The Paris edition of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphics, 1551, subjoins several to which there is no Greek text (pp. 217–223). Among them (at p. 219) is one that figures, The thread of life, a common poetic idea.
Horapollo, ed. 1551.
Hominis exitum innuentes, fuſum pingebant, & fili extremum reſectum, quaſi à colo diuulſum, finguntur ſiquidem à poetis Parcæ hominis vitam nere: Clotho quidem colum geſtans: Lacheſis quæ Sors exponitur, nens: Atropos verò inconuertibilis ſeu inexorabilis Latinè redditur, filum abrumpens.
The question is asked, “How do they represent the death or end of man?” Thus answered,—“To intimate the end of man they paint a spindle, and the end of the thread cut off, as if broken from the distaff: so indeed by the poets the Fates are feigned to spin the life of man: Clotho indeed bearing the distaff; Lachesis spinning whatever lot is declared; but Atropos, breaking the thread, is rendered unchangeable and inexorable.”
This thread of life Prospero names when he speaks to Ferdinand (Tempest, act iv. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. i. p. 54) about his daughter,—
“Their thread of life is spun,” occurs in 2 Henry VI. (act iv. sc. 2, l. 27).
So the “aunchient Pistol,” entreating Fluellen to ask a pardon for Bardolph (Henry V., act iii. sc. 6, l. 44, vol. iv. p. 544). says,—
The full application of the term, however, is given by Helena in the Pericles (act i. sc. 2, l. 102, vol. ix. p. 325), when she says to the Prince of Tyre,—
The same appendix to Horapollo’s Hieroglyphics (p. 220) assigns a burning lamp as the emblem of life; thus,—
Horapollo, ed. 1551.
Vitam innuentes ardentem lampada pingebant: quòd tantiſper dum accenſa lampas eſt, luceat, extincta verò tenebras offundat, ita & anima corpore ſoluta, & aſpectu & luce caremus.
“To intimate life they paint a burning lamp; because so long as the lamp is kindled it gives forth light, but being extinguished spreads darkness; so also the soul being freed from the body we are without seeing and light.”
This Egyptian symbol Cleopatra names just after Antony’s death (Antony and Cleopatra, act iv. sc. 15, l. 84, vol. ix. p. 132),—
Similar the meaning when Antony said (act iv. sc. 14, l. 46, vol. ix. p. 123),—
Of the Emblems which depict moral qualities and æsthetical principles, scarcely any are more expressive than that which denotes an abiding sense of injury. This we can trace through Whitney (p. 183) to the French of Claude Paradin (fol. 160), and to the Italian of Gabriel Symeoni (p. 24). It is a sculptor, with mallet and chisel, cutting a memorial of his wrongs into a block of marble; the title, Of offended Poverty, and the motto, “Being wronged he writes on marble.”
Giovio and Symeoni, 1562.
Scribit in marmore læſus.
Like the other “Imprese” of the “Tetrastichi Morali,” the woodcut is surrounded by a curiously ornamented border, and manifests much artistic skill. The stanza is,—
The “Devises Heroiqves” adds to the device a simple prose description of the meaning of the Emblem,—
Paradin, 1562.
Certains fols éuentés s’ aſſeurans trop ſus leur credit & richeſſes, ne font point cas d’iniurier ou gourmander de faict & de paroles une pauure perſonne, eſtimans que à faute de biens, de faueur, de parens, ou d’amis elle n’aura jamais le moyen de ſe venger, ou leur rẽdre la pareille, ains qu’elle doiue lien toſt oublier le mal qu’elle a receu. Or combien ces Tirans (c’eſt leur propre nom) ſoyent abuſez de leur grande folie & ignorance, l’occaſion & le temps le leur fera à la fin connoiſtre, apres les auoir admoneſtez par ceſte Deuiſe d’un homme aſſis, qui graue en un tableau de marbre ce qu’il a en memmoire auec ces parolles: Scribit in marmore læsus. (f.160.)
The word here propounded is of very high antiquity. The prophet Jeremiah (xvii. 1 and 13) set forth most forcibly what Shakespeare names “men’s evil manners living in brass;” and Whitney, “harms graven in marble hard.” “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars.” And the writing in water, or in the dust, is in the very spirit of the declaration, “They that depart from me shall be written in the earth,”—i.e., the first wind that blows over them shall efface their names,—“because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.”
Some of Shakespeare’s expressions,—some of the turns of thought, when he is speaking of injuries,—are so similar to those used by the Emblem writers in treating of the same subject, that we reasonably conclude “the famous Scenicke Poet, Master W. Shakespeare,” was intimate with their works, or with the work of some one out of their number; and, as will appear in a page or two, very probably those expressions and turns of thought had their origin in the reading of Whitney’s Choice of Emblemes rather than in the study of the French and Italian authors.
Of the same cast of idea with the lines illustrative of Scribit in marmore læsus, are the words of Marc Antony’s oration over Cæsar (Julius Cæsar, act iii. sc. 2, l. 73, vol. vii. p. 375),—
A sentiment, almost the converse of this, and of higher moral excellence, crops out where certainly we should not expect to find it—in the Timon of Athens (act iii. sc. 5, l. 31, vol. vii. p. 254),—
In that scene of unparalleled beauty, tenderness, and simplicity, in which there is related to Queen Katharine the death of “the great child of honour,” as she terms him, Cardinal Wolsey (Henry VIII., act iv. sc. 2, l. 27, vol. vi. p. 87), Griffith describes him as,—
And just afterwards (l. 44), when the Queen had been speaking with some asperity of the Cardinal’s greater faults, Griffith remonstrates,—
How very like to the sentiment here enunciated is that of Whitney (p. 183),—
Lavinia’s deep wrongs (Titus Andronicus, act iv. sc. 1, l. 85, vol. vi. p. 490) were written by her on the sand, to inform Marcus and Titus what they were and who had inflicted them; and Marcus declares,—
Marcus is for instant revenge, but Titus knows the power and cruel nature of their enemies, and counsels (l. 102),—
The Italian and French Emblems as pictures to be looked at would readily supply Shakespeare with thoughts respecting the record of “men’s evil manners,” and of “their virtues,” but there is a closer correspondence between him and Whitney; and allowing for the easy substitution of “brass” and of “water” for “marble” and “dust,” the parallelism of the ideas and words is so exact as to be only just short of being complete.
We must not, however, conceal what may have been a common origin of the sentiment for all the four writers,—for the three Emblematists and for the dramatist, namely, a sentence written by Sir Thomas More, about the year 1516, before even Alciatus had published his book of Emblems. Dr. Percy, as quoted by Ayscough (p. 695), remarks that, “This reflection bears a great resemblance to a passage in Sir Thomas More’s History of Richard III., where, speaking of the ungrateful turns which Jane Shore experienced from those whom she had served in her prosperity, More adds, ‘Men use, if they have an evil turne, to write it in marble, and whoso doth us a good turne, we write it in duste.’”
But the thought is recorded as passing through the mind of Columbus, when, during mutiny, sickness, and cruel tidings from home, he had, on the coast of Panama, the vision which Irving describes and records. A voice had been reproving him, but ended by saying, “Fear not, Columbus, all these tribulations are written in marble, and are not without cause.”
“To write in dust,” however, has sometimes a simple literal meaning in Shakespeare; as when King Edward (3 Henry VI., act v. sc. 1, l. 54, vol. v. p. 319), uses the threat,—
But in the Titus Andronicus (act iii. sc. 1, l. 12, vol. vi. p. 472), the phrase is of doubtful meaning: it may denote the oblivion of injuries or the deepest of sorrows,—
Whitney also has the lines to the praise of Stephen Limbert, Master of Norwich School (p. 173),—
It is but justice to Shakespeare to testify that at times his judgment respecting injuries rises to the full height of Christian morals. The spirit Ariel avows, that, were he human, his “affections would become tender” towards the shipwrecked captives on whom his charms had been working (Tempest, act v. sc. 1, l. 21, vol. i. p. 64); and Prospero enters into his thought with strong conviction,—
The subject in this connection finds a fitting conclusion from the words of a later writer, communicated to me by the Rev. T. Walker, M.A., formerly of Nether Tabley, in which a free forgiveness of injuries is ascribed to the world’s great and blessed Saviour,—
Whitney. Reprint, 1866, p. 431.