Guillaume de La Perrièrre, Le Theatre Des Bons Engins (Lyon, 1545)
Emblem 75
A lion hanging from a gallows, another lion fleeingAI-generated
Nous nous debuons chastier par aultruy.
We ought to correct ourselves by (the example of) others.AI-generated
Description of the woodcutAI-generated
A woodcut in a rectangular frame. At the left, a lion hangs dead by a rope from a gallows beam, its body suspended upright with legs dangling. At the right, another lion runs away across open ground, turning its head back toward the hanged beast. The background shows a hilly landscape with a walled castle or fortified building on a rise, distant hills, and clouds in the sky.
Subscriptio
TranscriptionAI-generated
SI les Lyons, que lon pend en Affricque,Font grand' frayeur, & peur à leurs semblables,N'aura pas peur vn gros larron publicque,Ou Thresorier, de ses faictz execrables?Maintz en sont mortz au gibet, miserables,Et les plus grandz ont commencé la dance:Gardent soy donc pour peur de la cadance,Leurs successeurs, d'estre comme eulx meschantz:Car aultrement hault en pleine euidence,Seront logez, comme euesques des champs.
TranslationAI-generated
If the lions that are hanged in Africa cause great fright and fear to their fellows, will not a great public thief, or a treasurer, be afraid of his execrable deeds? Many of them have died miserably on the gallows, and the greatest ones have begun the dance: let their successors therefore beware, for fear of the same measure, of being wicked like them; for otherwise, high up and in plain view, they will be lodged like bishops of the fields.
Iconclass
86(NOUS NOUS DEBUONS CHASTIER PAR AULTRUY)proverbs, sayings, etc. (NOUS NOUS DEBUONS CHASTIER PAR AULTRUY)25I9landscape with ruins25F23(LION)(+5212)beasts of prey, predatory animals: lion (+ running animal)33B9flight, running away; pursuing44G342(+34)on the scaffold or place of execution (+ instruments of execution)25F23(LION)(+63)beasts of prey, predatory animals: lion (+ dying animal; death of animal; dead animal)54CC22Deterrence
Suggested Iconclass codesAI-generated
Additional codes proposed for this emblem, not (yet) part of the indexing.
44G321(GALLOWS)instruments of torture, execution or punishment: gallowshighThe correlate 'instruments of torture, execution or punishment: gallows' matches the gallows beam from which the dead lion hangs by a rope.
Relationships to the Adagia of ErasmusAI-generated
Suggested relationships between this emblem and adages in Erasmus’ Adagia.
- V i 98 Exemplum utile – thematic inventiohigh
Erasmus's gloss — when wrongdoers pay the penalty they are not improved themselves but serve as a warning to others not to fall into like disaster — is precisely the emblem's lesson that the hanged lion (and the hanged thief or treasurer) teaches his successors by example; both are classed under the fear of punishment.
- II ix 71 Innocuus alium aspiciam meum habentem malum – thematic inventiomedium
The motto 'Nous nous debuons chastier par aultruy' renders exactly the sense Erasmus gives this adage, glossed with the Plautine tag 'Feliciter sapit, qui alieno periculo sapit' — learning to govern one's own affairs from another's misfortune.
- IV i 93 Cautus enim metuit, etc. – thematic inventiolow
Erasmus applies this to those who abstain from misdeeds not on principle but through fear of punishment, using animal-trap imagery; the emblem likewise shows beasts (and by analogy public thieves) deterred from crime only by the sight of the gallows.
- III ix 64 In tempore cavenda poena mali – thematic inventiolow
The subscriptio's warning that successors should 'gardent soy... d'estre comme eulx meschantz' before they too are hanged matches Erasmus's admonition to desist from wrongdoing in good time, before vengeance falls.
Sources
Record ID: embhab_162-3-eth-b_emblem075
This emblem on the Iconclass site: https://iconclass.org/view/embhab_162-3-eth-b_emblem075
Page in the digital copy of the Herzog August Bibliothek: http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/162-3-eth-b/start.htm?image=00088