We pass to the third, the fourth, and the fifth knights, with their “devices” and “words;” and to illustrate these we have almost a superabundant wealth of emblem-lore, from any portion of which Shakespeare may have made his choice. His materials may have come from some one of the various editions of Claude Paradin’s, or of Gabriel Symeoni’s “Devises Heroiqves,” which appeared at Lyons and Antwerp, in French and Italian, between the years 1557 and 1590; or, as the learned Francis Douce supposes, in his Illustrations of Shakspere, pp. 302, 393, the dramatist may have seen the English translation of these authors, which was published in London in 1591, or, with greater probability, as some are inclined to say, he may have used the emblems of our countryman, Geffrey Whitney. Were it not that Daniell’s translation, in 1585, of The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius is without plates, we should include this in the number.
Of the devices in question, Whitney’s volume contains two, and the other works the three; but between certain expressions of Whitney’s and those of the Pericles, the similarity is so great, that the evidence of circumstance inclines, I may say decidedly inclines, to the conclusion that for two out of the three emblems referred to, Shakespeare was indebted to his fellow Elizabethan poet, and not to a foreign source.
From his use of Spanish and French mottoes, as well as Latin, it is evident that Shakespeare, no more than Spenser, needed the aid of translations to render the emblem treasures available to himself; and if, as some maintain,[[95]] the Pericles was in existence previous to the year 1591, it could not have been that use was made of the English translation of that date of the “Devises Heroiqves,” by P. S.; it remains, therefore, that for two out of the three emblems he must either have employed one of the original editions of Lyons and of Antwerp, or have been acquainted with our Whitney’s Choice of Emblemes, and have obtained help from them; and for the third emblem he must have gone to the French or Italian originals.
The third knight, named of Antioch, has for his device “a wreath of chivalry,”—
“The word, Me pompæ provexit apex;”—
(Act ii. sc. 2, l. 30,)
i. e., “The crown at the triumphal procession has carried me onward.” On the 146th leaf of Paradin’s “Devises Heroiqves,” edition Antwerp, 1562, the wreath and the motto are exactly as Shakespeare describes them. But Paradin gives a long and interesting account of the laurel-wreath, and of the high value accorded to it in Roman estimation. “It was,” as that author remarks, “the grandest recompense, or the grandest reward which the ancient Romans could think of to offer to the Chieftains over armies, to Emperors, Captains, and victorious Knights.”
Me pompæ prouexit apex.
