Link to an image of this page [E3r]
IMPOSSIBILE.
The impossible
Abluis Aethiopem quid frustra? ah desine, noctis
Illustrare nigrae nemo potest tenebras.[1]
Why are you washing an Ethiopian in vain? Oh, do stop. No one can turn the shades of black night into light.
1. This is a translation of Anthologia graeca 11.428. See also Aesop, Fables 11; Erasmus, Adagia 350, Aethiopen lavas.
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- water (one of the four elements) [21D] Search | Browse Iconclass
- stretched forward (+ holding something) [31A2512(+933)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- gripping someone by the arm [31A2541] Search | Browse Iconclass
- brush, sponge, etc. (toilet articles) [31A5462] Search | Browse Iconclass
- washing and bathing - AA - in the open air [31AA54] Search | Browse Iconclass
- looking downwards [31B6212] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- (showing oneself) undressed, quasi-nude [41D9] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- (personifications of) 'Vanitas', the vanity of human life; Fragilit� humana, Fugacit� delle grandezze & della gloria mondana, Meditatione della morte, Opera vana, Piacere vano, Vana gloria, Vanit� (Ripa) [11R5] Search | Browse Iconclass
- day and night [23R] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Impossibility (+ emblematical representation of concept) [52BB42(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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Section: LA REPUBLICQUE. View all emblems in this section.
Link to an image of this page [M5r p185]
La Republicque delivrée.[1]
Caesar occis, la liberté vengée
Par le Duc Brut fut monnoie forgée,
Ou une dague, & ung bonnet estoient,
Tel que les serfz affranchiz le portoient.[2]
Brut Capitaine de
la republicque Rommaine, pour memoi-
re d’avoir restitué la liberté
oppressée par la domination de
Caesar, par luy occis, feit forger monnoie à la marque d’une
dague, denotant l’occision de
Caesar, & d’ung bonnet, signifiant
la liberté de la Republicque. Car les libertins. (C’est à dire serfz
affranchiz) quand ilz sortoient de servitude, & entroient en li-
berté: Ilz prenoient le bonnet, Comme encore au jourdhuy font les
Maistres es arts à Paris, passans de scholasticque discipline, à mai-
trise, & laissans la ceincture enseigne de servitude, & subjection.
1. In the 1549 French edition, this emblem has no woodcut.
2. Julius Caesar, who had become in effect the sole ruler of Rome, was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC by Marcus and Decimus Brutus, Cassius and other conspirators. Alciato describes the well-known coin-type celebrating the restoration of republican government issued by Brutus after the murder. This bears the legend EID.MAR. (The Ides of March) across the lower section; above this, occupying the upper two thirds of the coin face, are two upright daggers with a cap of liberty between. Alciato had presumably seen or owned such a coin. He wrote a short treatise on ancient coins.
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- death of Caesar, i.e. the murder of Caesar: he is slain in the Senate at the foot of Pompey's statue, exclaiming 'et tu Brute' [98B(CAESAR)68] Search | Browse Iconclass
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