Section: ARBORES (Trees). View all emblems in this section.
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Populus alba.
The white poplar
Herculeos crines bicolor quòd populus ornet,[1]
Temporis alternat noxque, diesque vices.[2]
The two-coloured poplar wreathes the locks of Hercules - and so its dark and light show time’s alternating changes.
1. The white poplar was dedicated to Hercules. According to Pausanias, Periegesis, 5.14.2, Hercules introduced it to Greece. According to another story, Hercules on his way back from the Underworld garlanded his head with stems from a white poplar growing beside the Acheron, a memorial of the nymph Leuke (White) carried off by Pluto.
2. noxque diesque, ‘its dark and light’ (lit. night and day), a reference to the dark green surface and white underside of the white poplar leaf. According to Pliny, Natural History, 16.36.87, the leaves of the white poplar turn over at the summer solstice. Hercules was equated with the sun: Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.20.6 and 10.
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- trees (with NAME) (+ plants used symbolically) [25G3(WHITE-POPLAR)(+1)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- colours, pigments, and paints (with NAME) [22C4(BROWN)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- colours, pigments, and paints (with NAME) [22C4(WHITE)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- day and night [23R] Search | Browse Iconclass
- 'Giorno naturale', 'Carro del giorno naturale' (Ripa) [23R10] Search | Browse Iconclass
- wreath, garland ~ festive activities [43A(+12)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- (story of) Hercules (Heracles) [94L] Search | Browse Iconclass
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L’amandier.
XLIII.
Pourquoy, hastive, as-tu avant feuilles des fleurs?
Je hay ceux qui trop tost, & hors temps sont ja meurs.[1]
Commentaires.
L’amandier jecte ses fleurs avant ses feuilles: mais
aussi s’il survient du froid, ou quelque autre intempe-
rie de l’air, les fleurs tumbent, & par consequent l’e-
sperance du fruict est estaincte. Il est le type & le
symbole des esprits trop tost meurs: lesquels, à la ve-
rité, promettent bien beaucoup d’eux, estans doués
d’une tant heureuse memoire,
& d’une dexterité
d’esprit du tout admirable. Mais quand ils sont par-
venus à aage viril, alors ou ils viennent hors du sens,
ou du moins ils sont entierement
desnués de ces beaux
dons qu’ils avoyent en jeunesse.
1. See Quintilian (Fabius Quintilianus), Institutio oratoria, 1.3.3: “the precocious type of intellect never easily comes to fruition”.
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- trees: almond-tree (+ plants used symbolically) [25G3(ALMOND-TREE)(+1)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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- Precocity (+ emblematical representation of concept) [51F521(+4)] Search | Browse Iconclass
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