With the brave beast.”
An emblem in Alciatus, edition 1551, p. 20, also gives the mounted warrior on the winged horse;—it is Bellerophon in his contest with the Chimæra. The accompanying stanza has in it an expression like one which the dramatist uses,—
“Sic tu Pegaseis vectus petis æthera pennis,”—
“So thou being borne on the wings of Pegasus seekest the air.”
Equally tasting of the Emblem-writers of Henry’s and Elizabeth’s reigns is that other proverb in French which Shakespeare places in the mouth of the Dauphin Louis. The subject is still his “paragon of animals,” which he prefers even to his mistress. See Henry V. act iii. sc. 7, l. 54, vol iv. p. 550. “I had rather,” he says, “have my horse to my mistress;” and the Constable replies, “I had as lief have my mistress a jade.”
“Dau. I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
Con. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress.
Dau. Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier. Thou makest use of anything.” [“The dog has returned to his vomit, and the sow that had been washed, to her mire.”]
Though the French is almost a literal rendering of the Latin Vulgate, 2 Pet. ii. 23, “Canis reversus ad suum vomitum: & sus lota in volutabro luti;” the whole conception is in the spirit of Freitag’s Mythologia Ethica, Antwerp, 1579, in which there is appended to each emblem a text of Scripture. A subject is chosen, a description of it given, an engraving placed on the opposite page, and at the foot some passage from the Latin vulgate is applied.
It may indeed be objected that, if Shakespeare was well acquainted with the Emblem literature it is surprising he should pass over, almost in silence, some Devices which partake peculiarly of his general spirit, and which would furnish suggestions for very forcible and very appropriate descriptions. Were we to examine his works thoroughly, we should discover some very remarkable omissions of subjects that appear to be exactly after his own method and perfectly natural to certain parts of his dramas. We may instance the almost total want of commendation for the moral qualities of the dog, whether “mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim, hound or spaniel, brach or lym, or bob-tail tike, or trundle-tail.” The whole race is under a ban.