Antiquissima quaeque com-
mentitia.

The oldest things are all invented

Pellenaee senex, cui forma est histrica, Proteu, [1]
Qui modò membra viri fers, modò membra feri.
Dic agè quae species ratio te vertit in omnes,
Nulla sit ut vario certa figura tibi?
Signa vetustatis, primaevi & praefero secli: [2]
De quo quisque suo somniat arbitrio.

Proteus, old man of Pallene, whose outward appearance changes like an actor’s, assuming sometimes the body of a man, sometimes that of a beast, come, tell me, what is your reason for turning into all kinds of shapes, so that you have no permanent form as you constantly alter? I offer symbols of antiquity and the very first times, concerning which everyone dreams up what he will.

Scyphus Nestoris.

Nestor’s cup

Nestoreum geminis cratera hunc accipe fundis,[1]
Quod gravis argenti massa profudit opus.
Claviculi ex auro: stant circum quatuor ansae:
Unum quanque super fulva columba sedet:
Solus eum potuit longaevus tollere Nestor
Meonidae doceas, quid sibi Musa velit?
Est coelum Scyphus ipse: color argenteus illi est,
Aurea sunt coeli sydera claviculi.
  Link to an image of this page  [G1r f36r]Pleiadas esse putant, quas dixerit ille columbas.[2]
Umbilici gemini[3] magna minorque fera est.[4]
Haec Nestor longo sapiens intelligit usu
Bella gerunt fortes, Callidus astra tenet.

Receive this bowl of Nestor with its double support, a work which a heavy mass of silver shaped. Its studs are of gold. Four handles stand about it. Above each one sits a yellow dove. Only aged Nestor was able to lift it. Do tell us what Homer’s Muse intended. The cup itself is the heavens; its colour is silvery; the studs are the golden stars of heaven. They think that what he called doves are the Pleiades. The twin bosses are the great and lesser beast. The wise Nestor understood this by long experience: the strong wage war, the wise man grasps the stars.