Emblem 82

Emblem 82

Ivy strangling a treeAI-generated

Ingratitude on doibt fuyr grandement.

Ingratitude one ought greatly to flee.AI-generated

Description of the woodcutAI-generated

A woodcut in a rectangular frame showing a large leafy tree growing in the middle of a hilly landscape; its trunk and branches are tightly wound about with a climbing ivy plant whose leaves mingle with the tree's foliage. At the left in the background stands a small house or cottage with a pitched roof beside a stream or path; at the right the ground rises into a shaded bank or hillside, with hatched lines indicating fields and water in the foreground.

Subscriptio

Facsimile page of emblem 82 — Facsimile of the page (Herzog August Bibliothek); click to enlarge.

TranscriptionAI-generated

L'Arbre soustient le Lierre en ieunesse,Et l'entretient tousiours par son support:Mais le Lierre estant creu, l'arbre presse,Et si l'estrainct par liaysons si fort,Qu'en peu de temps la rendu sec & mort.Vn homme ingrat tousiours aussi messaict,A celuy là, qui du bien luy ha faict.Ingratitude est ainsi sans raison,Le Lyonneau en fin celuy deffaict,Qui le nourrit, & tient en sa maison.

TranslationAI-generated

The tree supports the ivy in its youth, and always sustains it by its support; but the ivy, once grown, presses the tree and binds it with ties so tight that in a short time it has made it dry and dead. An ungrateful man likewise always does ill to him who has done him good. Ingratitude is thus without reason: in the end the lion cub destroys the one who feeds it and keeps it in his house.

Suggested Iconclass codesAI-generated

Additional codes proposed for this emblem, not (yet) part of the indexing.

25G4(IVY) plants and herbs: ivyhigh

The correlate 'plants and herbs: ivy' exactly matches the climbing ivy winding about the tree's trunk and branches, the central motif of the woodcut.

57AA8 Ingratitude; 'Ingratitudine' (Ripa)high

The personified vice 'Ingratitude' corresponds to the emblem's moral of the ivy that repays the tree supporting it by smothering it, a theme flagged in the commentary.

32A45 parasite, spongermedium

'Parasite, sponger' fits the commentary's reading of the ivy as a parasite living off and destroying its host tree.

57AA6122 Sponging, Parasitizingmedium

'Sponging, Parasitizing' as an abstract concept matches the emblem's lesson about parasitic false friends embodied by the clinging ivy.

57AA6121 Flattery; 'Adulatione' (Ripa)medium

'Flattery' ('Adulatione', Ripa) corresponds to the commentary's association of the fawning, embracing ivy with flatterers who cling to and ruin their benefactors.

41A163 cottagemedium

'Cottage' matches the small house with a pitched roof in the left background of the landscape.

25H211 spring, source of river or streamlow

'Spring, source of river or stream' may account for the stream indicated beside the cottage and the hatched water in the foreground, though it is only incidental landscape staffage.

Relationships to the Adagia of ErasmusAI-generated

Suggested relationships between this emblem and adages in Erasmus’ Adagia.

IV ix 89 Hedera lascivior – thematic inventiohigh

Erasmus's essay states that it is the nature of ivy to bind everything in its embrace and that 'ivy kills trees with its embrace' (complexu suo enecat arbores) — precisely the emblem's picture of ivy twined round a tree and the subscriptio's claim that the ivy binds its supporting tree so tightly that it dries and kills it.

II iii 77 Leonis catulum ne alas – thematic inventiohigh

The closing couplet ('Le Lyonneau en fin celuy deffaict, / Qui le nourrit, & tient en sa maison') is a direct restatement of Aeschylus' proverbial warning not to rear a lion's whelp in the city/house, since once grown it will serve its own nature against its keeper.

II i 86 Ale luporum catulos – thematic inventiomedium

Erasmus explains this adage as applying 'to people injured by those to whom they have done some service, or to ungrateful people', illustrated by the ewe that suckles the wolf-cub which will turn on her — exactly the emblem's lesson that the ungrateful man harms his benefactor and that nature is not changed by kindness.

II v 92 Aries nutricationes mercedem persolvit – thematic inventiomedium

The adage is glossed as fitting 'when anyone repays a good turn with a bad one', the ram butting the very hand that feeds it; Erasmus even links it to 'the prop has let down the vine', the same image of a supporting plant/support betrayed as the emblem's tree and ivy.

III i 83 Simul et misertum est et interiit gratia – thematic inventiolow

Erasmus's locus on ingratitude — the man relieved of his troubles promptly forgets his benefactor — matches the emblem's general moral that the ungrateful man ill-treats whoever has done him good, though without any textual borrowing.

Description of the woodcutAI-generated

Subscriptio

TranscriptionAI-generated

TranslationAI-generated

Iconclass

Suggested Iconclass codesAI-generated

Relationships to the Adagia of ErasmusAI-generated

Sources