Emblem 88

Emblem 88

A man and a woman joining hands, an eel slipping from his graspAI-generated

La Foy de Femme est de peu de duree.

Emblem 88. A woman's faith is of little duration.AI-generated

Description of the woodcutAI-generated

A framed woodcut showing an outdoor landscape with trees at left and right and water in the middle ground. At the left a woman in a long trailing gown with a veiled headdress stands beside a leafy tree and stretches her right hand forward. Facing her at the right stands a man in doublet, hose and boots, wearing a plumed hat, reaching out his hand toward hers; from his hand a long, slippery eel-like creature slides away, its body curving down behind him toward the ground, where a large coiling eel/serpent shape fills the right-hand side of the scene. Birds are sketched in the sky at the upper right.

Subscriptio

Facsimile page of emblem 88 — Facsimile of the page (Herzog August Bibliothek); click to enlarge.

TranscriptionAI-generated

SI tost se perd (en amours) foy de Femme,Comme l'Anguille eschappe de la main.Qui plus s'y fonde entre plus fort en flamme:Car sa caatelle excede esprit humain.Maint bon autheur, Hebreu, Grec & Romain,En ha descript exemples memorables,Nous recitant, que plusieurs gens notables,Se sont perduz, en si meschantz pourchas.Les femmes sont en caquet tant affables,Qu'elles nous font prendre souriz pour chatz.

TranslationAI-generated

A woman's faith is lost as quickly (in love) as the eel escapes from the hand. Whoever builds on it most enters the more strongly into the flame, for her cunning surpasses the human mind. Many a good author — Hebrew, Greek and Roman — has described memorable examples of it, telling us that several notable men have been ruined in such wicked pursuits. Women are so affable in their chatter that they make us take mice for cats.

Iconclass

86(LA FOY DE FEMME EST DE PEU DE DUREE) proverbs, sayings, etc. (LA FOY DE FEMME EST DE PEU DE DUREE)

31D14 adult man

31D15 adult woman

33C21 courting

25F63 eels

25H2 landscapes with waters, waterscapes, seascapes (in the temperate zone)

57AA614 Unfaithfulness, 'Mala fide'

57AA62 Infidelity, Perfidy; 'Perfidia' (Ripa)

33C1 pernicious influence of women, 'femmes fatales'

Suggested Iconclass codesAI-generated

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

25F63 eelshigh

The correlate 'eels' matches the long slippery eel-like creature sliding from the man's hand and the large coiling eel shape on the ground.

25F63(EEL) eels: eelmedium

The more specific correlate 'eels: eel' fits the individual eel depicted escaping the man's grasp.

53AA21 Inconstancy; 'Incostanza', 'Instabilità', 'Instabilità overo Incostanza' (Ripa)medium

The correlate 'Inconstancy/Instabilità' matches the emblematic sense of an eel slipping away from a hand between two lovers, the conventional image of unstable, unreliable affection.

57AA614 Unfaithfulness, 'Mala fide'low

The correlate 'Unfaithfulness' could underlie the scene of a man and woman reaching toward each other while the slippery creature escapes, though the image itself does not explicitly personify it.

Relationships to the Adagia of ErasmusAI-generated

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

I iv 94 Cauda tenes anguillam – thematic inventiohigh

The emblem's whole conceit — the eel sliding out of the man's hand as he reaches for the woman's — is the proverbial image of holding a slippery eel, which Erasmus explains as trying to hold what cannot be held fast; the subscriptio states it explicitly ('comme l'Anguille eschappe de la main').

II x 21 Mulieri ne credas, ne mortuae quidem – thematic inventiomedium

The motto 'La Foy de Femme est de peu de duree' expresses exactly Erasmus' misogynist commonplace that a woman is never to be trusted, since even her apparent sincerity is feigned.

IV iv 89 Nec mulieri, nec gremio credendum – thematic inventiomedium

Erasmus explains the adage by the woman's 'wavering and fickle mind' and by the image of something slipping from the lap and falling — the same joining of female inconstancy with an object that slides out of one's grasp as the emblem's escaping eel.

II x 22 Mulierum exitia – thematic inventiomedium

The subscriptio's claim that Hebrew, Greek and Roman authors record 'exemples memorables' of notable men ruined by women reproduces Erasmus' catalogue of calamities caused by women (Eve, Troy, Hercules/Deianira, Cleopatra).

II ii 48 Ignis mare mulier, tria mala – thematic inventiolow

The poem's warning that whoever trusts a woman's faith 'entre plus fort en flamme' and is ruined echoes the proverbial grouping of woman with fire and sea among the great evils.

III vi 79 Anguillas captare – thematic inventiolow

Shares the eel-catching imagery and the notion that eels cannot be held unless by trickery, though Erasmus' political point about stirring up trouble for private gain is not the emblem's moral.