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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [C6v f9v]

EMBLEMA XIII.

Gramen.

Grass

Gramineam Fabio patres tribuere corollam[1]
Fregerat ut poenos, Hannibalemque mora
Occulit inflexo nidum sibi gramine Alauda,
Vulgo aiunt, Pullos sic fovet illa suos.
Saturno Martique sacrum, quo Glaucus adeso
Polybides,[2] factus creditur esse Deus.
His meritò arguitur nodis tutela salusque
Herbaque tot vires haec digitalis habet.[3]

The Roman Senate bestowed on Fabius a crown of grass, when he had by his delaying tactics broken the Carthaginians and Hannibal. The lark hides its nest among the bent grass, as they say, and so it protects its young. This grass is sacred to Saturn and to Mars, and Glaucus, son of Polybus, is believed to have become a god by eating it. - Rightly is protection and safety indicated by these knotted stems: this plant, the finger-grass, has so many powers.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [C7r f10r]

Das XIII.

Graß.[4]

Two statues on a pedestal, one a sodier and one a naked, wreathed figure holding plants.
[Click on image to enlarge]

Dem Fabi daß er mit verzug
Den listigen Hannibal schlug
Und schwecht dern von Carthago macht
Wurd im von Graß ein Kräntzlein bracht
Mit diesem verwirrten Graß sol
Die Lerch ir Nestlin bedecken wol
Das also drinn außbrüten künd
(Wie dsag) ir junge die Blut sind
Diß Kreutlin ist den Göttern zgleich
Saturno und Marti geweicht
Welchs als Glaucus geessen hott
Ist er gleich worden zu eim Gott
Mit diesem knöpfften Graß wirt an
Gezeigt, schutz, schirm, heil jederman
So vil krafft und tugend ist mit
Begabt das Kreutlin der Weg trit.

Notes:

1.  Quintus Fabius Maximus was nicknamed Cunctator, ‘the Delayer’, for his strategy of avoiding pitched battles with Hannibal’s triumphant army in the Second Punic War. This contributed to Hannibal’s eventual withdrawal from Italy. Cf. Ennius’ famous line, Annals, 370: unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem: ‘one man by his delaying tactics saved the day for us’. A crown of fresh grass plucked from the spot was given to its general by a whole army if delivered from a state of siege. Fabius was awarded such a crown by general consent for saving all Italy from the threat of Hannibal. See Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 5.6.10; Pliny, Natural History, 22.4.6ff.

2.  Some of the divine herb sown by Cronos (a Greek divinity equated with the Roman Saturn) was eaten by Glaucus the fisherman, who then became a sea-god; see Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 7.296e; 15.679a; Ovid, Metamorphoses, 13.917ff.

3.  tot vires habet, ‘has so many powers’. See Pliny, Natural History, 24.118.178-83 for the medicinal uses of grass. The finger-grass (ib.183) is common in Mediterranean areas.

4.  The woodcut here is wrong, but was no doubt used because of the presence of two gods. Here, on the woodcut designed for Emblem 39 ([A67a039]), they are Minerva and Bacchus, and not the required Saturn and Mars.

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