Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers / an exposition of their similarities of throught and expression, preceded by a view of emblem-literature down to A.D. 1616

by Henry Green

“This earth shall have a feeling and these stones

Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king

Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.”

And the device which emblematizes the fact occurs in Symeoni’s abbreviation of the Metamorphoses into the form of Italian Epigrams (edition Lyons, 1559, device 41, p. 52).

And lastly, in 3 Henry VI. (act v. sc. 1, l. 34), from a few lines of dialogue between Warwick and King Edward, we read,—

“War. ’Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.

K. Edw. Why then ’tis mine, if but by Warwick’s gift.

War. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight;

And weakling, Warwick takes his gift again.”

But a better comment cannot be than is found in Giovio’s “Dialogve,” edition Lyons, 1561, p. 129, with Atlas carrying the Globe of the Heavens, and with the motto, “Svstinet nec fatiscit,”—He bears nor grows weary.