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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [E8v]

EI QUI SEMEL SUA PRO-
degerit aliena credi non
oportere.

Others’ property should not be entrusted to a person who has once squandered his own

Statue of a woman killing her children
[Click on image to enlarge]

Cholchidos in gremio nidum quid congeris? heu
Nescia cur pullos tam male credis avis.
Dira parens Medaea suos saevissima natos
Perdidit, & speras parcat ut illa tuis.[1]

Why do you build your nest in the bosom of the woman from Colchis? Alas, ignorant bird, why do you entrust your nestlings so mistakenly? That frightful mother, Medea, in her savagery slew her own children. Do you expect her to spare yours?

Notes:

1.  This is based on Anthologia graeca 9.346, a much-translated epigram, on the subject of a swallow that built her nest on a representation of Medea. Colchidos, ‘of the woman from Colchis’, refers to Medea, from Colchis on the Black Sea, who slew her children by Jason, leader of the Argonauts, to avenge his unfaithfulness. See further [A31a034].

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Section: SCIENCE. View all emblems in this section.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [P7r p237]

La lettre occit: L’esprit vivifie.[1]

Man killing a dragon who has already killed someone. Man plowing with oxen in the background and soldiers emerging from the ground.
[Click on image to enlarge]

Quand Cadmus heut dens de serpens semées
En terre Grecque: incontinent armées
D’hommes divers sortirent de la terre:
S’entretuans par mutuelle guerre.[2]
Ceulx qui salvéz par Pallas demourerent,
Armes jectans, la paix en main jurerent.
Cadmus premier les lettres apporta,[3]
Et bonnes ars par icelles nota.
Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [P7v p238] Les professeurs desquelles s’entremordent,
Et point (sinon par Pallas) ne s’accordent.

Cadmus Phoenicien filz du Roy Agenor fut le
premier qui apporta les lettres d’Asie en Euro-
pe, & les espandit par toute la Grece, D’ond est
sortie la fable, qu’il sema les dens d’ung serpent,
desquelles sortirent hommes arméz, se comba-
tans, & entretuans les ungz, les aultres, jusque à
cinq restantz, pacifiéz par Pallas, & depuys mul-
tipliéz en grand peuple. Le serpent est Pruden-
ce, les dens semées sont les lettres agues, & subti-
les dispersées par la Grece, Les hommes arméz,
sortans de telle semence sont les gens literéz, &
savans es ars, & sciences, Lesquelz par envie mu-
tuelle se defont l’ung l’aultre, sinon qu’ilz
soient reduictz en paix par Pallas, qui est Sapience, &
multiplient croissans tous les jours en nombre
infiny: Tant qu’a la fin y en aura trop.

Notes:

1.  2 Corinthians 3:6.

2.  For the story of Cadmus, founder of Thebes (in Aonia, or less correctly in the French, in Thessaly), and the dragon’s teeth, see Ovid, Metamorphoses, 3.99ff. Athena, goddess of wisdom - here called Tritonia, from the place of her birth in North Africa - brought the internecine struggle between the earth-born warriors to an end.

3.  Cadmus supposedly introduced writing to Greece. The scattering of the dragon’s teeth was interpreted as the invention of the alphabet.

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