Geffrey Whitney, A choice of emblemes (Leiden, 1586)

Emblem 41

A thief is choked by the piece of meat he has stolen

Subscriptio

CommentaryAI-generated

1 passages · original left, translation right (click to fold)

Iuuenalis 13. de malis sic ait. Hi sunt qui trepidant, & ad omnia fulgura pallent, Cùm tonat: exanimes prima quoque murmure cœli. Senec. Troad. Qui non vetat peccare, cùm possit, iubes.

Juvenal, Satire 13, speaks thus of the wicked: These are they who tremble and grow pale at every lightning flash, when it thunders: lifeless even at the first murmur of the sky. Seneca, Troades: He who does not forbid sin when he could, commands it.

Notes and related emblems

• Related emblem in another book: embmne_sam1569_emblem150

Iconclass

• 11A3 God's wrath
• 25H213 river
• 25H217 river bank
• 25I1451 bridge in city across river, canal, etc.
• 31A2352 sitting on an elevation
• 31A2531 hand(s) bent towards the head
• 31A2626(+53) sitting or lying with one leg stretched forward and the other leg drawn up (+ sitting)
• 31A534 beard
• 31B12(+0) sleeping in chair (+ variant)
• 31D14 adult man
• 31E2354 violent death by strangling
• 41A72 seating furniture
• 41C691 slaughtered ox or pig
• 44G30
• 44G54 thief
• 46C1211(+0) carrying something in basket, bag, rucksack, etc. (+ variant)
• 47D8(ROPE) tools, aids, implements ~ crafts and industries: rope
• 57BB13(+4) Punishment; 'Castigo', 'Pena', 'Punitione' (Ripa) (+ emblematical representation of concept)
• 86(POENA SEQUENS) proverbs, sayings, etc. (POENA SEQUENS)

Suggested Iconclass codesAI-generated

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

• 41A777 container of textile material: bag, sack, netmedium

  The correlate 'container of textile material: bag, sack, net' matches the large bulging sack slung at the seated man's back and knotted about his neck.

• 56DD1 Fear, Dread; 'Paura', 'Timidità o Timore', 'Timore' (Ripa)medium

  The correlate 'Fear, Dread' fits the commentary's theme of the wicked who tremble and grow pale at every lightning flash, lifeless at the first murmur of the sky.

Relationships to the Adagia of ErasmusAI-generated

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

• I x 58 Sero Jupiter diphtheram inspexit – thematic inventiohigh

  Erasmus explains this adage as applying to those 'who do at length pay the penalty for their misdeeds, though late in the day' — exactly the emblem's moral that 'though longe time, they doe escape the pikes, / Yet soone, or late, the Lorde in iustice strikes.'

• II vi 11 Reperit Deus nocentem – thematic inventiohigh

  The adage is used 'when retribution at last overtakes the wicked, as though sent from on high,' and quotes Homer's 'though Jove does not punish at once, punish he will in the end' — the precise doctrine of 'Poena sequens' and of the Lord striking late but surely.

• I x 82 Dii laneos habent pedes – thematic inventiomedium

  The proverbial 'woollen-footed gods' signifies divine vengeance that approaches silently and unnoticed but arrives nonetheless — the emblem's thief who sleeps unaware while his own burden kills him.

• II v 14 Anus simia sero quidem – thematic inventiomedium

  Erasmus glosses it as 'when some cunning fellow, who has long escaped detection, pays the penalty at last... sooner or later some accident brings hidden villainy into the open' — matching the thief who robs by night with impunity until an accident kills him.

• II vi 38 Adrastia Nemesis. Rhamnusia Nemesis – thematic inventiomedium

  Nemesis Adrasteia is so named 'because no guilty person has ever escaped the punishment he deserves, although sometimes she is slow in overtaking' — the personified 'punishment that attends at their backs' of Whitney's subscriptio.

• I viii 96 Virum improbum vel mus mordeat – thematic inventiomedium

  The adage means 'somehow or other the wicked do not escape punishment but pay the proper penalty in some way' — here the agent of vengeance is nothing more than the thief's own sack, as trivially as a mouse's bite.

• I vii 82 Male parta male dilabuntur – thematic inventiomedium

  The stolen sack of flesh becomes the instrument of the thief's own destruction, a literal enactment of 'ill gotten ill spent'; Erasmus groups this adage under Ultio malefacti with the same moral.

• II x 36 Mali bibunt improbitatis fecem – thematic inventiolow

  Erasmus: 'the pain of punishment follows pleasure that results from crime' — the emblem's thief enjoys his booty at the alehouse and is then plagued 'when they haue meriest hartes'.

• IV iv 82 Sero molunt Deorum molae – thematic inventiomedium

  Erasmus's adage that the mills of the gods grind slowly (but grind exceeding small) is the classic proverbial formulation of the emblem's lesson that punishment, though delayed, inevitably follows the offender.

Sources

Record ID: embstma_1667_emblem041
This emblem on the Iconclass site: https://iconclass.org/view/embstma_1667_emblem041
Copy: University Library, Glasgow, Stirling Maxwell 1667