
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).
Related Emblems

- Declaracion magistral sobre las Emblemas de Andres Alciato (1615), Najera: IMPARILITAS. | Open in other pane
- Emblemata (1621), Padua: Imparilitas. | Open in other pane
- Emblematum libellus (1546), Venice: Imparitas. | Open in other pane
- Los Emblemas (1549), Lyon: La desigualdad. | Open in other pane
- Emblemata (1550), Lyon: Imparilitas. | Open in other pane
- Emblemata (1551), Lyon: Imparilitas. | Open in other pane
- Toutes les emblemes (1558), Lyon: Imparilité. | Open in other pane
- Liber emblematum ... Kunstbuch (1567), Franckfurt am Main: Imparitas vel Imparilitas. Ungleichheit. | Open in other pane
- Emblemata (1591), Leiden: Imparilitas. | Open in other pane
- Diverse imprese (1551), Lyon: Disuguaglianza. | Open in other pane
- Emblemes (1549), Lyons: Imparilité. | Open in other pane
- Emblemata / Les emblemes (1584), Paris: Imparilitas. Dissemblance. | Open in other pane
- Les emblemes (1615), Geneva/Cologny: La dissemblance. | Open in other pane
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Iconclass Keywords
Relating to the image:
Relating to the text:
- 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
- (story of) Pindar representations to which the NAME of a person from classical history may be attached [98B(PINDAR)3] Search | Browse Iconclass
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