
ADULTERE.
Par Rage ardent de luxure eschaufée,
Tant fort aima la Royne Pasiphée
Un beau Toreau:[1] que pour contre Nature
Se joindre à luy, par l’art, & la facture
De l’ouvrier ingenieux
Daidal,
Enclorre feit son corps, pis que brutal
Au ventre creux d’une vache de bois.
Faicte au nayf, fors que sans vie, & voix.
Et par dehors, couverte de la peau
D’une autre vache aimée du Toreau.
Auquel Toreau, pour son corps assembler:
Ne desdaigna vouloir vache sembler.
Oy, mais (dira quelqu’un) c’est une fable.
Une fable est, mais toutesfois croyable.
Car ce toreau estoit un
Secretaire
Du Roy Minos, de la Royne Adultere.
Qu’elle receut, le cerchant pour delict,
Link to an image of this page []
Non du Toreau estrangier, mais du lict.
Car Quelle forme est il, ne quelle guise,
En quoy la femme aimant ne se deguise,
Pour acomplir sa luxure maligne?
Exemple en est la Dame Messaline.
[2]
Qui pour saouler sa luxure impudicque,
Se deguisoit en Lyce la publicque.
Et se tenoit en putain atournée,
En plain bourdeau à tous abandonnée.
Ainsi estoit Princesse & Emperiere:
Et quant & quant paillarde bordeliere.
1. Pasiphaë was daughter of Helios, wife of Minos of Crete. Either because of a curse from Poseidon or by choice, she mated with a bull, which produced the Minotaur.
2. Messalina was wife of the Emperor Claudius; she was forced to commit suicide in AD 49 for her alleged promiscuity. The ‘Empress Lais’ refers to her as a prostitute-empress (refering to the ancient courtesan, Lais of Corinth), as does the pseudonym she adopted, Lycisca (Greek for ‘little wolf’); in Latin, a lupa is a prostitute.
Related Emblems
Iconclass Keywords
Relating to the image:
- adult woman [31D15] Search | Browse Iconclass
- animals mating ®® KEY (432) TO 25F animals [25F(+432)] Search | Browse Iconclass
- birds [25F3] Search | Browse Iconclass
- bull [47I2111] Search | Browse Iconclass
- cow [47I2112] Search | Browse Iconclass
- groups of trees [25G11] Search | Browse Iconclass
- low hill country [25H114] Search | Browse Iconclass
- shrubs [25G31] Search | Browse Iconclass
Relating to the text:
- adultery [42D39] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Daedalus fashioning a wooden cow for Pasiphae [95A(DAEDALUS)51] Search | Browse Iconclass
- fables [85] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Infidelity, Perfidy; 'Perfidia' (Ripa) [57AA62] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Messalina in the brothel [98C(MESSALINA)21] Search | Browse Iconclass
- Pasiphae confides her unnatural passion for the bull to Daedalus [95B(PASIPHAE)211] Search | Browse Iconclass
- sexual perversities and aberrations; scatological representations [33C89] Search | Browse Iconclass
- sodomy, sexual contact between humans and animals [33C48] Search | Browse Iconclass
- whore, prostitute [33C52] Search | Browse Iconclass
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