Emblem

Use in the book

The bending branch is the most pointed example because its explanation does not agree with its motto. Burton says the Colonna family adopted it after expulsion from Rome by Alexander VI. The Latin ‘Flecti potest, frangi non potest’ means ‘It can be bent; it cannot be broken.’ Flecti and frangi are passive infinitives: bending is possible, breaking is denied. But Burton’s following explanation says the ruler might break the family by force and could never make them stoop. The capacity and refusal run the other way. Both statements are retained, and the family’s history and the emblem’s transmission remain uncollated in the supplied note. The preceding branch verses and following appeal to gentleness belong to the same counsel of restraint in conflict.

In the praise of divine and cosmic love, rings, squares and other figures communicate love as the beginning and end of actions. The list ‘Symbols, Impresses, Emblemes’ names ways of suggesting that argument; it does not describe marks pressed into matter. The following Latin verse and Burton’s separate English couplet repeat love’s originating and completing role. The edition notes a parallel with Agathon’s speech in Plato’s Symposium but does not establish it as Burton’s immediate source. Cause, efficient and instrumental cause, already explains productive agency and instrumental means in this same passage; the present entry concerns their symbolic presentation.

Emblems can also picture love’s dependence and consumption. The flower that opens to the sun and droops without it is a device attributed to Gonzaga, then applied to the lover’s reliance on the beloved. A windmill moved by another force extends the comparison; its cited number remains different from the edition consulted in the annotation. Later Cupid blows the coals under a pot, whose disappearing water pictures passion consuming vital moisture. Burton only conjectures that the preceding dissection anecdote prompted this emblem. Neither the alleged event nor its attribution to Plato is verified. Soul, Prime mover, Concoction, Radical moisture and Cupid retain the fuller philosophical and bodily vocabulary of these shared passages.

The same form can press an adverse argument. Birds enjoying food near a cage lose their contentment once unable to escape; the image mocks the passage from eager courtship to restrictive marriage. The reed and fern then picture discord, in a warning expressly conditioned on being or marrying such a person; the accompanying numerical odds are rhetorical. A different closing fable advises letting go of an unattainable beloved: the fox does not eat the grapes because it cannot get them. Emblem names these instructive representations without making all their lessons identical or establishing the justice of every generalization about marriage.

Making devices is itself an activity. Burton includes inventing Impresses and Emblems among intellectual diversions, with conditions about what engages the person and the means available. In the love discussion he conditionally credits love with the origin of symbols, emblems and devices, on the authority of named writers. Elite ‘accurate Emblems’ and ‘curious Impreses’ then contrast with rustic feasts, dances, names written on trees and keepsakes. The social language is contemptuous, yet the comparison grants the rustic lovers creative expression too; the next verse makes shepherds as fastidious as kings. These passages distinguish the device’s design, its supposed origin and its social use.

Political jealousy takes the emblem beyond a page illustration. Henry IV’s son reportedly appears in a pale-blue gown full of eyelets and needles, an emblem of jealousy, and reassures his suspicious father with both the display and words. The future Henry V is the visitor; the source is cited to Camden but remains uncollated in the edition. Báthory’s reported Impress instead turns a bull’s exclusion of rivals from its pasture into an assertion that a kingdom has no room for two. The device makes a political application of the animal image, rather than proving the zoological or historical account.

Emblem-books supply both pictures and numbered literary references. Emb., Embl., emb. and Emblem. abbreviate the emblem designation in original margins. A century counts a hundred items; it is not the age of the image. Exact identification nevertheless remains separate from decoding the locator. For the fruit tree, the supplied note records a motto different from Burton’s; for the windmill and pot it records different emblem numbers. These differences remain part of reading the cited image, not defects to conceal by silently replacing the printed reference.

Related entries

Art and artificial: skill, designed objects and acquired disciplines; emblem has its separate treatment here.

Antick: grotesque figures and imaginative representation, not a synonym for every emblem.

Century: the hundred-division in emblem-book citations.

Cause, efficient and instrumental cause, and Action, action · actions · local use 7: love’s agency, means and actions in the shared geometric-emblem passage.

Soul, anima mundi and V038; Prime mover, primum mobile; anima informans: the life-giving and moving-power comparisons.

Radical moisture, radical moisture; Concoction, elixus–V092, and Cupid, Cupid’s wounding and consuming influence: passion’s heat and the pot emblem.

Friendship, confabulation, and Collogue, Collogue · collogue: consoling conversation and precarious courtly favour in the ivy/wall and fruit-tree passages.

Marriage, conjugium / conjurgium and marriage rites: marital discord and neglected obligations in the reed-and-fern passage.

Enthusiasm, inspire · inspired · local use 1: rustic lovers’ artistic stimulation in the shared class comparison.

Form, forma cadendi impressa · local use 1–V017, and Maternal impressions, impression: impressed mental images, distinguished from the impresse as symbolic device.

Places to read

1. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraphs 10–14devices among absorbing intellectual exercises.
2. Member 6 Subsection 1 Disturbances of the Mind Corrected Through the Sufferer’s Own Efforts in Resisting as Strongly as Possible and Confiding His Grief to a Friend and So Forth · paragraphs 33–36; Section 3 Member 1. Subsection 1 A Digression on Consolation, Containing Remedies for Every Kind of Discontent · paragraphs 24–28; Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 48–50mutual support, threshing and the tree ruined by abundance.
3. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 34–37; Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraph 36; note 7221the Colonna impresse, its contradictory motto and gloss, and counsel of gentleness.
4. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 11–13; notes 7279–7281the wolf and goat, and the incomplete Alciato reference.
5. Subsection 2 Love’s Origin, Object, Definition and Divisions · paragraphs 16–20; Subsection 2 Love’s Origin, Object, Definition and Divisions · paragraph 18symbols, devices, rings and squares in the praise of love.
6. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 8–11; Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 63–66flower and sun, windmill, pot and fire, with attribution and numbering qualifications.
7. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 50–53; Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 12–14alleged invention for love and elite/rustic artistic forms.
8. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraphs 30–32; By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraphs 60–62caged birds and opposed plants in marital warnings.
9. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 74–75fox and grapes; the unnumbered location is not a numbered page 576.
10. Jealousy: Its Different Meanings, Name, Definition, Extent and Various Kinds; Among Rulers, Parents and Friends; in Animals and Human Beings; Before Marriage, as Rivals, or Afterwards, as Discussed Here · paragraphs 33–35; Jealousy: Its Different Meanings, Name, Definition, Extent and Various Kinds; Among Rulers, Parents and Friends; in Animals and Human Beings; Before Marriage, as Rivals, or Afterwards, as Discussed Here · paragraphs 41–43the prince’s symbolic gown and the bull as an emblem of sovereignty.

In this edition

‘An Impresse’ becomes ‘their emblem’: the possessive makes the adopting family explicit. ‘Symbols, Impresses, Emblemes’ becomes ‘symbols, devices and emblems’, with devices specifically rendering Impresses. Neither translation resolves the branch’s contradiction. The Latin retains possible bending and impossible breaking, while the following English retains possible breaking and refusal to bow.

The exercise list’s Impresses becomes mottoes, emphasizing the verbal part of the symbolic device; elsewhere the same family becomes emblem, devices or the retained plural imprese. ‘Curious Impreses’ becomes ‘intricate symbolic devices’: intricate translates curious, not the device noun. ‘Accurate Emblems’ becomes ‘carefully wrought emblems.’ The ordinary emblem spelling is regularized, but the kinds of image and the surrounding claims remain local rather than collapsing into one uniform message.

For the motto, Flecti supplies ‘be bent’ and frangi ‘be broken’; potest supplies can, and non negates it in the second clause. The modern it makes the branch’s understood subject explicit. In marginal citations, Embl. or Emb. supplies the emblem designation alone, not the author, the hundred-division and the item number together. Their modern English expansions are editorial translations of quoted margins, distinct from Burton’s original prose.

impresse; impress; impreses

A symbolic device or emblem, often associated with a motto; it may be adopted as a personal sign or invented as a literary-visual composition.

Grammar: Singular nouns Impresse and Impress; plurals Impresses and Impreses. These nouns do not denote mental or physical impressions.

Original text: “invent Impresses, Emblems”. In the modern column: “devise mottoes and emblems”. Composing symbolic devices is one proposed absorbing intellectual pastime. Conditional recommendation if other subjects do not engage the sufferer and resources are ample; part of a wide, sometimes playful list, not a promise of clinical cure. Invent becomes devise; Impresses is rendered mottoes, emphasizing the textual part of a device; Emblems separately supplies emblems. Mottoes is not asserted to exhaust the original device’s visual function.

Original text: “an Impresse”. In the modern column: “their emblem”. The bending branch is the device attributed to the Colonna family. Burton’s reported history and contradictory motto/gloss remain distinct; transmission is uncollated in the accompanying note. Impresse gives emblem; an becomes their because the narrative identifies the adopting family.

Original text: “Symbols, Impresses, Emblemes”. In the modern column: “symbols, devices and emblems”. Visual-symbolic figures including rings and squares communicate the praise of love. Encomium of divine and cosmic love followed by verse on love as sole cause; Platonic parallel in the accompanying note is not identified as the immediate source. Symbols gives symbols, Impresses devices, Emblemes emblems; coordination changes but the items remain distinguishable.

Original text: “used for an Impress”. In the modern column: “used this as an emblem”. A flower responding to the sun is attributed as a personal device to Gonzaga and applied to lovers. Reported attribution; the tulip/Narcissus naming does not establish a modern botanical species. A separate windmill emblem follows. Impress gives emblem; the pronoun this makes the flower image the object of used.

Original text: “Symbols, Emblems, Impreses, devises”. In the modern column: “Symbols, emblems, imprese and devices”. Imprese are among symbolic forms whose origin Burton conditionally associates with love. May be ascribed and if we shall believe qualify the origin claim; the accompanying note leaves the emblem authors and particulars uncollated. Impreses becomes imprese, a retained technical name, not impression; other list members are separate.

Original text: “curious Impreses”. In the modern column: “intricate symbolic devices”. Elaborate devices form one elite counterpart to rustic lovers’ entertainments. Burton’s socially disparaging rhetoric nevertheless gives rustic lovers their own creative forms; the following verse compares shepherds with kings. Curious gives intricate, Impreses symbolic devices; intricate is not part of the noun’s definition.

Original text: “used as an Impress”. In the modern column: “used this as an emblem”. The bull excluding another from pasture becomes Báthory’s reported device of single sovereignty. Animal exclusiveness is transferred to kingship. The Oppian marginal reference is unresolved, so neither zoology nor heraldic attribution is independently authenticated. Impress gives emblem; the adopted animal example supplies this. The quoted motto, not the noun alone, supplies the political message.

emblem

A symbolic representation, commonly an image joined to a motto or explanatory words; also a numbered composition in an emblem collection, and a symbolic object or costume.

Grammar: Singular Emblem, Embleme and embleme; plurals Emblems and Emblemes. Count noun for a composition or representation.

Original text: “invent Impresses, Emblems”. In the modern column: “devise mottoes and emblems”. An emblem is something the reader can devise, beside other learned or literary exercises. A conditional diversion, not a guaranteed remedy; the continuation includes difficult studies and imposed exercises. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “like Ivie and a wal, which Camerarius hath well illustrated in an Embleme”. In the modern column: “like ivy and a wall, as Camerarius has aptly illustrated in an emblem”. Mutual support in friendship is illustrated by ivy and a wall. Burton’s consolatory analogy; distinguish the separate preceding bull/fig-tree image and its separate citation. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “an Embleme of a thresher and corn”. In the modern column: “an emblem of a thresher and grain”. Threshing pictures the claim that affliction enriches by separating grain from chaff. The emblem serves moral consolation about suffering, not a claim that every illness is beneficial. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “his 13. Embleme, cent. 1.” In the modern column: “emblem 13 of his first century”. The tree broken by abundant fruit figures the self-destructive weight of greatness. Burton’s courtly warning; the accompanying note distinguishes his wording from the inspected image’s different motto. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “The Wolf in the Emblem sucked the Goat”. In the modern column: “The wolf in the emblem suckled at the goat”. The wolf’s unchanged nature illustrates resistance to kind treatment. A fable-like image and moral maxim; not a zoological finding or universal guarantee that people cannot change. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “Emblemes of rings, squares”. In the modern column: “emblems of rings, squares”. Geometric figures communicate ideas of love’s originating and completing power. A poetic-philosophical encomium with subsequent Latin and English verse, not a claim to a verified immediate Platonic source. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “a modern writer of amorous Emblems”. In the modern column: “a modern writer of love emblems”. A literary-visual composition presents Cupid heating a pot as passion consuming bodily resources. Belike makes the suggested derivation from the preceding dissection story conjectural. Neither that event nor its attribution to Plato is verified. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “accurate Emblems”. In the modern column: “carefully wrought emblems”. Elaborately made emblems represent one form of elite courtship display. The adjective praises workmanship within a socially hostile comparison; the rustic figures are granted their own corresponding inventions. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “those birds in the Embleme”. In the modern column: “the birds in the emblem”. Birds content near a cage but distressed when confined provide an image of desired marriage turning restrictive. The polemical comparison follows an imagined enthusiastic appeal for marriage and leads into verse on the change from honey to gall. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “the Reed and Ferne in the Embleme”. In the modern column: “the reed and fern in the emblem”. Opposed plants illustrate the discord of unsuitable marriage. If thou beest such a one or meet such a wife qualifies the warning; the twenty-to-one odds are rhetorical rather than measured probabilities. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “The Fox in the Emblem would eat no grapes”. In the modern column: “The fox in the emblem would eat no grapes”. The fox dismisses grapes because it cannot obtain them; Burton applies the image to relinquishing an unattainable beloved. The why-question supplies inability, not proof that the grapes are worthless. Unnumbered source-page qualification retained. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

Original text: “an embleme of Jealousie”. In the modern column: “an emblem of jealousy”. The prince’s needle-studded, eyeleted gown is read as a symbolic representation of jealousy. Burton reports the visit and its pacifying effect, including spoken assurances; the accompanying note leaves the cited Camden passage uncollated. The printed emblem form corresponds to emblem/emblems within the quoted phrase; any descriptive modifier, represented figure or argument comes from the surrounding words, not the noun alone.

emb.; embl.; emblem.

A shortened reference to an emblem or emblem collection; the number identifies a composition, while a separate century number identifies its hundred-division.

Grammar: Abbreviated citation forms Emb., emb., Embl., embl., Emblem.; the endings are not expanded into a specified unprinted Latin case.

Original margin: “Joach. Camerarius Embl. 21. cent. 1.” Supplied note translation or expansion: “Joachim Camerarius, Emblems, first century, emblem 21.” The branching/yielding couplet is cited through an emblem collection. An accompanying note identifies Ovid’s lines and a printed verbal difference; the margin is a cited intermediary, not the author of the source verses. Embl. supplies emblem/Emblems; century, ordinal and emblem number are independent citation components.

Original margin: “Alciat. emb.” Supplied note translation or expansion: “Andrea Alciato, Emblems”. An abbreviated Alciato reference accompanies the wolf and goat. No emblem number is printed; the accompanying note leaves the precise emblem uncollated. Alciat. identifies the author and emb. the emblem work; the editor supplies the expanded author’s first name.

Original margin: “Camerarius Emb. 100. cen. 2.” Supplied note translation or expansion: “Camerarius, Emblems, century 2, emblem 100.” Camerarius is cited by collection and emblem number beside the geometric love figures. Original quoted margin separately translated by the editor; the exact cited work passage remains uncollated in the accompanying note. Emb. supplies the emblem designation; 100 identifies the emblem and cen. 2 its second hundred, not the meaning of Emb. itself.

Original margin: “Emblem. amat. 13.” Supplied note translation or expansion: “Love Emblems 13.” A reference to love emblems accompanies the windmill image. An accompanying note identifies the image and verse as no. 9 in the consulted Heinsius collection, leaving the printed 13 and possible intermediary unresolved. Emblem. contributes Emblems; amat. contributes Love; 13 is the printed item number.

flecto (printed Flecti)

To bend; passive Flecti means to be bent in the branch motto.

Grammar: Flecti is present passive infinitive, complementary to third-person singular potest; the branch is the understood grammatical subject of the capacity statement.

Original text: “Flecti potest”. In the modern column: “It can be bent”. The Latin motto permits bending of the branch. The Latin assertion conflicts with the following English application that the family could not be made to stoop; the contradiction is preserved, not resolved by reversing the infinitive. Flecti supplies be bent, potest can; It makes the understood branch explicit. Neither possibility nor the pronoun is part of flecti alone. The full motto alias is a contextual retrieval phrase, not a gloss of flecti alone.

frango (printed frangi)

To break; passive frangi means to be broken, a possibility explicitly denied in the branch motto.

Grammar: Frangi is present passive infinitive, complementary to potest; non negates the capacity. The understood subject remains the branch.

Original text: “frangi non potest”. In the modern column: “it cannot be broken”. The branch cannot be broken according to the Latin motto. Burton’s ensuing English says the family might be broken by force but not made to bow, reversing the motto’s capacities. The historical source/transmission remains uncollated. Frangi supplies be broken; non potest supplies cannot. The full motto alias is a contextual retrieval phrase, not a gloss of frangi alone.