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Section: AMOR (Love). View all emblems in this section.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [H5v p122]

Ferè simile ex Theocrito.[1]

Something more or less the same from Theocritus

Alveolis dum mella legit: percussit Amorem
Furacem mala apes, & summis spicula liquit
In digitis: tumido gemit at puer anxius ungue.
Et quatit errabundus humum: Venerique dolorem
Indicat, & graviter queritur, quòd apicula parvum
Ipsa inferre animal tam noxia vulnera possit.
Cui ridens Venus, Hanc imitaris tu quoque dixit
Nate feram: qui das tot noxia vulnera parvus.

While he was taking honey from the hives, a vicious bee stung thieving Amor, and left its sting in the end of his finger. The boy in distress cried out as his finger-end swelled up. He ran about, stamping his foot, showed his hurt to Venus, and complained bitterly that a little bee, that tiny creature, could inflict such grievous wounds. Venus smiled at him and said, ‘You are like this creature, my son; small as you are you deal many a grievous wound’.

Notes:

1.  3rd-century BC bucolic poet, who may or may not have wrriten the Idylls (19, The Honey Stealer), of which this is a fairly close translation, in dactylic hexameters, as in the Greek original.


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