Link to an image of this page [n3v p198]
Imparitas.
Inferiority
XXIX.
Ut sublime volans tenuem secat aëra falco,
Ut pascuntur humi graculus, anser, anas:
Sic summum scandit super aethera Pindarus ingens,
Sic scit humi tantum serpere Bacchylides.[1]
As the falcon cleaves the thin air flying high, as the jackdaw, the goose, the duck feed on the ground, so mighty Pindar soars above the highest heaven, so Bacchylides knows only how to creep along the ground.
1. The first two lines are based on Pindar, Nemean Odes, 3.139-144, where Pindar seems to be obliquely disparaging the style and content of Bacchylides, another poet resident, like himself, at the court of Hiero of Syracuse in the early fifth century BC. See Erasmus, Adagia, 820 (Aquila in nubibus); 1988 (Humi serpere).
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- song-birds: jackdaw (+ animals eating and drinking) [25F32(JACKDAW)(+45)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- predatory birds: falcon [25F33(FALCON)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- water-birds: duck (+ animals eating and drinking) [25F36(DUCK)(+45)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- water-birds: goose (+ animals eating and drinking) [25F36(GOOSE)(+45)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Imparity, Inequality (+ emblematical representation of concept) [51BB3(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- male persons from classical history (with NAME) representations to which the NAME of a person from classical history may be attached [98B(BACCHYLIDES)3] Search | Browse Iconclass
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Link to an image of this page [O5v p218]
Musicam Diis curae esse.
The gods care for music
EMBLEMA CLXXXIV.
Locrensis posuit tibi Delphice Phoebe cicadam
Eunomus hanc, palmae signa decora suae.
Certabat plectro Sparthyn commissus in hostem,
Et percussa sonum pollice fila dabant. Link to an image of this page [O6r p219]Trita fides rauco coepit cùm stridere bombo,
Legitimum harmonias & vitiare melos:
Tum citharae argutans suavis sese intulit ales,
Quae fractam impleret voce cicada fidem:
Quaeque allecta, soni ad legem descendit ab altis
Saltibus, ut nobis garrula ferret opem.
Ergo tuae ut firmus stet honos, ô sancte, cicadae,
Pro cithara hic fidicen aeneus ipsa sedet.[1]
Phoebus, god of Delphi, Locrian Eunomus set up this cicada in your honour, an appropriate symbol of his victory. He was competing in the lyre contest against his rival Sparthys and the strings resounded as he plucked them with the plectrum. A worn string began to buzz with a hoarse rattle and spoil the true melody of the music. Then a sweet-voiced creature, a cicada, flew chirping onto the lyre to supply with its song the broken string. Recruited to follow the rules of musical sound, it flew down from the high glades to bring us aid with its chirping song. Accordingly, so that the honour due to your cicada, o holy god, may last undiminished, on top of the lyre she sits here herself, a minstrel in bronze.
1. This is a translation of Anthologia graeca 6.54. See Strabo, Geography 6.1.9 for the story of Eunomus and the statue he set up at his home town of Locri commemorating this incident in the song contest at the Pythian Games (celebrated near Delphi, in honour of Apollo, Artemis and their mother Leto); also Erasmus, Adagia 414, Acanthia Cicada.
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- inner court of palace or 'hôtel' [41A511] Search | Browse Iconclass
- table [41A711] Search | Browse Iconclass
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