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IN AVAROS, VEL QUIBUS
melior conditio ab extraneis offertur.

On the avaricious; or being treated better by strangers.

Emblema 88.

Delphini insidens vada caerula sulcat Arion[1],
Hocque aures mulcet, fraenat & ora sono,[2]
Quam sit avari hominis non tam mens dira ferarum est:
Quique viris rapimur, piscibus eripimur.

Astride a dolphin, Arion cleaves the dark blue waves, and with this song charms the creature’s ears and muzzles its mouth: ‘The mind of wild beasts is not so savage as that of greedy man. We who are savaged by men are saved by fish’.

Notes:

1.  The crew of the ship on which the celebrated musician Arion was travelling, after robbing him, prepared to throw him overboard. He persuaded them to allow him to play his lyre for the last time. Then, after invoking the gods, he jumped into the sea, whereupon a music-loving dolphin conveyed him to land. See Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 16.19.

2.  Variant reading, et citharae mulcet ... sono, ‘and with the sound of the lyre charms ...’.

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