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Antiquissima quaeque commenticia.

The oldest things are all invented

Emblema clxxxii.

Figure of half man, half beast in the sea holding a trident.
[Click on image to enlarge]

Pallenaee senex, cui forma est histrica, Proteu,[1]
Qui modò membra viri fers, modò membra feri:
Dic age, quae species ratio te vertit in omnes,
Nulla sit ut vario certa figura tibi?
Signa vetustatis, primaevi & praefero secli,[2]
De quo quisque suo somniat arbitrio.

Proteus, old man of Pallene, whose outward appearance changes like an actor’s, assuming sometimes the body of a man, sometimes that of a beast, come, tell me, what is your reason for turning into all kinds of shapes, so that you have no permanent form as you constantly alter? I offer symbols of antiquity and the very first times, concerning which everyone dreams up what he will.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [Z9v f249v]

COnvertit Protei πολυμορφοῦ fabulam in scri-
ptores quosdam rhapsodos, & rerum antiquissi-
marum narrationem e variis & saepe pugnantibus
inter se narrationibus petitam concinnantes[3]: qui cum
somnient de rebus à se remotissimis, portentosam
historiae formam nobis obtrudunt, ut revera Proteum
quendam effingere velle videantur.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [Z10r f250r]

Les chose du passé, controuvees, ou for-
gees à plaisir.

Dialogisme.

D.
POurquoy te changes-tu, dis moy, vieillard Protee,
En diverses façons, par fois homme semblant,
Par fois aussi mué, à beste resemblant
Dis moy pourquoy as-tu ta face humaine ostee?
R. Le pourtrait du vieil temps je marque tout content,
Duquel un chacun songe ainsi comme il entend.

IL accommode la fable de Protee change-
forme à ces rhapsodes d’escrivains, & hi-
stoires des choses du passé, qui ne font que
regratter tout ce qu’ils font de divers com-
ptes tissus & cousus de diverses & contraires
pieces: lesquels apres avoir long temps resvé
sur des choses qui sont bien fort esloignees
de leur memoire, ils nous forgent je ne scay
quel corps d’histoire tout monstrueux, de sor-
te qu’ils semblent nous vouloir figurer quel-
que nouveau Protee.

Notes:

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.

2.  signa vetustatis primaevi et...secli, ‘symbols of antiquity and the very first times’. Pallene (see n.1.) suggested a connection with the Greek word παλαιός ‘ancient’, as the name Proteus was supposedly connected with πρώτιστος, ‘the very first’.

3.  Corrected from the Errata.

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