Link to an image of this page [Kk4v p520]
Paupertatem summis ingeniis obesse,
ne provehantur.[1]
Poverty prevents the advancement of the best of abilities
EMBLEMA CXXI.
Dextra tenet lapidem, manus altera sustinet alas:
Ut me pluma levat, sic grave mergit onus.
Ingenio poteram superas volitare per arces,
Me nisi paupertas invida deprimeret.
My right hand holds a rock, the other bears wings. As the feathers lift me, so the heavy weight drags me down. By my mental gifts I could have flown through the heights of heaven, if malign poverty did not hold me back.
1. For the sentiment cf. Juvenal, Satires 3.164-5: ‘it is hard for people to rise when straitened circumstances stand in the way of their natural abilities.’
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Link to an image of this page [I8v p144]
Virtuti fortuna comes.
Good fortune attendant on virtue
EMBLEMA CXVIII.
Anguibus implicitis, geminis caduceus[1] alis
Inter Amaltheae cornua[2] rectus adest.
Pollentes sic mente viros, fandique peritos
Indicat, ut rerum copia multa beet.
The caduceus, with entwined snakes and twin wings, stands upright between the horns of Amalthea. It thus indicates how material wealth blesses men of powerful intellect, skilled in speaking.
1. This was the herald’s staff, attribute of Mercury, god of eloquence, intellectual pursuits and financial success. The entwined serpents are a symbol of peace. See Pliny Natural History 29.12.54. The caduceus was Alciato’s personal device and was carved on his tomb at Pavia.
2. Amalthea was the she-goat that suckled the infant Jupiter. Her horn became the cornucopia, the horn of plenty. See Erasmus, Adagia 502, Copiae cornu.
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