Emblems

 I was listening to "The Verb" on BBC Radio 3 and heard a poet describe how her new book was inspired by another book nearly 500 years old, "Emblemi" by Andrea Alciato. I bought it because I'm always interested in odd illustrated books.

 What I actually bought was a heavily documented and commented version by Mino Gabriele, it has 700 pages whereas the original had less than 50.

The original started off in 1531 as a text without illustrations, a list of mottos, aphorisms, sayings and nuggets of advice. Alciato (a famous Italian lawyer) hoped that artists would be inspired to illustrate the text. I won't go into the history of it but that is what happened. 

Here are a few of the pages.

--o0o--

"A ruler must protect his subjects"

 The anchor symbolizes un-moving solidity, and the dolphin speed. A good ruler must have both of these properties.

 --o0o--

"Neither by word nor deed should you offend anybody"

That lady there is Nemesis, "the goddess who enacts retribution against those who succumb to hubris, arrogance before the gods" (Wikipedia). And I'd always thought that nemesis was a thing not a goddess.

 --o0o--

There are many strange and even impossible aphorisms in the book, but this is one of the strangest:

"In marriage respect is necessary"

 I don't mean the saying is strange, but the illustration. Apparently it used to be believed that male snakes and female fish could mate and have offspring. It presumably was thought that  biting happens during snake-fish sex and the poison of the snake would kill the fish. So the snake spits out his venom on the river bank before the act, and sucks it back in after the act. Thus showing respect for his lady fish, keeping her safe.

 

As to the modern poems "inspired" by the emblems, they are like many these days. "Emblems" by Lucy Mercer contains a jumble of words which sound deep and mysterious, but aren't. For example:

"The Verb" used to be interesting before Ian Macmillan got hypnotized by poets and poems like the one above. And after one of these readings he'll always ask one of the other guests on the program:  "Bob (or Sue or John), what did you like best about that poem?", ignoring the possibility that Bob or Sue or John did not like it at all.