Section III. EMBLEMS FOR MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.

The railer Thersites (Troilus and Cressida, act ii. sc. 3, l. 9, vol. vi. p. 168) thus mentions our Hermes,—

“O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove the king of gods; and Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus.”

And centering the good qualities of many into one, Hamlet (act iii. sc. 4, l. 55, vol. viii. p. 111) sums up to his mother the perfections of his murdered father,—

Personifications, or, rather, deifications of the powers and properties of the natural world, and of the influences which presided over them, belong especially to the ancient Mythology. Of these, there is one from the Emblem writers decidedly claiming our notice, I may say, our admiration, because of its essential truth and beauty;—it is the Personification of Fortune, or, as some writers name the goddess, Occasion and Opportunity; and it is highly poetical in all its attributes.

From at least four distinct sources in the Emblem-books of the sixteenth century, Shakespeare might have derived the characteristics of the goddess; from Alciat, Perriere, Corrozet, and Whitney.

Perriere’s “Theatre des Bons Engins,” Paris, 1539, presents the figure with the stanzas of old French here subjoined,—

These French verses may be accepted as a translation of the Latin of Alciat, on the goddess Opportunity; as may be seen, she is portrayed standing on a wheel that is floating upon the waves; and as the tide rises, there are apparently ships or boats making for the shore. The figure holds a razor in the right hand, has wings upon the feet, and abundance of hair streaming from the forehead.

In occaſionem.

Διαλογισικῶς.

Alciat, 1551.

Lyſippi hoc opus eſt, Sycion cui patria. Tu quis?
Cuncta domans capti temporis articulus.
Cur pinnis ſtas? vſque rotor. Talaria plantis
Cur retines? Paſſim me leuis aura rapit.
In dextra eſt tennis dic vnde nouacula? Acutum
Omni acie hoc ſignum me magis eſſe docet.
Cur in frõte coma? Occurrẽs vt prẽdar. At heus tu
Dic cur pars calua eſt poſterior capitis?
Ne ſemel alipedem si quis permittat abire,
Ne poſſim apprehenſo poſtmodo crine capi.
Tali opifex nos arte, tui cauſa, edidit hoſpes.
Vtq́₃que omnes moneam: pergula aperta tenet.

Flu. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol, Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.”

Fortune on the sphere, or “rolling, restless stone,” is also well pictured in the “ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ,” editions 1579 and 1584. The whole device is described in the French version,—

The ideas of the Emblematists respecting the goddess “Occasion” are also embodied by Shakespeare two or three times. Thus on receiving the evil tidings of his mother’s death and of the dauphin’s invasion, King John (act iv. sc. 2, l. 125, vol. iv, p. 65) exclaims,—

In 2 Henry IV. (act iv. sc. 1, l. 70, vol. iv. p. 431) the Archbishop of York also says,—

Most beautiful too, and forcible are the stanzas on Occasion, or Opportunity from Lucrece (lines 869–882, vol. ix. p. 515),—

Dvm Tempvs labitvr, Occasionē fronte capillatā remorātvr. 7.

From David’s “Occasio arrepta neglecta &c” 1605

“While Time is passing onward men keep Occasion back by seizing the hair on her forehead.”

The line, “her scattered locks in front seize hold of,” has its parallel in Othello (act iii. sc. 1, l. 47, vol. viii. p. 505),—

Classical celebrities, whether hero or heroine, wrapt round with mystery, or half-developed into historical reality, may also form portion of our Mythological Series.

The grand character in Æschylus, Prometheus Bound, is depicted by at least four of the Emblematists. The hero of suffering is reclining against the rock on Caucasus, to which he had been chained; a vulture is seated on his broad chest and feeding there. Alciat’s Emblem, from the Lyons edition of 1551, or Antwerp, 1581, number 102, has the motto which reproves men for seeking the knowledge which is beyond them: Things which are above us, are nothing to us,—they are not our concern. The whole fable is a warning.

Quæ ſupra nos, nihil ad nos.

Alciat, 1551.

Caucaſi a æternùm pendens in rupe Prometheus
Diripitur ſacri præpetis vngue iecur.
Et nollet feciſſe hominem: figulosq́₃que peroſus
Accenſam rapto damnat ab igne facem.
Roduntur variis prudentum pectora curis,
Qui cœli affectant ſcire, deûmqúe vices.

“On the Caucasian rock Prometheus eternally suspended,
Has his liver torn in pieces by talons of an accursed bird.
And unwilling would he be to have made man; and hating the potters
Dooms to destruction the torch lighted from stolen fire.
Devoured by various cares are the bosoms of the wise,
Who affect to know secrets of heaven, and courses of gods.”

Similarly as a dissuasive from vain curiosity, Anulus, in his “Picta Poesis” (Lyons, 1555, p. 90), sets up the notice,—

CVRIOSITAS FVGIENDA.

“Curiosity must be shunned.”

Aneau, 1555.

Mitte arcana Dei cœlumq́₃que inquirere quid ſit.
Nec ſapias pluſquàm debet homo ſapere.
Caucaſeo vinctus monet hoc in rupe Prometheus
Scrutator cœli, fur & in igne Iouis.
Cui cor edax Aquila in rediuiuo vulnere rodit.
Materia pœnis ſufficiente ſuis.

Ἣ δὲ προμηθέι’ ἂχοςος δάκνει κέαρ ἔντερον ἔνδον

Καρδιοβρόσκοςος ὃμως ἂετοςος ἐσθὶν ἂχοςος.

The device is almost the same with Alciat's,—the stanzas, however, are a little different,—

“Forbear to inquire the secrets of God, and what heaven may be.
Nor be wise more than man ought to be wise.
Bound on Caucasian rock this does Prometheus warn,
Scrutator of heaven and thief in the fire of Jove.
His heart the voracious Eagle gnaws in ever reviving wound,
Material sufficient this for all his penalties.”—

“As for Prometheus pain gnaws his heart the bosom within,

So is pain the eagle that consumes the heart.”

The “Microcosme,” first published in 1579, fol. 5, celebrates in French stanzas Prometheus and his cruel destiny; a fine device accompanies the emblem, representing him bound not to Caucasus, but to the cross.

“Promethee s’ estant guindé iusques aux cieux
Pour desrober le feu des redoubables Dieux,
Pour retribution de ceste outrecuidance
Fut par eux poursuiui d’une rude vengeance.
Il fut par leur decret à la croix attaché,
La ou pour expier deuenant son peché,
L'Aigle de Iupiter le becquetoit sans cesse,
Si que ce patient estoit en grand oppressé.”

But Reusner’s Emblems (bk. i. Emb. 27, p. 37, edition 1581), and Whitney’s (p. 75), adopt the same motto, O vita misero longa,—“O life, how long for the wretched.” The stanzas of the latter may be accepted as being in some degree representative of those of the former,—

“To Caucasus, behoulde Promethevs chain’de,
Whose liuer still, a greedie gripe dothe rente:
He neuer dies, and yet is alwaies pain’de,
With tortures dire, by which the Poëttes ment,
That hee, that still amid misfortunes standes,
Is sorrowes slaue, and bounde in lastinge bandes.

For, when that griefe doth grate vppon our gall,
Or surging seas, of sorrowes moste doe swell,
That life is deathe, and is no life at all,
The liuer rente, it dothe the conscience tell:
Which being launch’de, and prick’d, with inward care,
Although wee liue, yet still wee dyinge are.”

How Shakespeare applies this mythic story appears in the Titus Andronicus (act ii. sc. 1, l. 14, vol. vi. p. 451), where Aaron, speaking of his queen, Tamora, affirms of himself,—

“Whom thou in triumph long
Hast prisoner held, fetter’d in amorous chains,
And faster bound to Aaron’s charming eyes
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.”

And still more clearly is the application made, 1 Henry VI. (act iv. sc. 3, l. 17, vol. v. p. 71), when Sir William Lucy thus urges York,—

“Thou princely leader of our English strength,
Never so needful on the earth of France,
Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,
Who now is girdled with a waist of iron
And hemm’d about with grim destruction:”

and at York’s inability, through “the vile traitor Somerset,” to render aid, Lucy laments (l. 47, p. 72),—

“Thus, while the vulture of sedition
Feeds in the bosoms of such great commanders,
Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss
The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror,
That ever living man of memory,
Henry the Fifth.”

It may readily be supposed that in writing these passages Shakespeare had in memory, or even before him, the delineations which are given of Prometheus, for the vulture feeding on the heart belongs to them all, and the allusion is exactly one of those which arises from a casual glance at a scene or picture without dwelling on details.

This casual glance indeed seems to have been the way in which our Dramatist appropriated others of the Emblem sketches. In the well-known quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius, in Julius Cæsar (act iv. sc. 3, l. 21, vol. vii. p. 389), Brutus demands,—

“What, shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.”

The expression is the perfect counterpart of Alciat’s 164th Emblem (p. 571, edition Antwerp, 1581); the motto, copied by Whitney (p. 213), is, Inanis impetus,—“A vain attack.”

“By night, as at a mirror, the dog looks at the lunar orb:

And seeing himself, believes another dog to be on high,

And barks: but in vain is his angry voice driven by winds,

The silent Diana ever onward goes in her course.”^[132]

The device engraved on Alciat’s and Whitney’s pages depicts the full moon surrounded by stars, and a large dog baying. Whitney’s stanzas give the meaning of Alciat's, and also of Beza's, which follow below,—

“By shininge lighte, of wannishe Cynthias raies,
The dogge behouldes his shaddowe to appeare:
Wherefore, in vaine aloude he barkes, and baies,
And alwaies thoughte, an other dogge was there:
But yet the Moone, who did not heare his queste,
Hir woonted course, did keep vnto the weste.

This reprehendes, those fooles which baule, and barke,
At learned men, that shine aboue the reste:
With due regarde, that they their deedes should marke,
And reuerence them, that are with wisedome bleste:
But if they striue, in vaine their winde they spende,
For woorthie men, the Lorde doth still defende.”

Beza, ed. 1580.

The same device to a different motto, “Despicit alta canis,”—The dog despises high things,—is adopted by Camerarius, Ex Anim. quadrup., p. 63, edition 1595,—

“Why carest thou for the angry thorns of a vain speaking tongue?

Diana on high cares not for the loud-barking dog.”^[133]

We will conclude our “baying” with Beza’s 22nd Emblem. The Latin stanza is sufficiently severe,—

“Luna velut toto collustrans lumine terras,
Frustra allatrantes despicit alta canes:
Sic quisquis Christum allatrat Christíve ministros,
Index stultitiæ? spernitor vsque suæ.”

i.e.

“As the moon with full light shining over the lands,
From on high doth despise dogs barking in vain:
So whoso is barking at Christ or Christ’s ministers,
The scorner is the pointer out even of his own folly.”

In connection with the power of music Orpheus is named by many writers of the sixteenth century; and among the Emblematists the lead may be assigned to Pierre Coustau in “Le Pegme” (Lyons, 1560, p. 389),—

Sur la harpe d’Orpheus.

La force d’Eloquence.

Coustau, 1560.

De ſon gentil & fort melodieux
D'vn inſtrument, Orpheus feit mouuoir
Rocs & patitz de leur places & lieux.
C’eſt eloquence ayant force & pouuoir
D’ẽbler les cueurs de tous part son ſçavoir;
C’eſt l’orateur qui au fort d’eloquence,
Premierement ſouz méme demourance
Gens beſtiaulx, & par ferocité, &c.

“On the Harp of Orpheus.

The Power of Eloquence.

“With sound gentle and very melodious
Of an instrument Orpheus caused to move
Rocks and pastures from their place and home.
It is eloquence having force and power
To steal the hearts of all his learning shows,
It is the orator who by strength of eloquence
First brings even under influence
Brutal people, and from fierceness
Gathers them; and who to benevolence
From fierceness then reclaims.

A Narration Philosophique follows for three pages, discoursing on the power of eloquence.

Musicæ, & Poeticæ vis,—“The force of Music and Poetry,”—occupies Reusner’s 21st Emblem (bk. iii. p. 129), oddly enough dedicated to a mathematician, David Nephelite. Whitney’s stanzas (p. 186), Orphei Musica,—“The Music of Orpheus,”—bear considerable resemblance to those of Reusner, and are sufficient for establishing the parallelism of Shakespeare and themselves.

“Lo, Orphevs with his harpe, that sauage kinde did tame:
The Lions fierce, and Leopardes wilde, and birdes about him came.
For, with his musicke sweete, their natures hee subdu’de:
But if wee thinke his playe so wroughte, our selues wee doe delude.
For why? besides his skill, hee learned was, and wise:
And coulde with sweetenes of his tonge, all sortes of men suffice.
And those that weare most rude, and knewe no good at all:
And weare of fierce, and cruell mindes, the worlde did brutishe call.
Yet with persuasions sounde, hee made their hartes relente,
That meeke, and milde they did become, and followed where he wente.
Lo, these, the Lions fierce, these, Beares, and Tigers weare:
The trees, and rockes, that lefte their roomes, his musicke for to heare.
But, you are happie most, who in suche place doe staye:
You neede not Thracia seeke, to heare some impe of Orphevs playe.
Since, that so neare your home, Apollos darlinge dwelles;
Who Linvs, & Amphion staynes, and Orphevs farre excelles.
For, hartes like marble harde, his harmonie dothe pierce:
And makes them yeelding passions feele, that are by nature fierce.
But, if his musicke faile: his curtesie is suche,
That none so rude, and base of minde, but hee reclaimes them muche.
Nowe since you, by deserte, for both, commended are:
I choose you, for a Iudge herein, if truthe I doe declare.
And if you finde I doe, then ofte therefore reioyce:
And thinke, I woulde suche neighbour haue, if I might make my choice.”

In a similar strain, from the Merchant of Venice (act v. sc. 1, l. 70, vol. ii. p. 361), we are told of the deep influence which music possesses over—

“a wild and wanton herd

Or race of youthful and unhandled colts.”

The poet declares,—

“If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet[134]
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils:
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.”

And in the Two Gentlemen of Verona (act iii. sc. 2, l. 68, vol. i. p. 129), the method is developed by which Silvia, through the conversation of Proteus, may be tempered “to hate young Valentine” and Thurio love. Proteus says,—