Link to an image of this page [A6v f6v]
Prudentes.
The Wise.
Iane bifrons, qui iam transacta futuraque calles,
Quique retro sannas sicut & ante vides,
[1]
Tot te cur oculis, tot fingunt vultibus? an quòd
Circunspectum hominem forma fuisse docet?
Two-headed Janus, you know about what has already happened and what is yet to come, you see the jeering faces behind just as you see them in front. Why do they represent you with so many eyes, why with so many faces? Is it because this form tells us that you were a man of circumspection?
1. quique retro sannas, sicut et ante, vides, ‘you see the jeering faces behind just as you see them in front’, a line based on Persius, Satirae, 1.58-62.
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- clouds [26A] Search | Browse Iconclass
- sitting on an elevation [31A2352] Search | Browse Iconclass
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Link to an image of this page [L7r p173]
La plus part de ce que l’on dit de
l’antiquité est controuvé.
VII.
O Protee vieillard,[1] qui comme un charlatant
Changes à coup de forme, or’ homme, or’ beste estant,
Dy moy
d’où te provient ceste grande inconstance,
Si que jamais tu n’es en estat
d’asseurance?
Je represente ainsi l’antiquité qu’on prise,
De laquelle chacun fait comptes à sa guise.
Commentaires.
Protee, selon quelques uns, estoit de Pallene: Les
autres tiennent qu’il estoit
Egyptien. Cest embleme
reprend l’impudence & inconstance de plusieurs,
lesquels, ou pour avoir beaucoup d’annees sur la te-
Link to an image of this page [L7v p174]
ste, ou pour avoir beaucoup voyagé, ou bien, pour a-
voir leu plusieurs anciens historiographes, se
laschent
toute bride à controuver des fables & mensonges.
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.
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