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Pudicitia.
Chastity
EMBLEMA XLVII.
Porphyrio, domini si incestet in aedibus uxor,
Despondetque animum, praeque dolore perit.
Abdita in arcanis naturae est caussa: sit index
Sincerae haec volucris certa pudicitiae.[1]
If the wife in its master’s house is unfaithful, the moorhen despairs and dies of grief. The reason lies hidden in the secrets of nature. This bird may serve as a sure sign of untarnished chastity.
1. For this information about the porphyrio (purple gallinule, a kind of moorhen) see Aelian, De Natura animalium, 3.42; Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 9,388C: the purple gallinule ... when it is domesticated, ... keeps a sharp eye on married women and is so affected if the wife commits adultery, that it ends its life by strangling and so gives warning to its master.
Related Emblems
Hide related emblems- Declaracion magistral sobre las Emblemas de Andres Alciato (1615), Najera: PUDICITIA. | Open in other pane
- Emblemata (1621), Padua: Pudicitia. | Open in other pane
- Los Emblemas (1549), Lyon: La castidad. | Open in other pane
- Emblemata (1550), Lyon: PUDICITIA. | Open in other pane
- Emblemata (1551), Lyon: PUDICITIA. | Open in other pane
- Liber emblematum ... Kunstbuch (1567), Franckfurt am Main: Pudicitia. Keuschheit. | Open in other pane
- Emblemata / Les emblemes (1584), Paris: Pudicitia. Marque de pudicité. | Open in other pane
- Les emblemes (1615), Geneva/Cologny: Pudicité. | Open in other pane
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Iconclass Keywords
Relating to the image:
- shore-birds and wading-birds (with NAME) (+ animals used symbolically) [25F37(PURPLE COOT)(+1)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- groups of plants (herbs) [25G13] Search | Browse Iconclass
- trees (+ stem, trunk) [25G3(+21)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- (high) hill [25H113] Search | Browse Iconclass
- prospect of city, town panorama, silhouette of city [25I12] Search | Browse Iconclass
- landscape with ruins [25I9] Search | Browse Iconclass
- border, ribbon, braid [41D2653] Search | Browse Iconclass
Relating to the text:
- seeking death, suicide [31E238] Search | Browse Iconclass
- 'Castità ', 'Pudicitia', 'Vergogna honesta' (Ripa) [33C8120] Search | Browse Iconclass
- adultery [42D39] Search | Browse Iconclass
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