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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [n4r p199]

Amuletum Veneris.

A charm against love

XXX.

Inguina dente fero suffosum Cypris Adonim[1]
Lactucae foliis condidit exanimem.
Hinc genitali arvo tantum lactuca resistit,
Quantum eruca salax[2] vix stimulare potest.

The Cyprian goddess wrapped in lettuce leaves the lifeless Adonis, gored in the groin by the savage tusk. For this reason, lettuce deadens the procreative field even more than the aphrodisiac rocket can stimulate it.

Notes:

1.  For the story of Venus and Adonis and his fatal wounding by a wild boar, see Ovid, Metamorphoses, 10.529ff. and 705ff. Cyprus was one of the main centres of the worship of Venus, hence the name Cypris.

2.  eruca salax, ‘the aphrodisiac rocket’. See Emblem 261 ([A56a261]), n.3. The effects of the plants rocket and lettuce are contrasted at Pliny, Natural History, 19.44.154.

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    Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [O4v p216]

    Antiquissima quaeque commentitia.

    The oldest things are all invented

    EMBLEMA CLXXXII.

    Figure of half man, half beast in the sea holding a trident.
    [Click on image to enlarge]

    Pelleneae senex cui forma est histrica, Proteu,[1]
    Qui modō membra viri fers, modō membra feri:
    Dic age, 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.

    Notes:

    1.  Proteus was ‘the Old Man of the Sea’, who evaded capture by constantly changing his shape. See e.g. Homer, Odyssey, 4.400ff.; Vergil, Georgics, 4. 405-10, 440-2; Erasmus, Adagia, 1174 (Proteo mutabilior). Vergil (Georgics, 4.391) describes him living near the headland of Pallene (on the Macedonian coast). The idea of Proteus as a gifted actor or mime-artist is taken from Lucian, Saltatio, 19.

    2.  signa vetustatis primaevi et...secli, ‘symbols of antiquity and the very first times’. Pallene (see n.1.) suggested a connection with the Greek word παλαιός ‘ancient’, as the name Proteus was supposedly connected with πρώτιστος, ‘the very first’.

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