“Ex domino servus,”—The slave out of the master,—is another saying which the tale of Actæon has illustrated. The application is from Aneau’s “Picta Poesis,” fol. 41. On the left hand of the tiny drawing are Diana and her nymphs, busied in the bath, beneath the shelter of an overhanging cliff,—on the right is Actæon, motionless, with a stag’s head; dogs are around him. The verses translated read thus,—
“Horns being bestowed upon Actæon when changed to a stag,
Member by member his own dogs tore him to pieces.
Alas! wretched the Master who feeds wasteful parasites;
A ready prepared prey he is for his fawning dogs!
It suggests, he is mocked by them and devoured,
And out of a master is made a slave, bearing horns.”
But Sambucus in his Emblems (edition 1564, p. 128), and Whitney after him (p. 15)—making use of the same woodcut, only with a different border—adapt the Actæon-tragedy to another subject and moral, and take the words, Pleasure purchased by anguish.
Voluptas ærumnoſa.