Virtute illustres, eloquioque senes.
Dulce vetus vinum: senis est oratio dulcis,
Dulcior hoc ipso quò sapientior est.”
i.e.—“At the end of life tuneful is the bird, the white swan, into which the painted tablet teaches that men are changed, for swans are illustrious from hoariness and the sweet singing, old men illustrious for virtue and for eloquence. Old wine is sweet; of an old man sweet is the speech; sweeter, for this very cause, the wiser it is.”
Shakespeare himself adopts this notion in the Merchant of Venice (act i. sc. 2, l. 24, vol. ii. p. 286), when he says, “Holy men at their death have good inspirations.”
Reusner, however, luxuriating in every variety of silvery and snowy whiteness, represents the swan as especially the symbol of the pure simplicity of truth. (Emblemata, lib. ii. 31, pp. 91, 92, ed. 1581.)
Simplicitas veri ſana.
Reusner, 1581.