Chapter V: Section I: Extent of the Emblem Literature to Which Shakespeare Might Have Had Access

IN the use of the word Emblem there is seldom a strict adherence observed to an exact definition,—so, when Emblem Literature is spoken of, considerable latitude is taken and allowed as to the kind of works which the terms shall embrace. In one sense every book which has a picture set in it, or on it, is an emblem-book,—the diagrams in a mathematical treatise or in an exposition of science, inasmuch as they may be, and often are, detached from the text, are emblems; and when to Tennyson’s exquisite poem of “ELAINE,” Gustave Doré conjoins those wonderful drawings which are themselves poetic, he gives us a book of emblems;—Tennyson is the one artist that out of the gold of his own soul fashioned a vase incorruptible,—and Doré is that second artist who placed about it ornaments of beauty, fashioned also out of the riches of his mind.

Yet by universal consent, these and countless other works, scientific, historical, poetic, and religious, which artistic skill has embellished, are never regarded as emblematical in their character. The “picture and short posie, expressing some particular conceit,” seem almost essential for bringing any work within the province of the Emblem Literature;—but the practical application of the test is conceived in a very liberal spirit, so that while the small fish sail through, the shark and the sea-dog rend the meshes to tatters.

A proverb or witty saying, as, in Don Sebastian Orozco’s “EMBLEMAS MORALES” (Madrid 1610), “Divesqve miserqve,” _both rich and wretched_, may be pictured by king Midas at the table where everything is turned to gold, and may be set forth in an eight-lined stanza, to declare how the master of millions was famishing though surrounded by abundance;—and these things constitute the Emblem. Some scene from Bible History shall be taken, as, in “~Les figures du vieil Testament, & du nouuel~” (at Paris, about 1503), _Moses at the burning bush_; where are printed, as if an Emblem text, the passage from Exodus iii. 2–4, and by its side the portraits of David and Esaias; across the page is a triplet woodcut, representing Moses at the bush, and Mary in the stable at Bethlehem with Christ in the manger-cradle; various scrolls with sentences from the Scriptures adorn the page:—such representations claim a place in the Emblem Literature. Boissard’s _Theatrum Vitæ Humanæ_ (Metz, 1596) shall mingle, in curious continuity, the Creation and Fall of Man, Ninus king of the Assyrians, Pandora and Prometheus, the Gods of Egypt, the Death of Seneca, Naboth and Jezabel, the Advent of Christ and the Last Judgment;—yet they are all Emblems,—because each has a “picture and a short posie” setting forth its “conceit.” To be sure there are some pages of Latin prose serving to explain or confuse, as the case may be, each particular imagination; but the text constitutes the emblem, and however long and tedious the comment, it is from the text the composition derives its name.

“~Stam und Wapenbuch hochs und niders Standts~,”—_A stem and armorial Bearings-book of high and of low Station_,—printed at Frankfort-on-Mayne, 1579, presents above 270 woodcuts of the badges, shields and helmets, with appropriate symbols and rhymes, belonging as well to the humblest who can claim to be “vom gutem Geschlecht,” _of good race_, as to the Electoral Princes and to the Cæsarean Majesty of the Holy Roman Empire. Most of the figures are illustrated by Latin and German verses, and again “picture and short posie” vindicate the title,—book of Emblems.

And of the same character is a most artistic work by Theodore de Bry, lately added to the treasure-house at Keir; it is also a _Stam und Wapenbuch_, issued at Frankfort in 1593, with ninety-four plates all within most beautiful and elaborate borders. Its Latin title, _Emblema Nobilitate et Vulgo scitu digna, &c._, declares that these Emblems are “worthy to be known both by nobles and commons.”

And so when an Emperor is married, or the funeral rites of a Sovereign Prince celebrated, or a new saint canonized, or perchance some proud cardinal or noble to be glorified, whatever Art can accomplish by symbol and song is devoted to the emblem-book pageantry,—and the graving tool and the printing press accomplish as enduring and wide-spread a splendour as even Titian’s Triumphs of Faith and Fame.

Devotion that seeks wisdom from the skies, and Satire that laughs at follies upon the earth, both have claimed and used emblems as the exponents of their aims and purposes.

_Plate 2_

With what surpassing beauty and nobleness both of expression and of sentiment does Otho Vænius in his “AMORIS DIVINI EMBLEMATA,” Antwerp, 1615, represent to the mind as well as to the eye the blessed Saviour’s adoption of a human soul, and the effulgence of love with which it is filled! (See Plate II.) They are indeed divine Images portrayed for us, and the great word is added from the beloved disciple,—“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” And the simple _Refrain_ follows,—

_“C’est par cet Amour que les hommes
Sont esleuez de ce bas lieu;
C’est par cet Amour que nous sommes
Enfans legitimes de Dieu:
Car l’Ame qui garde en la vie
De son Pere la volonté,
Doit au Pere ès cieux estre vnie
(Comme fille) en eternité.”_

And that clever imitation of the “~Stultifera Nauis~,” _the Fool-freighted Ship_, of the fifteenth century, namely, the “CENTIFOLIUM STULTORUM,” edition 1707, or _Hundred-leaved Book of Fools_ of the eighteenth, proves how the Satirical may symbolize and fraternize with the Emblematical. The title of the book alone is sufficient to show what a vehicle for lashing men’s faults the device with its stanzas and comment may be made; it is, “A hundred-leaved book of Fools, in Quarto; or an hundred exquisite Fools newly warmed up, in Folio,—in an Alapatrit-Pasty for the show-dish; with a hundred fine copper engravings, for honest pleasure and useful pastime, intended as well for frolicsome as for melancholy minds; enriched moreover with a delicate sauce of many Natural Histories, gay Fables, short Discourses, and edifying Moral Lessons.”

Among the one hundred _distinguished_ characters, we might select, were it only in self-condemnation, the Glass and Porcelain dupe, the Antiquity and Coin-hunting dupe, and especially the Book-collecting dupe. These are among the best of the devices, and the stanzas, and the expositions. Dupes of every kind, however, may find their reproof in the six simple German lines,—p. 171,

~“Wer Narren offt viel predigen will,
Ben ihnen nicht wird schaffen viel:
Dann all’s was man am besten redt,
Der Narr zum ärgsten falsch versteht,
Ein Narr, ein Narr, bleibt ungelehrt,
Wann man ihn hundert Jahr schon lehrt.”~

meaning pretty nearly in our vernacular English,

“Whoso to fools will much and oft be preaching,
By them not much will make by all his teaching.
For though we of our very best be speaking,
Falsely the fool the very worst is seeking.
Therefore the fool, a fool untaught, remains,
Though five score years we give him all our pains.”

But Politics also have the bright, if not the dark, side of their nature presented to the world in Emblems. Giulio Capaccio, Venetia, 1620, derives “IL PRINCIPE,” _The Prince_, from the Emblems of Alciatus, “with two hundred and more Political and Moral Admonitions,” “useful,” he declares, “to every gentleman, by reason of its excellent knowledge of the customs, economy, and government of States.” Jacobus à Bruck, of Angermunt, in his “EMBLEMATA POLITICA,” A.D. 1618, briefly demonstrates those things which concern government; but Don Diego Saavedra Faxardo, who died in 1648, in a work of considerable repute,—“IDEA de vn Principe Politico-Christiano, representada EN CIEN EMPRESAS,”—_Idea of a Politic-Christian Prince, represented in one hundred Emblems_ (edition, Valencia, 1655), so accompanies his Model Ruler from the cradle to maturity as almost to make us think, that could we find the bee-bread on which Kings should be nourished, it would be no more difficult a task for a nation to fashion a perfect Emperor than it is for a hive to educate their divine-right ruling Queen.

_Plate 3_

La Creatione & confuſuione
del Mondo, 1

Prima ch’ il gran futtor dell’ Vniuerſo
Con pietà gli poneſſe intorno mente,
Era cieco nel Mar l’ Aer ſommerſo,
Nel centro il Fuoco, e’l tutto era niente,
Ch’ ogni Elemento, di virtù diuerſo,
Non hauea luogo à lui conueniente:
Ma del verbo diuím l’amor profondo
D’ vn C A O S ordinò ſi bello il Mondo,

But, so great is the variety of subjects to which the illustrations from Emblems are applied, that we shall content ourselves with mentioning one more, taking out the arguments, as they are named, from celebrated classic poets, and converting them into occasions for pictures and short posies. Thus, like the dust of Alexander, the remains of the mighty dead, of Homer and Virgil, of Ovid and Horace, have served the base uses of Emblem-effervescence, and in nearly all the languages of Europe have been forced to misrepresent the noble utterances of Greece and Rome. Many of the pictures, however, are very beautiful, finely conceived, and skilfully executed;—we blame not the artists, but the false taste which must make little bits of verses where the originals existed as mighty poems.

Generally it is considered that the Ovids of the fifteenth century were without pictorial illustrations, and could not, therefore, be classed among books of Emblems; but the Blandford Catalogue, p. 21, records an edition, “Venetia, 1497,” “_cum figuris depictis_,”—with figures portrayed. Without discussing the point, we will refer to an undoubted emblematized edition of the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, “Figurato & abbreviato in forma d’Epigrammi da M. Gabriello Symeoni,”—_figured and abbreviated in form of Epigrams by M. Gabriel Symeoni_. The volume is a small 4to of 245 pages, of which 187 have each a title and device and Italian stanza, the whole surrounded by a richly figured border. The volume, dedicated to the celebrated “Diana di Poitiers, Dvchessa di Valentinois,” was published “A Lione per Giouanni di Tornes nella via Resina, 1559.” An Example, p. 13, (see Plate III.,) will show the character of the work, of which another edition was issued in 1584. The Italian stanzas are all of eight lines each, and the passages of the original Latin on which they are founded are collected at the end of the volume. Thus, for “La Creatione & confusione del Mondo,” the Latin lines are,

“_Ante mare & terras & quod tegit omnia, cœlum.
. . . . . . . Nulli sua forma manebat.
Hanc Deus, & melior litem natura diremit._”

Of the devices several are very closely imitated in the woodcuts of Reusner’s Emblems, published at Frankfort, in 1581. The engravings in Symeoni’s Ovid are the work of Solomon Bernard, “the little Bernard,” a celebrated artist born at Lyons in 1512; who also produced a set of vignettes for a French translation of Virgil, _L’Eneide de Virgile, Prince des Poetes latins_, printed at Lyons in 1560.

“QVINTI HORATII FLACCI EMBLEMATA,” as Otho Vænius names one of his choicest works, first published in 1607, is a similar adaptation of a classic author to the prevailing taste of the age for emblematical representation. The volume is a very fine 4to of 214 pages, of which 103 are plates; and a corresponding 103 contain extracts from Horace and other Latin authors, followed, in the edition of 1612, by stanzas in Spanish, Italian, French and Flemish. An example of the execution of the work will be found as a Photolith, Plate XVII., near the end of our volume; it is the “VOLAT IRREVOCABILE TEMPUS,”—_Irrevocable time is flying_,—so full of emblematical meaning.

From the office of the no less celebrated Crispin de Passe, at Utrecht, in 1613, issued, in Latin and French verse, “SPECVLVM HEROICVM Principis omnium temporum Poëtarum HOMERI,”—_The Heroic Mirror of Homer, the Prince of the Poets of all times_. The various arguments of the twenty-four books of the _Iliad_ have been taken and made the groundwork of twenty-four Emblems, with their devices most admirably executed. The Latin and French verses beneath each device unmistakeably impress a true emblem-character on the work. The author, “le Sieur J. Hillaire,” appends to the Emblems, pp. 69–75, “Epitaphs on the Heroes who perished in the Trojan War,” and also “La course d’Vlisses, son tragitte retour, & deffaicte des amans qui poursuivoient la chaste & vertueuse Penelope.”

What might not in this way be included within the wide-encompassing grasp of the determined Emblematist it is almost impossible to say; and therefore it ought to be no matter of surprise to find there is practically a greater extent given to the Literature of Emblems than of absolute right belongs to it. We shall not go much astray if we take Custom for our guide, and keep to its decisions as recorded in the chief catalogues of Emblem works.

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