Section II.
HERALDIC EMBLEMS, OR EMBLEMS APPLIED TO HERALDRY.
KNOTTED together as are Emblems and the very language of Heraldry, we must expect to find Emblem writers devoting some at least of their inventions to heraldic purposes. This has been done to a very considerable extent by the Italians, especially by Paolo Giovio, Domenichi, Ruscelli, and Symeoni; but in several other authors also there occur heraldic devices among their more general emblems. These are not full coats of arms and the complete emblazonnes of “the gentleman’s science,” but rather cognizances, or badges, by which persons and families of note may be distinguished. In this respect Shakespeare entirely agrees with the Emblem writers; neither he nor they give us the quarterings complete, but they single out for honourable mention some prominent mark or sign.
I attempt not to arrange the subject according to the Rules of the Art, but to exhibit instances in which Shakespeare and the Emblematists agree, of Poetic Heraldry, the Heraldry of Reward for Heroic Achievements, and the Heraldry of Imaginative Devices.
Of Poetic Heraldry the chief type is that bird of renown, which was a favourite with Shakespeare, and from which he has been named by general consent, “the Swan of Avon.” A white swan upon a shield occurs both in Alciat and in Whitney, and is expressly named Insignia Poetarum,—“The poets’ ensigns.”
The swan, in fact, was sacred to Apollo and the Muses; and hence was supposed to be musical. Æschylus, in his Agamemnon, makes Cassandra speak of the fable, when the Chorus bewail her sad destiny (vv. 1322, 3),—
“Ἃπαξ ἔπ’ εἰπεῖν ῥῆσιν ἢ θρῆνον θέλω
ἐμὸν τὸν αὐτῆς.”
i.e.,—“Yet once again I wish for her to speak forth prophecy or lamentation, even my own,”—and Clytæmnēstra mentions the singing of the swan at the point of death (vv. 1444–7),—