Chapter V

SIX DIRECT REFERENCES IN THE PERICLES TO BOOKS OF EMBLEMS, SOME OF THEIR DEVICES DESCRIBED, AND OF THEIR MOTTOES QUOTED.

SHAKESPEARE’S name, in three quarto editions, published during his lifetime, appears as author of the play of _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_; and if a decision be made that the authorship belongs to him, and that in the main the work was his composition, then our previous conjectures are changed into certainties, and we can confidently declare who were the Emblem writers he refers to, and can exhibit the very passages from their books which he has copied and adopted.

The early folio editions of the plays, those of 1623 and 1632, omit the _Pericles_ altogether, but later editions restore it to a place among the works of Shakespeare. Dr. Farmer contends that the hand of the great dramatist is visible only in the last act; but others controvert this opinion, and maintain, though he was not the fabricator of the plot, nor the author of every dialogue and chorus, that his genius is evident in several passages.

In Knight’s _Pictorial Shakspere_, supplemental volume, p. 13, we are informed: “The first edition of _Pericles_ appeared in 1609,”—several years before the dramatist’s death,—“under the following title,—‘The late and much admired play, called _Pericles, Prince of Tyre, &c._ By William Shakespeare: London, Glosson, 1609.’”

According to the Cambridge editors, vol. ix. p. i, Preface, “another edition was issued in the same year.” The publication was repeated in 1611, 1619, 1630 and 1635, so that at the very time when Shakespeare was living, his authorship was set forth; and after his death, while his friends and contemporaries were alive, the opinion still prevailed.

The conclusion at which Knight arrives, sup. vol. pp. 118, 119, is thus stated by him: “We advocate the belief that _Pyrocles_, or _Pericles_ was a very early work of Shakspere in some form, however different from that which we possess.” And again, “We think that the _Pericles_ of the beginning of the seventeenth century was the revival of a play written by Shakspere some twenty years earlier.... Let us accept Dryden’s opinion, that

“‘Shakespeare’s own Muse his Pericles first bore.’”

The Cambridge editors, vol. ix. p. 10, ed. 1866, gave a firmer judgment:—“There can be no doubt that the hand of Shakespeare is traceable in many of the scenes, and that throughout the play he largely retouched, and even rewrote, the work of some inferior dramatist. But the text has come down to us in so maimed and imperfect a state that we can no more judge of what the play was when it left the master’s hand than we should have been able to judge of _Romeo and Juliet_, if we had only had the first quarto as authority for the text.”

Our own Hallam tells us,—“_Pericles_ is generally reckoned to be in part, and only in part, the work of Shakespeare:” but with great confidence the critic Schlegel declares,—“This piece was acknowledged to be a work, but a youthful work of Shakespeare’s. It is most undoubtedly his, and it has been admitted into several later editions of his works. The supposed imperfections originate in the circumstance that Shakespeare here handled a childish and extravagant romance of the old poet Gower, and was unwilling to drag the subject out of its proper sphere. Hence he even introduces Gower himself, and makes him deliver a prologue in his own antiquated language and versification. This power of assuming so foreign a manner is at least no proof of helplessness.”

There are, then, strong probabilities that in the main the _Pericles_ was Shakespeare’s own composition, or at least was adopted by him; it belongs to his early dramatic life, and at any rate it may be taken as evidence to show that the Emblem writers were known and made use of between 1589 and 1609 by the dramatists of England.

Books of Emblems are not indeed mentioned by their titles, nor so quoted in the _Pericles_ as we are accustomed to do, by making direct references; they were a kind of common property, on which everyone might pasture his Pegasus or his Mule without any obligation to tell where his charger had been grazing. The allusions, however, are so plain, the words so exactly alike, that they cannot be misunderstood. The author was of a certainty acquainted with more than one Emblem writer, in more than one language, and Paradin, Symeoni, and our own Whitney may be recognised in his pages. We conclude that he had them before him, and copied from them when he penned the second scene of the Second Act of _Pericles_.

The Dialogue is between Simonides, king of Pentapolis, and his daughter, Thaisa, on occasion of the “triumph,” or festive pageantry, which was held in honour of her birthday. (_Pericles_, act. ii. sc. 2, lines 17–47, vol. ix. pp. 343, 344.)

“_Enter a_ Knight; _he passes over, and his_ Squire _presents his shield
to the_ Princess.
_Sim._ Who is the first that doth prefer himself?
_Thai._ A knight of Sparta, my renowned father;
And the device he bears upon his shield
Is a black Ethiope reaching at the sun;
The word, ‘Lux tua vita mihi.’

_Sim._ He loves you well that holds his life of you.
[_The_ Second Knight _passes_.
Who is the second that presents himself?
_Thai._ A prince of Macedon, my royal father;
And the device he bears upon his shield
Is an arm’d knight that’s conquer’d by a lady;
The motto thus, in Spanish, ‘Piu por dulzura que por fuerza.’
[_The_ Third Knight _passes_.
_Sim._ And what’s the third?
_Thai._ The third of Antioch;
And his device, a wreath of chivalry;
The word, ‘Me pompæ provexit apex.’
[_The_ Fourth Knight _passes_.
_Sim._ What is the fourth?
_Thai._ A burning torch that’s turned upside down;
The word, ‘Quod me alit, me extinguit.’
_Sim._ Which shows that beauty hath his power and will,
Which can as well inflame as it can kill.
[_The_ Fifth Knight _passes_.
_Thai._ The fifth, an hand environed with clouds,
Holding out gold that’s by the touchstone tried;
The motto thus, ‘Sic spectanda fides.’
[_The_ Sixth Knight _passes_.
_Sim._ And what’s
The sixth and last, the which the knight himself
With such a graceful courtesy deliver’d?
_Thai._ He seems to be a stranger; but his present is
A wither’d branch, that’s only green at top;
The motto, ‘In hac spe vivo.’
_Sim._ A pretty moral;
From the dejected state wherein he is,
He hopes by you his fortunes yet may flourish.”

As with the ornaments “in silk and gold,” which Mary Queen of Scotland worked on the bed of her son James, or with those in “the lady’s closet” at Hawsted, we trace them up to their originals, and pronounce them, however modified, to be derived from the Emblem-books of their age; so, with respect to the devices which the six knights bore on their shields, we conclude that these have their sources in books of the same character, or in the genius of the author who knew so well how to contrive and how to execute. Emblems beyond a doubt they are, though not engraved on our author’s page, as they were on the escutcheons of the knightly company. Take the device and motto of the gnats or butterflies and the candle; we trace them from Vænius, Camerarius, and Whitney, to Paradin, from Paradin to Symeoni, and from Symeoni to Giles Corrozet,—at every step we pronounce them Emblems,—and should pass the same judgment, though we could not trace them at all. It is the same with these devices in the Triumph Scene of _Pericles_; we discover the origin of some of them in Emblem works of, or before Shakespeare’s era,—and where we fail to discover, there we attribute invention, invention guided and perfected by masters in the art of fashioning pictures to portray thoughts by means of things. We will, however, in due order consider the devices and mottoes of these six knights who came to honour the king’s daughter.

The first knight is the Knight of Sparta,—

“And the device he bears upon his shield
Is a black Ethiope reaching at the sun;
The word, _Lux tua vita mihi_.”
Act ii. sc. 2, lines 19–21.

A motto almost identical belongs to an old family of Worcestershire, the Blounts, of Soddington, of which Sir Edward Blount, Bart., is, or was the representative; their motto is, _Lux tua vita mea_,—“Thy light, my life;”—but their crest is an armed foot in the sun, not a black Ethiop reaching towards him. There was a Sir Walter Blount slain on the king’s side at the battle of Shrewsbury, and whom, previous to the battle, Shakespeare represents as sent by Henry IV. with offers of pardon to Percy. (_Henry IV._ Pt. 1. act. iv. sc. 3, l. 30, vol. iv. p. 323.) A Sir James Blount is also briefly introduced in _Richard III._ act. v. sc. 2, l. 615. The name being familiar to Shakespeare, the motto also might be;—and by a very slight alteration he has ascribed it to the Knight of Sparta.

I have consulted a considerable number of books of Emblems published before the _Pericles_ was written, but have not discovered either the device or “the word” exactly in the form given in the play. There is a near approach to the device in Reusner’s _Emblems_, printed at Francfort in 1581 (Emb. 7, lib. i. p. 9). A man is represented stretching forth his hand towards the meridian sun, and the device is surmounted by the motto, _Sol animi virtus_,—“Virtue the sun of the soul.” The elegiac verses which follow carry out the thought with considerable clearness,—

_“Sol, oculus cœli, radijs illuminat orbem:
Et Phœbe noctem disjicit alba nigram.
Sol animi virtus sensus illuminat ægros:
Et tenebras mentis discutit alma fides.
Si menti virtus, virtuti præuia lucet
Pura fides: nihil hoc clarius esse potest.
Aurea virtutis species, fideiq., Philippe,
Præradians, cœlo sic tibi monstrat iter.
Scilicet hic vitæ Sol est, & Lucifer vnus:
Hæc Phœbe, noctem quæ fugat igne suo.
Quæ dum mente vides correcta lumina; mundi
Impauidus tenebras despicis, atq. metus.
Sol magno Phœbeq. micent, & Lucifer orbi:
Dum tibi sic virtus luceat, atq. fides.”_[93]

Among these lines is one to illustrate the first knight’s motto;

“_Scilicet hic vitæ Sol est, & Lucifer vnus_,”
“_This in truth is the Sun of life, and the one Light-bringer._”

But Plautus, the celebrated comic poet of Rome, gives in his _Asinaria_, 3. 3. 24, almost the very words of the Spartan knight: _Certe tu vita es mihi_,—“Of a truth thou art life to me.”

The introduction of an Ethiop was not unusual with Shakespeare. In the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ (act. ii. sc. 6. l. 25, vol. i. p. 112), Proteus avers,—

“And Silvia,—witness Heaven that made her fair!—
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope;”

and in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ (act. iv. sc. 3, l. 111, vol. ii. p. 144), Dumain reads these verses,—

“Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were.”

A genius so versatile as that of Shakespeare, and capable of creating almost a whole world of imagination out of a single hint, might very easily accommodate to his own idea Reusner’s suggestive motto, and make it yield the light of love to the lover rather than to the reverend sage. Failing in identifying the exact source of the “black Ethiope reaching at the sun,” we may then not unreasonably suppose that Shakespeare himself formed the device, and fitted the Latin to it.

In the Emblem-books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Latin mottoes very greatly preponderated over those of other languages; and had Shakespeare confined himself to Latin, it might remain doubtful whether he knew anything of Emblem works beyond those of our own countrymen—Barclay and Whitney—and of the two or three translations into English from Latin, French, and Italian. But the quotation of a purely Spanish motto, that on the second knight’s device, _Piu por dulzura que por fuerza_,—“More by gentleness than by force” (act ii. sc. 2, l. 27),—shows that his reading and observation extended beyond mere English sources, and that with other literary men of his day he had looked into, if he had not studied, the widely-known and very popular writings of Alciatus and Sambucus among Latinists, of Francisco Guzman and Hernando Soto among Spaniards, of Gabriel Faerni and Paolo Giovio among Italians, and of Bartholomew Aneau and Claude Paradin among the French.

Shakespeare gives several snatches of French, as in _Twelfth Night_, act iii. sc. 1, l. 68, vol. iii. p. 265,—

“_Sir Andrew._ Dieu vous garde, monsieur,
_Viola._ Et vous aussi; votre serviteur;”

and in _Henry V._ act iii. sc. 4; act iv. sc. 4 and 5; act v. sc. 2, vol. iv. pp. 538–540, 574–577, and 598–603: in the scenes between Katharine and Alice; Pistol and the French soldier taken prisoner; and Katharine and King Henry. Take the last instance,—

“_K. Hen._ Fair Katharine, and most fair,
Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms
Such as will enter at a lady’s ear
And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?
_Kath._ Your majesty shall mock at me; I cannot speak your England.
_K. Hen._ O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your
French
heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English
tongue. Do you like me, Kate?
_Kath._ Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is ‘like me.’
_K. Hen._ An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.
_Kath._ Que dit-il? que je suis semblable à les anges?
_Alice._ Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.
_K. Hen._ I said so, dear Katharine; and I must not blush to affirm
it.
_Kath._ O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de
tromperies.”

Appropriately also to the locality of the _Taming of the Shrew_ (act i. sc. 2, l. 24, vol. iii. p. 23), Hortensio’s house in Padua, is the Italian quotation.

“_Pet._ ‘Con tutto il core ben trovato,’ may I say.
_Hor._ Alla nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorato, signor mio
Petrucio.”

We find only two Spanish sentences, those already quoted,—one being Pistol’s motto on his sword, _Si fortuna me tormenta sperato me contenta_; the other, that of the Prince of Macedon, on his shield, _Piu por dulzura que por fuerza_.

Similar proverbs and sayings abound both in Cervantes, who died in 1616, the year of Shakespeare’s death, and in the Spanish Emblem-books of an earlier date. I have very carefully examined the Emblems of Alciatus, translated into Spanish in 1549, but the nearest approach to the motto of the Prince of Macedon is, _Que mas puede la eloquençia que la fortaliza_ (p. 124),—“Eloquence rather than force prevails,”—which may be taken from Alciat’s 180th Emblem, _Eloquentia fortitudine præstantior_.

Other Spanish Emblem-books of that day are the _Moral Emblems_ of Hernando de Soto, published at Madrid in 1599, and _Emblems Moralized_, of Don Sebastian Orozco, published in the year 1610, also at Madrid; but neither of these gives the words of the second knight’s device. Nor are they contained in the _Moral Triumphs_, as they are entitled, of Francisco Guzman, published in 1587, the year after Whitney’s work appeared. The _Moral Emblems_, too, of Juan de Horozco, are without them,—an octavo, published at Segovia in 1589.

But, although there has been no discovery of this Spanish motto in a Spanish Emblem-book, the exact literal expression of it is found in a French work of extreme rarity—Corrozet’s “HECATOMGRAPHIE,” Paris, 1540. There, at Emblem 28, _Plus par doulceur que par force_,[94]—“More by gentleness than by force,”—is the saying which introduces the old fable of the Sun and the Wind, and of their contest with the travellers. Appended are a symbolical woodcut and a French stanza,

Contre la froidure du vent,
L’homme ſe tient clos & ſe ſerre,
Mais le Soleil le plus ſouuent
Luy faict mettre ſa rob[e/] à terre.

Plus par doulceur que par force.

which may be pretty accurately rendered by the English quatrain,—

“Against the wind’s cold blasts
Man draws his cloak around;
But while sweet sunshine lasts,
He leaves it on the ground.”

This comment in verse follows Corrozet’s Emblem,—

“Qvand le vent est fort & subit,
Violent pour robe emporter,
L’homme se serr[e/] en son habit,
Affin qu’il ne luy puisse oster.
Mais quand le Soleil vient iecter
Sur luy ses rays clers & luysantz,
Le cauld le faict sans arrester
Despouiller ses habitz plaisantz.
* Ainsi ãmytié & doulceur
Faict plus que force & violence,
Doulceur est d’amour propre sœur,
Qui rend l’homme plein d’excellence.
II ne fault doncq mettr[e/] en silence
Ceste tres noble courtoisie,
Mais l’extoller en precellence;
Comm[e/] vne vertu bien choisie.
* Hommes, chassez de vous rigueur
Qui vostre grand beaulté efface,
Prenez de doulceur la vigueur,
Qui enrichera vostre face.
Doulceur ci bien meilleure grace,
Qui rend le visag[e/] amoureux,
Que d’estre dict en toute place
L’oultre cuidé, fol, rigoureuz.”

There is a brief allusion to this fable in _King John_ (act iv. sc. 3, l. 155, vol. iv. p. 76), in the words of Philip, the half-brother of Faulconbridge,—

“Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
Hold out this tempest.”

_Moderata vis impotenti violentia potior_,—

The same fable is given in Freitag’s “MYTHOLOGIA ETHICA,” Antwerp, 1579, p. 27. It is to a very similar motto,—

“Moderate force more powerful than impotent violence,”—to which are added, below the woodcut, two quotations from the Holy Scriptures,—

“_Non quia dominamur fidei._”—2 Cor. i. 24.
“_Factus sum infirmis infirmus; vt infirmos lucrifacerem._”—1 Cor. ix.
22.

“Not that we have dominion over your faith;”
“To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak;”

implying that not by the rigid exercise of authority, but by a sympathising spirit, the true faith will be carried onward unto victory.

Now, as the motto of the second knight existed in French, and, as we have seen, Emblem-books were translated into Spanish, the supposition is justifiable, though we have failed to trace out the very fact, that the author of the _Pericles_—Shakespeare, if you will—copied the words of the motto from some Spanish Emblem-book, or book of proverbs, that had come within his observation, and which applied the saying to woman’s gentleness subduing man’s harsher nature. Future inquirers will, perhaps, clear up this little mystery, and trace the very work in which the Spanish saying is original, _Piu por dulzura que por fuerza_.

We pass to the third, the fourth, and the fifth knights, with their “devices” and “words;” and to illustrate these we have almost a superabundant wealth of emblem-lore, from any portion of which Shakespeare may have made his choice. His materials may have come from some one of the various editions of Claude Paradin’s, or of Gabriel Symeoni’s “DEVISES HEROIQVES,” which appeared at Lyons and Antwerp, in French and Italian, between the years 1557 and 1590; or, as the learned Francis Douce supposes, in his _Illustrations of Shakspere_, pp. 302, 393, the dramatist may have seen the English translation of these authors, which was published in London in 1591, or, with greater probability, as some are inclined to say, he may have used the emblems of our countryman, Geffrey Whitney. Were it not that Daniell’s translation, in 1585, of _The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius_ is without plates, we should include this in the number.

Of the devices in question, Whitney’s volume contains two, and the other works the three; but between certain expressions of Whitney’s and those of the _Pericles_, the similarity is so great, that the evidence of circumstance inclines, I may say decidedly inclines, to the conclusion that for two out of the three emblems referred to, Shakespeare was indebted to his fellow Elizabethan poet, and not to a foreign source.

From his use of Spanish and French mottoes, as well as Latin, it is evident that Shakespeare, no more than Spenser, needed the aid of translations to render the emblem treasures available to himself; and if, as some maintain,[95] the _Pericles_ was in existence previous to the year 1591, it could not have been that use was made of the English translation of that date of the “DEVISES HEROIQVES,” by P. S.; it remains, therefore, that for two out of the three emblems he must either have employed one of the original editions of Lyons and of Antwerp, or have been acquainted with our Whitney’s _Choice of Emblemes_, and have obtained help from them; and for the third emblem he must have gone to the French or Italian originals.

The third knight, named of Antioch, has for his device “a wreath of chivalry,”—

“The word, _Me pompæ provexit apex_;”—
(Act ii. sc. 2, l. 30,)

_i. e._, “The crown at the triumphal procession has carried me onward.” On the 146th leaf of Paradin’s “DEVISES HEROIQVES,” edition Antwerp, 1562, the wreath and the motto are exactly as Shakespeare describes them. But Paradin gives a long and interesting account of the laurel-wreath, and of the high value accorded to it in Roman estimation. “It was,” as that author remarks, “the grandest recompense, or the grandest reward which the ancient Romans could think of to offer to the Chieftains over armies, to Emperors, Captains, and victorious Knights.”

Me pompæ prouexit apex.

To gratify the curiosity which some may feel respecting this subject, I add the whole of the original.

“_La plus grande recompense, ou plus grãd loyer que les antiques Rommains estimassent faire aus Chefz d’armee, Empereurs, Capitaines, et Cheualiers victorieux, c’estoit de les gratifier & honnorer (selon toutefois leurs merites, estats, charges, & degrez) de certaines belles Couronnes: qui generalemẽt (à cette cause) furent apellees Militaires. Desquelles (pour auoir estées indice & enseignes de prouesse & vertu) les figures des principales & plus nobles, sont ci tirees en deuises: tant a la louange & memoire de l’antique noblesse, que pareillement à la recreation, consolation, & esperance de la moderne, aspirãt & desirãt aussi de paruenir aus gages & loyers apartenãs & dediez aus defenseurs de la recommendable Republique. La premiere donques mise en reng, representera la Trionfale: laquelle estant tissue du verd Laurier, auec ses bacques, estoit donnée au Trionfateur, auquel par decret du Senat, estoit licite de trionfer parmi la vile de Romme, sur chariot, comme victorieus de ses ennemis. Desquels neantmoins lui conuenoit deuant la pompe, faire aparoir de la deffaite, du nombre parfait de cinq mile, en vne seule bataille. La susdite Couronne trionfale, apres long trait de temps (declinant l’Empire) fut commẽcee à estre meslee, & variée de Perles & pierrerie, & puis entierement changée de Laurier naturel en Laurier buriné, & enleué, sus vn cercle d’or: comme se void par les Medailles, de plusieurs monnoyes antiques._”[96]

Shakespeare does not add a single word of explanation, or of amplification, which he might be expected to have done, had he used an English translation; but simply, and without remark, he adopts the emblem and its motto, as is natural to anyone who, though not unskilled in the language by which they are expressed, is not perfectly at home in it.

Of chivalry, however, he often speaks,—“of chivalrous design of knightly trial.” To Bolingbroke and Mowbray wager of battle is appointed to decide their differences _(Richard II._ act i. sc. 1, l. 202, vol. iv. p. 116), and the king says,—

“Since we can not atone you, we shall see
Justice design the victor’s chivalry.”

And (vol. iv. p. 137) John of Gaunt declares of England’s kings; they were,—

“Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
In Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son.”

But in the case of the fourth and fifth knights, it is not the simple adoption of a device which we have to consider; the very ideas, almost the very phrases in which those ideas were clothed, have also been given, pointing out that the Dramatist had before him something more than explanations in an unfamiliar tongue.

The device of the fourth knight is both described and interpreted,—

“A burning torch that’s turned upside down;
The word, _Quod me alit, me extinguit._
Which shows, that beauty hath this power and will,
Which can as well inflame as it can kill.”
Act ii. sc. 2, lines 32–35.

Thus presented in Symeoni’s “TETRASTICHI MORALI,” edition Lyons, 1561, p. 35,—

_SIGNOR DI S._
VALIER.

An Italian stanza explains the device,—

“_Nutriſce il fuoco à lui la cera intorno,
Et la cera l’eſtingue. ò quanti ſono,
Che dopo vn riceuuto & largo dono,
Dal donator riceuon danno & ſcorno._”

“Qui me alit,
me extinguit.”

The sense of which we now endeavour to give,—

“The wax here within nourishes the flames
And the wax stifles them; how many names
Who after a large gift and kindness shown,
Get from the giver harm and scorn alone.”

“Who nourishes me,
extinguishes me.”

Symeoni (from edition Lyons, 1574, p. 200) adds this little piece of history:—

“In the battle of the Swiss, routed near Milan by King Francis, M. de Saint Valier, the old man, father of Madame the Duchess de Valentinois,[97] and captain of a hundred gentlemen of the king’s house, bore a standard, whereon was painted a lighted torch with the head downward, on which flowed so much wax as would extinguish it, with this motto ‘QVI ME ALIT, ME EXTINGVIT,’ imitating the emblem of the king his master; that is, ‘NVTRISCO ET EXTINGVO.’ It is the nature of the wax, which is the cause of the torch burning when held upright, that with the head downward it should be extinguished. Thus he wished to signify, that as the beauty of a lady whom he loved nourished all his thoughts, so she put him in peril of his life. See still this standard in the church of the Celestins at Lyons.”[98]

Paradin, who confessedly copies from Symeoni, agrees very nearly with this account, but gives the name of the Duchess “Diane de Poitiers,” and omits mentioning “the emblem of the king.”

_Qui me alit, me extinguit._

As stated in the _fac-simile Reprint_ of Whitney’s _Emblemes_, p. 302, Douce in his _Illustrations of Shakespeare_, pp. 302, 393, advances the opinion that the translation of Paradin into English, 1591, by P. S., was the source of Shakespeare’s torch-emblem; “but it is very note-worthy that the torch in the English translation is not a torch ‘that’s turned upside down,’ but one held uninverted, with the flame naturally ascending. This contrariety to Shakespeare’s description seems fatal therefore to the translator’s claim.” P. S., however, renders the motto, “He that nourisheth me, killeth me;” and so may put in a claim to the suggestion of the line,—

“Which can as well inflame as it can kill.”

Let us next take Whitney’s stanza of six lines to the same motto and the same device, p. 183; premising that the very same wood-block appears to have been used for the Paradin in 1562, and for the Whitney in 1586.

“Even as the waxe dothe feede, and quenche the flame,
So, loue giues life; and loue, dispaire doth giue:
The godlie loue, doth louers croune with fame:
The wicked loue, in shame dothe make them liue.
Then leaue to loue, or loue as reason will,
For, louers lewde doe vainlie languishe still.”

Now, comparing together Symeoni, Paradin, Whitney, and Shakespeare, as explanatory of the fourth knight’s emblem, we can scarcely fail to perceive in the _Pericles_ a closer resemblance, both of thought and expression, to Whitney than to the other two. Whitney wrote,—

“So, loue giues life; and loue, dispaire doth giue,”

which the _Pericles_ thus amplifies:

“Which shows, that beauty hath this power and will,
Which can as well inflame as it can kill.”

We conclude, therefore, from this instance, that Whitney’s _Choice of Emblemes_ was known to the author of the _Pericles_, and that in this instance he has simply carried out the idea which was there suggested to him.

A slight allusion to this same device of the burning torch is made in _3 Henry VI._ (act iii. sc. 2, l. 51, vol. v. p. 281), when Clarence remarks,—

“As red as fire! nay, then her wax must melt;”

but a very distinct one in Hamlet’s words (act iii. sc. 4, l. 82, vol. viii. p. 112),—

“O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
And melt in her own fire; proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.”

The “AMORVM EMBLEMATA,”—_Emblemes of Loue,—with verses in Latin, English, and Italian_: 4to, Antverpiæ, M.DC.IIX., gives the same variation in the reading of the motto as Shakespeare does, namely, “Quod” for “Qui;” and as Daniell had done in _The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jouius_, in 1585, by substituting “_Quod me alit_” for “_Qui me alit_.”[99] The latter is the reading in Paulus Jovius himself,—and is also found in some of the early editions of this play. (See Cambridge _Shakespeare_, vol. ix. p. 343.) The _Amorum Emblemata_, by Otho Vænius, named above, and dated 1608—one year before “PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE,” was first published, in quarto—has the Latin motto, “QVOD NVTRIT, EXTINGVIT,” Englished and Italianised as follows:

“_Loue killed by his owne nouriture._”

“The torche is by the wax maintayned whyle it burnes,
But turned vpsyde-down it straight goes out & dyes,
Right so by Cupids heat the louer lyues lykewyse,
But thereby is hee kild, when it contrarie turnes.”

“Quel che nutre, estingue.”

“_Nutre la cera il foco, e ne lo priua
Quando è riuolto in giù: d’Amor l’ardore
Nutre e sfare l’Amante in vn calore,
Contrario effetto vn sol suggetto auiua._”

At a much earlier date, 1540, Corrozet’s _Hecatomgraphie_ gives the inverted torch as a device, with the motto, “Mauluaise nourriture,”—

“Quelcun en prenant ses esbatz
M’ainsi mise contrebas
La cire le feu nourrissant
L’estainct & le faict perissant.”

DEVISES
Sic spectanda fides.

But the “device” and “the word” of the fifth knight,—

“An hand environed with clouds,
Holding out gold that’s by the touchstone tried;
The motto thus, _Sic spectanda fides_,”
(Act ii. sc. 2, lines 36–38,)

“So is fidelity to be proved,”—occur most exactly in Paradin’s “DEVISES HEROIQUES,” edition 1562, leaf 100, _reverse_; they are here figured.

Paradin often presents an account of the origin and appropriation of his emblems, but, in this instance, he offers only an application. “If, in order to prove fine gold, or other metals, we bring them to the touch, without trusting to their glitter or their sound;—so, to recognise good people and persons of virtue, it is needful to observe the splendour of their deeds, without dwelling upon their mere talk.”[100]

The narrative which Paradin neglects to give may be supplied from other sources. This Emblem or Symbol is, in fact, that which was appropriated to Francis I. and Francis II., kings of France from 1515 to 1560, and also to one of the Henries—probably Henry IV. The inscription on the coin, according to Paradin and Whitney’s woodcut, is “FRANCISCVS DEI GRATIA FRAN. REX;” this is for Francis I.; but in the _Hierographia Regvm Francorvm_[101] (vol. i. pp. 87 and 88), the emblem is inscribed, “Franciscus II. Valesius Rex Francorum XXV. Christianissimus.” A device similar to Paradin’s then follows, and the comment, _Coronatum aureum nummum, ad Lydium lapidem dextra hæc explicat & sic, id est, duris in rebus fidem explorandam docet_,—“This right hand extends to the Lydian stone a coin of gold which is wreathed around, and so teaches that fidelity in times of difficulty is put to the proof.” The coin applied to the touchstone bears the inscription, “FRANCISCVS II. FRANCORV. REX.” An original drawing,[102] by Crispin de Passe, in the possession of Sir William Stirling Maxwell, Bart., of Keir, presents the inscription in another form, “HENRICVS, D. G. FRANCORV. REX.” The first work of Crispin de Passe is dated 1589, and Henry IV. was recognised king of France in 1593. His portrait, and that of his queen, Mary of Medicis, were painted by De Passe; and so the Henry on the coin in the drawing above alluded to was Henry of Navarre.

The whole number of original drawings at Keir, by Crispin de Passe, is thirty-five, of the size of the following plate,—No 27 of the series.

]

The mottoes in _Emblemata Selectiora_ are,—

“PECUNIA SANGUIS ET ANIMA MORTALIUM.
Quidquid habet mundus, regina Pecunia vincit,
Fulmineoque ictu fortius una ferit.”

“’T GELD VERMAG ALLES.
’t Geld houd den krygsknecht in zyn plichten,
Kan meer dan’t dondertuig uit richten.”

“MONEY THE BLOOD AND LIFE OF MEN.
Whatever the world possesses, money rules as queen,
And more strongly than by lightning’s force smites together.”

“MONEY CAN DO EVERYTHING.
To his duty the warrior, ’tis money can hold,—
Than the thunderbolt greater the influence of gold.”

Very singular is the correspondence of the last two mottoes to a scene in _Timon of Athens_ (act iv. sc. 3, lines 25, 377, vol. vii. pp. 269, 283). Timon digging in the wood finds gold, and asks,—

“What is here?
Gold! yellow, glittering, precious gold!”

and afterwards, when looking on the gold, he thus addresses it,—

“O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
’Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler
Of Hymen’s purest bed! thou valiant Mars!
Thou ever young, fresh, loved, and delicate wooer,
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
That lies on Dian’s lap! thou visible god,
That solder’st close impossibilities,
And makest them kiss! that speak’st with every tongue,
To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!
Think, thy slave man rebels; and by thy virtue
Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May have the world in empire!”

The Emblem which Shakespeare attributes to the fifth knight is fully described by Whitney (p. 139), with the same device and the same motto, _Sic spectanda fides_,[104]—

“THE touche doth trye, the fine, and purest goulde:
And not the sound, or els the goodly showe.
So, if mennes wayes, and vertues, wee behoulde,
The worthy men, wee by their workes, shall knowe.
But gallant lookes, and outward showes beguile,
And ofte are clokes to cogitacions vile.”

If, in the use of this device, and in their observations upon it, Paradin, either in the original or in the English version, and Whitney be compared with the lines on the subject in _Pericles_, it will be seen “that Shakespeare did not derive his fifth knight’s device either from the French emblem or from its English translator, but from the English Whitney which had been lately published. Indeed, if _Pericles_ were written, as Knight conjectures, in Shakespeare’s early manhood, previous to the year 1591, it could not be the English translation of Paradin which furnished him with the three mottoes and devices of the Triumph Scene.”

To the motto, “AMOR CERTVS IN RE INCERTA CERNITVR,”—_Certain love is seen in an uncertain matter_,—Otho Vænius, in his _Amorum Emblemata_, 4to, Antwerp, 1608, represents two Cupids at work, one trying gold in the furnace, the other on the touchstone. His stanzas, published with an English translation, as if intended for circulation in England, may, as we have conjectured, have been seen by Shakespeare before 1609, when the _Pericles_ was revived. They are to the above motto,—

“_Nummi vt adulterium exploras priùs indice, quam sit
Illo opus: haud aliter ritè probandus Amor.
Scilicet vt fuluium spectatur in ignibus aurum:
Tempore sic duro est inspicienda fides._”

“_Loues triall._

As gold is by the fyre, and by the fournace tryde,
And thereby rightly known if it be bad or good,
Hard fortune and distresse do make it vnderstood,
Where true loue doth remayn, and fayned loue resyde.”

“Come l’oro nel foco.

_Sû la pietra, e nel foco l’or si proua,
E nel bisogno, come l’or nel foco,
Si dee mostrar leale in ogni loco
l’Amante; e alhor si vee d’Amor la proua._”

The same metaphor of attesting characters, as gold is proved by the touchstone or by the furnace, is of frequent occurrence in Shakespeare’s undoubted plays; and sometimes the turn of the thought is so like Whitney’s as to give good warrant for the supposition, either of a common original, or that Shakespeare had read the Emblems of our Cheshire poet and made use of them.

King Richard III. says to Buckingham (act iv. sc. 2, l. 8, vol. v. p. 580),—

“O Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
To try if thou be current gold indeed.”

And in _Timon of Athens_ (act iii. sc. 3, l. 1, vol. vii. p. 245), when Sempronius observes to a servant of Timon’s,—

“Must he needs trouble me in’t,—hum!—’bove all others?
He might have tried Lord Lucius and Lucullus;
And now Ventidius is wealthy too,
Whom he redeem’d from prison: all these
Owe their estates unto him.”

The servant immediately replies,—

“My lord,
They have all been touch’d and found base metal, for
They have all denied him.”

Isabella, too, in _Measure for Measure_ (act ii. sc. 2, l. 149, vol. i. p. 324), most movingly declares her purpose to bribe Angelo, the lord-deputy,—

“Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,
Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor
As fancy values them; but with true prayers
That shall be up at heaven and enter there
Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.”

In the dialogue from _King John_ (act iii. sc. 1, l. 96, vol. iv. p. 37) between Philip of France and Constance, the same testing is alluded to. King Philip says,—

“By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause
To curse the fair proceedings of this day:
Have I not pawn’d to you my majesty?”

But Constance answers with great severity,—

“You have beguiled me with a counterfeit
Resembling majesty, which being touch’d and tried,
Proves valueless: you are forsworn, forsworn.”

One instance more shall close the subject;—it is from the _Coriolanus_ (act iv. sc. 1, l. 44, vol. vi. p. 369), and contains a very fine allusion to the testing of true metal; the noble traitor is addressing his mother Volumnia, his wife Virgilia, and others of his kindred,—

“Fare ye well:
Thou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full
Of the wars’ surfeits, to go rove with one
That’s yet unbruised: bring me but out at gate.
Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and
My friends of noble touch, when I am forth,
Bid me farewell, and smile.”

So beautifully and so variously does the great dramatist carry out that one thought of making trial of men’s hearts and characters to learn the metal of which they are made.

To finish our notices and illustrations of the Triumph Scene in _Pericles_, there remain to be considered the device and the motto of the sixth—the stranger knight—who “with such a graceful courtesy delivered,”—

“A wither’d branch, that’s only green at top,[105]
The motto, _In hac spe vivo_;”
(Act ii. sc. 2, lines 43, 44;)

and on which the remark is made by Simonides,—

“A pretty moral:
From the dejected state wherein he is,
He hopes by you his fortune yet may flourish.”

With these I have found nothing identical in any of the various books of Emblems which I have examined; indeed, I cannot say that I have met with anything similar. The sixth knight’s emblem is very simple, natural, and appropriate; and I am most of all disposed to regard it as invented by Shakespeare himself to complete a scene, the greater part of which had been accommodated from other writers.

_Illicitum non ſperandum._

“SPES _ſimul & Nemeſis noſtris altaribus adſunt,
Scilicet vt ſperes non niſi quod liceat._”

The unlawful thing not to be hoped for.

“HERE NEMESIS, and Hope: our deedes doe rightlie trie,
Which warnes vs, not to hope for that, which justice doth denie.”

Yet the sixth device and motto need not remain without illustration. Hope is a theme which Emblematists could not possibly omit. Alciatus gives a series of four Emblems on this virtue,—Emblems 43, 44, 45, and 46; Sambucus, three, with the mottoes “Spes certa,” “In spe fortitudo,” and “Spes aulica;” and Whitney, three from Alciatus (pp. 53, 137, and 139); but none of these can be accepted as a proper illustration of the _In hac spe vivo_. Their inapplicability may be judged of from Alciat’s 46th Emblem, very closely followed by Whitney (p. 139).

In the spirit, however, if not in the words of the sixth knight’s device, the Emblem writers have fashioned their thoughts. From Paradin’s “DEVISES HEROIQVES,” so often quoted, we select two devices (fol. 30 and 152) illustrative of our subject. The one, an arrow issuing from a tomb, on which is the sign of the cross, and having verdant shoots twined around it, was the emblem which Madame Diana of Poitiers adopted to express her strong hope of a resurrection from the dead;[106] and the same hope is also shadowed forth by ears of corn growing out of a collection of dry bones, and ripening and shedding their seed.

The first, _Sola viuit in illo_,—“Alone on that,” _i.e._, on the cross, “she lives,”—we now offer with Paradin’s explanation; “_L’esperance que Madame Diane de Poitiers Illustre Duchesse de Valentinois, a de la resurrection, & que son noble esprit, contemplant les cieus en cette view, paruiendra en l’autre après la mort: est possible signifié par sa Deuise, qui est d’vn Sercueil, ou tombeau, duquel sort vn trait, acompagné de certains syons verdoyans._” _i.e._,—“The hope which Madame Diana of Poitiers, the illustrious Duchess de Valentinois, has of the resurrection, and which her noble spirit, contemplating the heavens in this life, will arrive at in the other, after death: it is really signified by her Device, which is a Sepulchre or tomb, from which issues an arrow, accompanied by certain verdant shoots.”

The motto of the second is more directly to the purpose, _Spes altera vitæ_,—“Another hope of life,” or “The hope of another life,”—and its application is thus explained by Paradin (leaf 151 _reverso_),—“_Les grains des Bleds, & autres herbages, semées & mortifiées en terre, se reuerdoyent, & prennent nouuel accroissement: aussi les corps humains tombãs par Mort, seront relevés en gloire, par generale resurrection._”—_i.e._, “The seeds of wheat, and other herbs, sown and dying in the ground, become green again, and take new growth: so human bodies cast down by Death will be raised again in glory, by the general resurrection.”

We omit the woodcut which Paradin gives, and substitute for it the 100th Emblem, part i. p. 102, from Joachim Camerarius, edition, 1595, which bears the very same motto and device.

SPES ALTERA VITÆ.

“_Securus moritur, qui scit se morte renasci:
Non ea mors dici, sed noua vita potest._”

“Fearless doth that man die, who knows
From death he again shall be born;
We never can name it as death,—
’Tis new life on eternity’s morn.”

A sentence or two from the comment may serve for explanation; “The seeds and grains of fruits and herbs are thrown upon the earth, and as it were entrusted to it; after a certain time they spring up again and produce manifold. So also our bodies, although already dead, and destined to burial in the earth, yet at the last day shall arise, the good to life, the wicked to judgment.”... “Elsewhere it is said, ONE HOPE SURVIVES, doubtless beyond the grave.”[107]

“MORT VIVIFIANTE,” of Messin, _In Morte Vita_, of Boissard, edition 1588, pp. 38, 39, also receive their emblematical representation, from wheat growing among the signs of death.

“En vain nous attendons la moisson, si le grain
Ne se pourrit au creux de la terre beschée.
Sans la corruption, la nature empeschée
Retient toute semence au ventre soubterrain.”

At present we must be content to say that the source of the motto and device of the sixth knight has not been discovered. It remains for us to conjecture, what is very far from being an improbability, that Shakespeare had read Spenser’s _Shepherd’s Calendar_, published in 1579, and from the line, on page 364 of Moxon’s edition, for January (l. 54),—

“Ah, God! that love should breed both ioy and paine!”—

and from the Emblem, as Spenser names it, _Anchora speme_,—“Hope is my anchor,”—did invent for himself the sixth knight’s device, and its motto, _In hac spe vivo_,—“In this hope I live.” The step from applying so suitably the Emblems of other writers to the construction of new ones would not be great; and from what he has actually done in the invention of Emblems in the _Merchant of Venice_ he would experience very little trouble in contriving any Emblem that he needed for the completion of his dramatic plans.

The _Casket_ Scene and the _Triumph_ Scene then justify our conclusion that the correspondencies between Shakespeare and the Emblem writers which preceded him are very direct and complete. It is to be accepted as a fact that he was acquainted with their works, and profited so much from them, as to be able, whenever the occasion demanded, to invent and most fittingly illustrate devices of his own. The spirit of Alciat was upon him, and in the power of that spirit he pictured forth the ideas to which his fancy had given birth.

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Footnote 93:

Thus to be rendered into symmetrical lines of English,—

“The Sun, the eye of heaven, with beams the world illumes,
And the pale Moon afar scatters black night.
So virtue, the soul’s sun, our pining senses illumes,
And genial faith dispels the darkness of the mind.
If virtue to the mind,—so leading the way to virtue shines
Faith in her purity: nothing can be brighter than this.
The golden splendour of virtue and faith, O Philip,
Throwing out beamings, shows to thee paths to the sky.
This in truth is the Sun of life, and the one Light-bringer,
This in truth the Moon which by shining drives away night.
While in thy mind these lights thou seest on high,—of the world
The darkness and terrors untrembling thou dost behold.
Sun and Moon and the Light-bringer flash light to their orbs,
And the while on thee shine, too, virtue and faith.”

Footnote 94:

Of cognate meaning is Messin’s motto in Boissard’s _Emblems_, 1588,
pp. 82–3, “Plvs par vertv qve par armes,”—_Plus virtute quàm
armis_,—the device being a tyrant, with spearmen to guard him, but
singeing his beard because he was afraid of his barber,—

“Et vuyde d’asseurance, il aymoit fier
La façon de son poil au charbon, qu’au barbier
Tant l’injustice au cœur ente de meffiance.”

Footnote 95:

See _Penny Cyclopædia_, vol. xxi. p. 343, where the _Pericles_ and
eight other plays are assigned “to the period from Shakspere’s early
manhood to 1591. Some of those dramas may possibly then have been
created in an imperfect state, very different from that in which we
have received them. If the _Titus Andronicus_ and _Pericles_ are
Shakspere’s, they belong to this epoch in their first state, whatever
it might have been.” See also Knight’s _Pictorial Shakspere_,
supplemental volume, p. 119, where, as before mentioned, the opinion
is laid down,—“We think that the _Pericles_ of the beginning of the
seventeenth century was the revival of a play written by Shakspere
some twenty years earlier.”

Footnote 96:

It may be mentioned that Paradin describes five other Roman wreaths of
honour.

Footnote 97:

Symeoni, in 1559, dedicated “All’ Illustrissima Signora Duchessa di
Valentinois,” his “VITA ET METAMORFOSEO D’OVIDIO,” 8vo, containing 187
pages of devices, with beautiful borders.

Footnote 98:

“_Nella giornata de Suizzeri, rotti presso à Milano dal Rè Francesco,
Monsignor di San Valiere il Vecchio, padre di Madama la Duchessa di
Valentinoys, e Capitano di cento Gentil’huomini della Casa del Rè,
portò vno Stendardo, nel quale era dipinto vn torchio acceso con la
testa in giù, sulla quale colaua tanta cera, che quasi li spegneua,
con queste parole_, QVI ME ALIT, ME EXTINGVIT, _imitando l’impresa del
Rè suo Padrone: cio è_, NVTRISCO ET EXTINGVO. _È la natura della cera,
la quale è cagione che ’l torchio abbrucia stando ritto, che col capo
in giù si spegne: volendo per ciò significare, che come la bellezza
d’vna Donna, che egli amaua, nutriua tutti i suoi pensieri, così lo
metteua in pericolo della vita. Vedesi anchora questo stendardo nella
Chiesa de Celestini in Lyone._”

Footnote 99:

See _Essays Literary and Bibliographical_, pp. 301–2, and 311, in the
Fac-simile Reprint of Whitney’s _Emblemes_, 1866.

Footnote 100:

“_Si pour esprouuer la fin Or, ou autre metaus, lon les raporte sus la
Touche, sans qu’on se confie de leurs tintemens, ou de leurs sons,
aussi pour connoitre les gens de bien, & vertueus personnages, se faut
prendre garde à la splendeur de leurs œuures, sans s’arrester au
babil._”

Footnote 101:

See _Symbola Diuina & Humana Pontificvm, Imperatorvm, Regvm_, 3 vols.
folio in one, Franckfort, 1652.

Footnote 102:

This original drawing, with thirty-four others by the same artist,
first appeared in _Emblemata Selectiora_, 4to, Amsterdam, 1704; also
in _Acht-en-Dertig Konstige Zinnebeelden_,—“Eight-and-thirty Artistic
Emblems,”—4to, Amsterdam, 1737.

Footnote 103:

Or it may be a few years later. The drawings, however, are undoubted
from which the above woodcut has been executed.

Footnote 104:

This Emblem is dedicated to “GEORGE MANWARINGE _Esquier_,” son of “Sir
Arthvre Menwerynge,” “of Ichtfeild,” in Shropshire, from whom are
directly descended the Mainwarings of Oteley Park, Ellesmere, and
indirectly the Mainwarings of Over-Peover, Cheshire.

Footnote 105:

The phrase is matched by another in _Much Ado about Nothing_ (act ii.
sc. 1, l. 214, vol. ii. p. 22), when Benedict said of the Lady
Beatrice, “O, she misused me past endurance of a block! an oak but
with one green leaf on it would have answered her.”

Footnote 106:

“The sixth device,” say the _Illustrations of Shakespeare_, by Francis
Douce, vol. ii. p. 127, “from its peculiar reference to the situation
of Pericles, may, perhaps, have been altered from one in the same
collection (Paradin’s), used by Diana of Poitiers. It is a green
branch springing from a tomb, with the motto, ‘SOLA VIVIT IN
ILLO,’”—_Alone on that she lives._

Footnote 107:

“_Frvmentorvm ac leguminum semina ac grana in terram projecta, ac illi
quasi concredita, certo tempore renascuntur, atque multiplices fructus
producunt. Sic nostra etiam corpora, quamvis: jam mortua, ac terrestri
sepulturæ destinata, in die tamen ultima resurgent, & piorum quidem ad
vitam, impiorum vero ad judicium._”... “_Alibi legitur, SPES VNA
SVPERSTES, nimirum post funus._”

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