University of Virginia Library

6. "Newly Devised" Emblems

Whitney took great pains in calling attention to the fact that a number of emblems in both the MS and Choice were newly devised. In the "Epistle Dedicatorie" to the Earl of Leicester, he writes: "I hope it shalbee the more delightfull, bicause none to my knowledge, hathe assayed the same before: &, for that diuers of the inuentiõs are of my owne slender workmanship." In the title-page to Choice, the new inventions are underscored after the derivative nature of the entire collection is announced: "For the moste parte gathered out of sundrie writers, | Englished and Moralized. | AND DIVERS NEWLY DEVISED, | by Geffrey Whitney." Unwilling, as it were, to let the fact of his having devised some new emblems slip past his reader going into the second part of Choice, he emphasizes it again in the half-title, this time by reducing the statement "For the most parte gathered out of sundrie writers" to simply "gathered." The fact that fourteen out of the fifteen "newly devised" emblems appear in the second part is therefore accurately reflected in "And diuerse newlie deuised" on the half-title. In the order in which they appear in Choice, with MS folio numbers following in square brackets, these fifteen emblems are:

• 95[29]
• 112[95]
• 114
• 129[77v]
• 131[80]
• 145[34]
• 161
• 167[94b]
• 168a[60va]
• 184[36]
• 185
• 198[19]
• 203[98v]
• 225
• 230

Strangely, little study has hitherto been made on these emblems, beyond listing them either as "untraced" or "newly devised"; especially lacking is an attempt to trace their non-emblematic pictorial or textual sources. The present effort will begin with those emblems that are based on simple, definite pictorial or textual sources, continue with those that are based on more complex and eclectic sources, and end with those that are based on less certain, textual sources only. Since ten of the fifteen are in the MS, any changes in the process of converting from one version to another will again be noted.

Two "newly devised" emblems that have definite pictorial sources are Wh 203 and Wh 112. Wh 203, "A ship drawn by Providence," is based on the crest to Sir Francis Drake's coat of arms. According to Arthur Charles Fox-Davies in The Art of Heraldry, the arms are: "Sable, a fess wavy between two stars argent. Crest: a ship under reef, drawn round a terrestrial globe with a cable by a hand issuing from clouds all proper."[27] The last detail signifies divine assistance given to Drake during his circumnavigation (1577-1580) and is highlighted above the ship by the motto "Auxilio divino" (Fig. 31),[28] which Whitney borrowed for his emblem. The emblem in praise of Sir Francis Drake is dedicated to his cousin, Richard Drake, and concerns itself with celebrating Sir Francis' seamanship and God's providential help. The MS artist simply transposed the crest into a drawing, which the Choice artist copied faithfully (as is the case of all the "newly devised" emblems when there are no other models). The surrounding sun, moon, stars, and clouds were apparently added to support the verse. Written in poulter's measure, the poem begins by emphasizing the meteorological dangers that beset Drake's voyages: "Throvghe scorchinge heate, throughe coulde, in stormes, and tempests force, | By ragged rocks, by shelfes, and sandes: this Knighte did keepe his course." The reason for Drake's constancy is that "God was on his side," and the reason for his success is that he made it "By helpe of power deuine." Whitney goes on to compare the enchantment by which Medea helped Jason win the golden fleece (marginal note: Ouid.Met.lib.7) with the divine help given to Drake and belittles the small conquest of Jason. He concludes by challenging other world explorers to bring golden sands back from Ganges and by urging those stay-at-homes to give maximum praises to Drake for his incomparable feats. Wh 112, "The Schoolmaster of Faleria," with its motto of "Habet & bellum suas leges" is based upon Plutarch's life of Furius Camillus. Specifically, Whitney took the motto out of a speech by Camillus, which he quotes in toto in the margin, a portion of which reads: ". . . & tamen apud bonos viros, habentur etiam belli quaedam leges. . . ." Of greater significance is the fact that Whitney also cited in the margin the precise edition from which this speech was extracted: "Verba Camilli apud Plutarchum. Xylandro interprete." This edition of Plutarch is probably that published by Sigismund Feyerabendt at Frankfort on the Main in 1580. It is decorated with large woodcuts designed by Jost Amman. Whitney followed this Latin

version of Plutarch's account closely, especially in the first three lines of the last sextet, describing the whipping of the schoolmaster by his students on orders of Camillus: "Haec postquam dixit, lictoribus mandauit, vt proditori vestes deriperent, manusque in tergum revincirent: pueris autem virgas flagellaque darent, quibus eum ferientes in vrbem compellerent" (fol. 43v). This may be further compared with the equally faithful rendering from Amyot's French version by Sir Thomas North: "Therefore he commaunded his sergeants to teare the clothes of the backe of this vile schoolemaster, and to binde his hands behinde him: and that they should geve the children roodes and whippes in their handes, to whippe the traitour backe againe into the cittie . . . that had thus betrayed them and grieved their parents." Although in Whitney's verse the binding of the schoolmaster's hands has been omitted, the MS artist included this detail in his drawing as he copied faithfully from Amman's design. In reducing the original large woodcut of 109 x 148 mm. (4¼ x 5⅞”) into 67 x 95 mm. (2⅝ x 3¾”), he lessened the number of students from eight to six and eliminated the troops on the battlements as well as a burning town in the background (Figs. 32, 33). In further reducing the MS drawing into a square of 57 mm. (2¼”), the Choice artist had to eliminate further the city gate and a soldier standing in front of it, but he managed to restore the number of students to the original eight—another instance of his copying directly from the original model (Fig. 34). As a result, the woodcut of Wh 112 differs much from the original; yet, with Camillus on horseback in the background and the whipping of the schoolmaster by his students in the center unchanged, it represents adequately both the verse and the moral of this "newly devised" emblem.[29]

There are four emblems whose pictorial sources are not so definite; all of them are however related in a greater or lesser degree to Aesop's fables or their analogues. Wh 184 and Wh 95 may have been based on contemporary Aesopic illustrations even though their woodcuts differ significantly from their models, whereas Wh 145 and Wh 161 are only analogus to two extant fables. The woodcut in Wh 184, "Ox & the cur," diverges noticeably from the design in Freitag's Mythologia Ethica (1579) which Green suggested as a source. The etching in Freitag depicts this Aesop's fable of "dog in the manger" as taking place out of doors. Outside a farmhouse, the snarling dog occupies a haystack under what appears to be a lean-to, whereas Whitney's woodcut shows the two animals indoors with the dog inside the manger, refusing to allow the ox to feed. Since illustrated editions of Aesop's fables were readily available in Whitney's days—in fact, no fewer

than five editions were printed by Plantin between 1560 and 1581[30] —it is highly likely that the MS artist modeled his drawing after one of the illustrations in Aesop of the same fable. The fact remains, however, that the resultant woodcut of Wh 184 has a unique design unlike any of its probable models (Figs. 36-38).[31] It is not inconceivable that the MS artist who signed the drawing with his monogram [HA] devised it deliberately differently from his Aesopic models. Similar to Wh 184 in having a ready-to-hand model in Aesop is Wh 95, "De Inuido & Auaro, iocosum," although its woodcut differs even more significantly from its model than that of Wh 184. "Cupidus et Invidus," one of the five fables by Avianus, begins with Jupiter sending Phoebus to learn the dubious minds of men, and its illustration shows the envious man, his one eye plucked out, talking to Jupiter while a man (Phoebus in disguise?) with a dagger is plucking out both eyes of the covetous man lying on the ground (Fig. 39). The MS motto differs from that of Wh 95 in that it is more explicit of the moral: "Mutua auaritiae & inuidiae pœna," but the drawing is faithfully copied by the Choice artist. It depicts the envious man pointing at three eyes on the ground in front of him to the covetous man who is blinded in both eyes (Fig. 40). Moreover, the verse differs from the text of the fable in that Wh 95 plunges into the terms right away: "The Goddes agreed, two men their wishe should haue. . . ." According to Whitney's marginal annotation (Auth. de Gueuara in Epistolis suis), his verse is based on the retelling of the same fable in one letter from Antonio de Guevara's collection of familiar epistles. In a contemporary English translation by Geffray Fenton entitled the Golden Epistles (1575), this letter has the caption of "One friend writeth to another of the rage of Envie, and the nature thereof," in which the original fable is greatly expanded and extensively moralized. Since this particular letter is not found in the original Spanish collection nor in subsequent Italian, French and English translations except in Fenton[32] and since, more importantly, the wordings in Fenton are at times similar to those of Wh 95, it is highly probable that Whitney used this version. Quoted below is the relevant portion with similar wordings from Whitney in quotes interpolated in square brackets: Apart from the obvious difference in Whitney, who has the gods compel the envious man to begin: "Wherefore the Goddes . . . did commaunde, th'Enuious man beginne," the most important similarity is that the two men receive instantaneously what they have been promised: "Which beinge say'd, he did his wishe obtaine: | So but one eye, was lefte vnto them twaine." In the original fable, Phoebus laughs on hearing the envious man's request and goes back to Jupiter to report on that man's malice, and the moral of the fable weighs heavily against the sin of envy: Although the purpose of the letter in the Golden Epistles is also to illustrate the evils of envy, in its conclusion the writer introduces the element, borrowed by Whitney, of the envious man being used by the gods as a scourge of the covetous man: "So that where the one refused to bee satisfied with that which sufficed, the other was raysed as a scourge of his insatiable desires ['Wherefore the Goddes did plague him for his sinne'] and the one as wretched in spite ['who did not craue, what Midas cheife did choose, | Because his frende, the fruite thereof should finde'], as his companion in couetousneese, the one became the iust instrument of reuenge to another: A iustice of due force against such as striue in the quarrell of enuie and couetousness, both which, being contagious infections in the nature of man, the one poysoneth his soule, and the other consumes and dries up his body: of all other vices in the world, enuie is the most auncient, of most custome, and of greatest continuance, yea euen to the end of the world" (fols. 139v-140r). Touching also upon the evils of both sins, Whitney however singles out covetousness: Quoting thus at length from the textual source of Whitney's verse in Wh 95 and finding no similar pictorial source for its woodcut leads to but one conclusion: the MS artist drew his picture on the basis of Whitney's verse alone. The genius of the artist is nowhere more cleverly seen than in the drawing of the three eyes on the ground, symbolizing the instant fulfillment of sinful retribution.

This same artist who signed his name with [HA] also drew the picture of "In curiosos" on fol. 34, later Wh 145. This emblem is not based on an Aesopic fable but represents perhaps an analogue of the fable about an ape imitating the fishermen and getting entangled in their nets.[33] Interestingly

enough its woodcut is similar to one of the 60 emblems in Hernando de Soto's Emblemas moralizados.[34] It is not entirely improbable that Hernando de Soto might have copied from Choice, even though it is more likely that both artists based their emblems on a common source now untraceable. Nonetheless, it is equally possible that the MS artist drew the picture solely on the basis of the verse in Wh 145, as he had done for Wh 95. Wh 161, "The sick fox & the lion," is unique in that it borrows its motto "Ars deluditur arte" from Sam 42, yet its woodcut has nothing in common with that in Sambucus. The latter shows a frog holding a stick in its mouth in order to avoid being swallowed by a menacing fish, whereas Wh 161 depicts a lion trying to trick a sick fox into letting him lick the patient with his allegedly "medicinal" tongue. It is probable that Whitney turned to his own Wh 210, "Lion feigning sickness," for an indirect pictorial model. While Wh 210 is based on one of the standard Aesop's fables,[35] the reversing of roles in Wh 161 is not to be found in Aesop or in any of its later additions. The nearest analogue could be the fable concerning a wolf and a sick ass which normally follows the sick lion and the fox in most collections of Aesop (Caxton, Book IV, Fable 12). Unlike Whitney's fox, however, the sick ass, true to his nature, allows the wolf to lick his wounds and so loses his life. Moreover, Wh 161 and Wh 210 have similar outcomes, the fox outwitting the lion in both instances, as they are given similar mottoes: "Ars deluditur arte" and "Fraus meretur fraudem." It is highly probable, therefore, that Whitney instructed the Choice artist to devise a new emblem by exchanging the positions of the lion and the fox in Wh 210 for the woodcut of Wh 161.

Two "newly devised" emblems (Wh 198 and Wh 114) base their woodcuts on textual sources, although both might have partial emblematic sources. Diogenes' living in a "tonne" and King Alexander's visiting him are the subject of one of the 74 copperplates engraved by Geerhardt de Jode, in a collection of scenes from human lives called Μιχροχόσμοζ or Parvus Mundus.[36] It is probable that the MS artist could have modeled his design partially on the plate by de Jode. However, Whitney's emblem is far from being simply a lesson on Diogenes' contentment alone. "Animus, non res" is illustrated in the second sextet with the lives of three wisemen, Diogenes, Bias, and Codrus. The four sextets, other than the first, all have copious notes to suggest the sources of Whitney's ideas. Especially, the third and fourth sextets are no more than translations of quotations respectively from Horace's Epistle to Lollius Maximus (I, ll. 51-53) and Ausonius' Septem Sapientum Sententiae (1. Bias Prieneus). But the design of the

drawing is based on the second sextet and the last two lines of the fourth sextet: The first two and the last two lines above form the basis of Diogenes and King Alexander for which Whitney cites in the margin Erasmus' adage "vita doliaris" as his source. Codrus and his stool, to the right of Diogenes' tun, are more difficult to identify. Whitney's marginal note suggests Juvenal's Satyre (III, 10) as source: "Tota domus Codri rheda componitur vna." There is no mention in Juvenal of Codrus' meat being roots and his table being a stool. It is possible that Whitney found the ideas about the roots and the stool in sources other than Juvenal. Anyway, in designing the picture of contentment in poverty, the MS artist added Codrus and his stool with roots scattered in front of it to a rather commonplace emblematic representation of Diogenes. Inasmuch as Codrus is new, this emblem may properly be considered as "newly devised."

According to the marginalia, the account in Wh 114 of Attilius' heroic suffering of torture and death as a result of his keeping faith even with his enemies, as reflected in the motto "Hostis etiam seruanda fides," is based on those of Nepos, Eutropius, Italicus, and Gellius. From Cornelius Nepos' De viri illustres (Paris, 1500, Cap. xl) Whitney took for the first sextet of his verse the details of Attilius' success in overcoming two hundred thousand men, three score ships and two hundred towns in his African campaigns. The capture of Attilius by Xantippus and imprisonment at Carthage, and his return to Rome for the truce and exchange of prisoners of war, and his advice against the enemy's proposals are also elaborated in Flavius Eutropius' Breviarium historiae Romanorum. In a contemporary translation of the brief history by Nicolas Haward, Eutropius' account is rendered as follows: "And as for him, he was not worthye to be so muche esteamed (being now very aged) that for his cause, and the redeminge of a fewe others whyche were detained prisonners, at Carthage, so many thousand of their enemies should be restored. Regulus sone after, returned to Carthage: whome the Romaynes offered to detaine still at Rome. But hee denied that he woulde remayne in that city, in which he could not haue the name of an honest Citezen, sith that he had so long bene among the Carthaginiens. Whom (after his returne to Carthage,) the Carthaginiens with most cruel tormẽts put to death."[37] In adapting this account for his second and third sextets, Whitney omitted several interesting details

concerning Attilius' refusal to consider himself an honest Roman citizen because of his long captivity in Carthage, his unwillingness to live with his wife Marcia, and his persuasion of the Roman Senate not to grant a truce to the Carthaginians; instead, he emphasized Attilius' love for his own country and his insistence on returning to Carthage to keep his words. For the details of Attilius' torture, which Eutropius did not choose to elaborate, Whitney had to rely on the story of Aulus Gellius' Noctes Atticae, especially for the statement in his verse on Attilius' "mangled eies, the Sonne all daye assailes"; for the details of his death, Whitney borrowed from both Nepos and Italicus. These two details, the manners of torture and death, are extremely important because they form the bases of Whitney's woodcut. The bright sun at the upper left corner of the picture shines mercilessly upon Attilius' eyes, the lids of which have been pulled apart and sewn fast so that they cannot be closed. This form of torture is based on the account by Aelius Tubero in his Historiis from which Gellius quotes: "'In atras,' inquit, 'et profundas tenegras eum claudebant ac diu post, ubi erat uisus sol ardentissimus, repente educebant et aduersus ictus solis oppositum continebant atque intendere in caelum oculos cogebant. Palpebras quoque eius, ne coniuere posset, sursum ac deorsum diductas insuebant,'" (Noctes Atticae, VII, iv, 2). Nepos describes Attilius' death briefly at the end of his account mentioning specifically the wooden box with nails all around inside into which the Roman general was thrust. So, in greater detail it is described by Italicus,[38] who records Marus' narration of Attilius' death to the latter's son Serranus. There being no known illustration of Attilius' torture in quite the same manner as in Whitney's woodcut,[39] it is highly probable that the Choice artist drew the picture on the basis of the verse alone. What is especially significant about this verse is its highly eclectic nature, based as it is on the accounts of Nepos, Eutropius, Italicus, and Gellius.

Equally eclectic is the "newly devised" woodcut of Wh 225. It seems to have been based on three separate emblems from Montenay. As has been pointed out in the section on woodcut designs, there are nine emblems in Choice that are copied from models in Montenay's Emblèmes ou devises chrestiennes. All except Wh 225 are fairly close copies of their models (as seen in Figs. 27-30). For the design of "Superest quod suprà est" (Wh 225) the Choice artist seems to have made a composite drawing from Mon

(12), Mon (56), and Mon (63). There are three key ingredients in Whitney's emblem whose single couplet in poulter's measure quotes the Christian wayfarer as saying: "Adewe deceiptfull worlde, thy pleasures I detest: | Nowe, others with thy showes delude; my hope in heauen doth rest." To represent "heauen" the artist uses the Hebrew word Yahweh encircled by radiance and clouds; to depict the "deceiptfull worlde," he uses a globe; and the speaker of the couplet just quoted is identified as a pilgrim whose back is turned away from the globe on the ground and whose face is uplifted towards the sky where the word Yahweh shines above the clouds, and towards that direction he is walking with a long staff (Fig. 43). Now, although the artist has copied eight other emblems from Montenay, there is none among the one hundred emblems of Montenay that comes close to having all these ingredients in one picture. The closest model is Mon (63) "Beati pauperes" which shares a similar idea with "Superest quod suprà est" in that both the poor in spirit and the pilgrim are steadfast in God and in heavenly things. Mon (63) also has Yahweh and a globe; however, instead of a pilgrim, as demanded by its subject naturally, the poor in spirit is represented by a naked child, who is lifting up his heart on the tip of a long stick towards Yahweh (Fig. 42). Furthermore, the globe is pictured differently from that in Whitney's emblem. For the latter, drawn with longitudes and latitudes as well as the names of the three continents, Asia, Europa, and Africa, the artist modeled on that in Mon (56), "Nemo duobus," which he must have already copied for Wh 223, "Nemo potest duobus dominis seruire" (Fig. 44). There are thirteen emblems with a globe in them in Montenay; only in (56) is the globe drawn with lines and names of the continents. Since Whitney's artist had just copied it for Wh 223, he no doubt conveniently used the same globe once more in Wh 225. It is highly probable, therefore, that he had both Mon (56) and Mon (63) in front of him when he designed Wh 225; for the globe he copied from (56), for Yahweh he copied from (63). For the pilgrim, however, he needed another model, which he found in Mon (12), "Sed futuram inquirimus" (Fig. 45). Above all, all three of Montenay's emblems share the same idea of contemptus mundi with the motto of "Superest quod suprà est" in Wh 225. As for the four-sextet alternate verse, Whitney seems to have written it on his own, basing it entirely on numerous scriptural verses (all annotated in the margin). So, unlike Wh 114 whose verse is a composite from four different sources and whose woodcut is based on the verse alone, Wh 225 has a composite woodcut based on three different models, even though they all come from the same source, Montenay's Emblèmes.

Wh 131 "Scripta manent" may also be the result of composite borrowing from different pictorial or textual sources. Green (pp. 178, 124) suggested that the woodcut design could have been based on one emblem from Coustau's Pegma, whose woodcut pictures buildings in ruin, and one emblem from Horapollo's Hieroglyphica, which depicts the lasting value of books. Two considerations, however, argue against the validity of this

suggestion. One is the fact that apart from the suggested use here in Wh 131, nowhere else did Whitney borrow from these two sources. The other is that both the mutability theme represented by buildings in ruin and the permanence of writings represented by books are such commonplaces that any emblem that contains ruined buildings and any emblem that portrays books and manuscripts would have inspired Whitney's emblem. His verse in Wh 131 also could have been inspired in a composite way; whether or not he knew Coustau and Horapollo is less material. As for the woodcut, the MS artist could have simply drawn from Whitney's text. From the discussion of the ten "newly devised" emblems so far, both the MS and the Choice artists have been shown to be competent painters, capable of drawing from textual descriptions alone. Accordingly, since no pictorial sources have been found for Wh 168a, Wh 185, Wh 129, and Wh 167, it may be assumed that Whitney's artists drew their illustrations from Whitney's verses alone. Assumed still useful is Green's caution after he has listed 23 emblems as "newly devised": "We cannot however say with certainty that the whole of these 23 emblems are original; further researches may lessen the number, and two or three works, to which I have not obtained access, seem likely to supply some of the missing identifications . . ." (p. 237). That his number has been reduced to 15 bears out the accuracy of his prediction; however exhaustive the present research has been—and in the field of iconographical and emblematic study no research can ever hope to be exhaustive—the assumption that the number may still be lessened by further researches remains valid. On the other hand, as long as only non-emblematic pictorial or textual sources should be found, such discovery would in no way lessen the number of "newly devised" emblems. On the contrary, it would only strengthen the impression that Whitney was a resourceful emblem-writer. The last emblem, Wh 230, no doubt is entirely original with Whitney. "Tempus omnia terminat" is a fitting finale for the Choice of 248 emblems; "And all must ende, that euer was begonne."

One outcome of this comparative study of the two versions of Choice is certainly a better understanding of the intricate interdependence and interaction among the motto, the woodcut, and the verse of an emblem. Changes in one necessitate changes in the other two, and most of the changes are brought about by Whitney's desire to achieve greater harmony among these three components. Differences between the MS and the printed versions and discrepancies among the three components exist because the MS artist generally followed Whitney's verse faithfully and did not hesitate to alter his model, whereas the Choice artist, in recopying the MS drawings based on La Perrière and Aneau, tended to follow his models rather than the MS drawings (except of course Wh 108). In the case of the "newly devised" emblems that are in the MS, the Choice artist still followed directly the original source (e.g., Wh 112), but copied the MS drawing faithfully when it

was his only model (e.g., Wh 95). By using identical woodblocks from his source emblem-books and by not having time to revise his verses to harmonize with the cuts, Whitney left some emblems in Choice with woodcuts that are unsupported by their verses. The exposition in this essay of these discrepancies has provided a number of insights into Whitney's manner of collecting his emblems from other sources. Moreover, the review of his sources and the examination of his marginal annotations contribute to a fuller knowledge of how Whitney put together an emblem-book. But it is among the 15 "newly devised" emblems, particularly among the 10 with their pictorial and textual sources traced in the last section, that Whitney revealed himself to be a competent emblematist, and of especial significance to literature students are those "newly devised" emblems that are based on more than one pictorial or textual source.