“The halcyones,” Pliny avers, “are of great name and much marked. The very seas, and they that saile thereupon, know well when they sit and breed. This bird, so notable, is little bigger than a sparrow; for the more part of her pennage, blew, intermingled yet among with white and purple feathers; having a thin small neck and long withal they lay and sit about mid-winter, when daies be shortest; and the times while they are broodie, is called the halcyon daies; for during that season the sea is calm and navigable, especially on the coast of Sicilie.”—Philemon Holland’s Plinie, x. 32.
We are thus prepared for the device which Paolo Giovio sets before his readers, with an Italian four-lined stanza to a French motto, We know well the weather. The drawing suggests that the two Alcyons in one nest are sailing “on the coast of Sicilie,” in the straits of Messina, with Scylla and Charybdis on each hand—but in perfect calmness and security,—
DE I MEDESIMI.
Giovio, 1562.
San gl’ Alcionij augei il tempo eletto,
Ch’ al nido; e all’ oua lor non nuoca il mare.
Infelice quell’ huom, ch’el dí aſpettare
Non ſa, per dare al ſuo diſegno effetto.