272 Ulysses Aldrovandi

...holding it lit while contemplating the stars, inscribed with the title *Sloth*. In this image, under the pretext of deep thought, we see a state of idleness that extinguishes the light of virtue and nourishes vice. For this reason, elsewhere the same author depicted a man twisting ropes which a female donkey then ate, illustrating the idleness and laziness of a wife who consumes all her husband’s hard work. To show that such inertia must be avoided, Alciatus presented a picture of a man sitting on a *choenix* [a dry grain measure], titled *Sloth Must Be Cast Aside*. By this, he exhorts men to labor. The motif is taken from a Pythagorean maxim which commanded that one should not sit upon a *choenix*—meaning that one should not rely solely on their daily rations. This is explained in the following four-line verse:

Whoever is idle, depart; for the sacred dogmas of the old man of Samos forbid sitting on a *choenix*. Arise, then, and accustom your hands to hard work, so that tomorrow may provide you with your measured portions of food.

Finally, to illustrate ill-temper, Florentius uses that same image we mentioned among the symbols, where a man was painted poking at a fire. However, the inscription here is different; it reads: *Yield to the Ill-Tempered*. The couplet explains it this way:

Yield to the surly, for the more you stir the fire, the more the disturbed embers cast off their glow.

Indeed, we find in the adages that one should not poke a fire with a sword. This warns us that the anger of Princes and Rulers should not be provoked with insults; just as a flame grows stronger the more it is stirred, it will conversely die down and be extinguished if it is left in peace.

Next come emblems adorned with figures where a man is seen with various tools and other inanimate objects. Florentius depicts a man grafting a tree with the title *Art Assists Nature*. This signifies that just as a tree usually produces tasteless fruit without grafting, so a man lives like a raw mass in the theater of this world unless he cultivates his nature through learning. In Camerarius, we see a man not grafting, but cutting the bark of a tree from whose wound balsam flows, inscribed *I Heal Wounds with a Wound*. The couplet then compares the man to a log, through which the author detests human hardness and cruelty in these words:

Come, tell me: since I heal your wounds with my own, why are you, a man, a harsher enemy to men than this log?

Since trees have been mentioned, one can see in Florentius a man trying to uproot an ancient oak with both hands. The inscription is *One Must Grow Accustomed from a Tender Age*. The theme seems taken from Ovid’s first book of *The Remedy of Love*, where he sings:

The tree that provides broad shade for strollers was a mere twig when first planted. Then it could be plucked from the top of the earth by hand; now it stands increased by its own immense strength.

Through this emblem, the author urges that the correction of children must be undertaken while they are still in their early years. For wax must be handled while it is soft, and a curved branch must be bent while it is still a tender shoot into the shape we wish it to keep forever. A picture of a man wearing woolen shoes with a thunderbolt in his hand appears in Costalius, titled *Divine Vengeance*. The theme is drawn from the Pagans, whose gods were said to have feet of wool because they proceed toward vengeance with a slow and silent step. This is most elegantly explained in this four-line verse:

Jupiter, who hurls thunderbolts from the heavenly citadel, is said to have feet wrapped in wool. The wrath of God is slow, and hardly recognized by its quiet pace, yet it follows our crimes with an avenging foot.

An image of a man appears in Alciatus with many books, pressing his index finger to his lips. The inscription is *Silence*. For he wished to warn the man