History of Monsters. 361

# EMBLEMS

We cannot help but marvel at how even monstrous images serve as the subjects of emblems. For instance, Alciato depicted a woman with the feet of a lion and covered with the wings of birds, bearing the motto: *Ignorance Must Be Banished*. The image of this monster represents the Sphinx of the ancients, who was depicted with a maiden’s face and was said to plague the region of Thebes. She would lead men to a precipice and propose a riddle to be solved; if they could not explain it, she would hurl them from a towering rock. The riddle was this: what animal is at once four-footed, two-footed, and three-footed? Ausonius expressed this in the following verses:

"He who would be two-legged, four-legged, and three-legged, a single creature who terrified the Aonian land—a triform being of bird, lion, and maiden: the Sphinx, winged with feathers, a beast in its feet, and a girl in its features."

For this reason, Lactantius, in his commentary on the first book of the *Thebaid*, rightly reported that the Sphinx was a monster similar to the Harpies. Diodorus categorized the Sphinx among the species of apes, while Albertus Magnus and Solinus also called the Sphinx an ape. Sabellicus, however, believes that the Sphinx was actually a destructive man of that name who killed many people with his deceptions. Setting these opinions aside, what concerns our subject is that the Sphinx is depicted in three forms—namely, with the face of a girl, the feathers of birds, and the feet of a lion—to symbolize ignorance. Like the Sphinx, ignorance sits upon the high mountain of human life and oppresses an infinite multitude of men with its ferocity, for no other reason than that men do not recognize themselves—that is, they are ignorant of the fact that they are human.

The triple form of this monster can be traced back to the three principal and efficient causes of ignorance. The maiden’s face represents pleasure, which sometimes so blinds men that it easily transforms them from a human to a beastly nature. The feathers covering the monster signify levity and inconstancy of mind. The lion’s feet declare pride and arrogance, which turns a false opinion of things into a pretense of knowledge, leading a man to believe he knows what he does not. There are, therefore, three causes of ignorance: first, corporeal pleasure, by which a man is lured away and utterly revolts against all true discipline; second, a flightiness of intellect or rashness that fails to see what is appropriate; and third, an elation of the soul. Regarding this, Plutarch recorded in various places that words were once carved in golden letters before the doors of the temple of Delphic Apollo to this effect: *gnōthi seauton*, that is, "Know Thyself." Ausonius sang of this:

"Though it is difficult to know oneself—*gnōthi seauton*—as quickly as we read it, just as fast do we neglect it."

With these points noted and explained, Alciato’s verses, which run as follows, will now be better understood:

"What monster is this? It is the Sphinx. Why has it a maiden’s white face, the wings of birds, and the legs of a lion? Ignorance of things has taken on this appearance: such, indeed, is the triple cause and origin of this evil. There are those whom a flighty character makes ignorant, those whom alluring pleasure makes so, and those whom a proud heart makes unrefined. But those who know what the Delphic letter can do, they cut the dreadful throat of the headlong monster. For man himself is at once two-legged, three-legged, and four-legged; and the first laurel of the wise man is: know the man."

The same Alciato painted another monster, namely an ox with a human face and chest, depicted on a banner decorated with the letters S.P.Q.R. and the title: *Counsel Not to be Disclosed*. The author is alluding to the Minotaur, whom the ancients feigned was sired by Pasiphae