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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [K3v p78]

LE PRINCE BON PUISSE
plus qu’il ne veuille.

CE triste delinquant, qui porte dans son coeur
Du perpetré meffait un regret qui le pince:
Appaise à deux genoux la fureur de son Prince:
Et son humble debvoir fait de l’ire vainqueur.

Au suppreme pouvoir ne convient la rigueur:
Du glaive justicier la punissante pince
Effarouche sans fruict la docile Province,
S’au paisible Olivier il ne joinct sa vigueur.

Dieu grand Roy des mortels, droit, & juste tempere
Par clemence, & bonté sa vertu plus severe,
Autrement qui pourroit paroistre devant luy?

Et bien qu’il puisse tout, il ne veut tout luy plaire:
Le Roy doit imiter ce patron debonnaire:
Qui plus se monstre doux, mieux se trouve obey.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [k4r p79]

Ad Pomponium Ricium Nolanum.[1]

Plus liceat Quam libeat.[2]

That more may be allowed than he actually puts into practice.

Figure holding garlanded sword over a kneeling figure.
[Click on image to enlarge]

QUi circun-fusâ gladium praetendit oliva,
Magnanimi ostendit Principis officium.
Quae Divûm propria est, illi clementia cordi: ut
Illi quem liceat plectere non libeat.

He who stretches out a sword with an olive branch wrapped round it displays the duty of a magnanimous Prince. Clemency, which is the characteristic of the gods, is characteristic of him in his heart, so that he does not wish the man whom he would be allowed to punish to suffer punishment.

Notes:

1.  Pomponius Ricius, from Nola (near Naples), an unidentified friend of Boissard’s; appears again in 1593, no. 36 ([FBOb036]).

2.  The contrasting of licet (it is lawful) and libet (it is pleasing) had been a common devise from Classical writers onward.

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