To the motto, “Amor certvs in re incerta cernitvr,”—Certain love is seen in an uncertain matter,—Otho Vænius, in his Amorum Emblemata, 4to, Antwerp, 1608, represents two Cupids at work, one trying gold in the furnace, the other on the touchstone. His stanzas, published with an English translation, as if intended for circulation in England, may, as we have conjectured, have been seen by Shakespeare before 1609, when the Pericles was revived. They are to the above motto,—
“Nummi vt adulterium exploras priùs indice, quam sit
Illo opus: haud aliter ritè probandus Amor.
Scilicet vt fuluium spectatur in ignibus aurum:
Tempore sic duro est inspicienda fides.”
“Loues triall.
As gold is by the fyre, and by the fournace tryde,
And thereby rightly known if it be bad or good,
Hard fortune and distresse do make it vnderstood,
Where true loue doth remayn, and fayned loue resyde.”