hundred million sesterces on food items and committed suicide for fear of starvation on discovering that he had only one million left. He composed two cookery books, but the one which has come down to us under his name is a fourth- to fifth-century compilation drawing on his works and several others (ed. princ. Le Signerre, Milan 1498).

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      • Gluttony, Intemperance, 'Gula'; 'Gola', 'Ingordigia', 'Ingordigia overo Avidità ', 'Voracità ' (Ripa) ~ personification of one of the Seven Deadly Sins [11N35] Search | Browse Iconclass
      • water-birds: pelican [25F36(PELICAN)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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      • Intemperance, Immoderation (+ emblematical representation of concept) [54AA43(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
      • specific aspects, allegorical aspects of Bacchus; Bacchus as patron [92L17] Search | Browse Iconclass
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