The “Devises Heroiqves” adds to the device a simple prose description of the meaning of the Emblem,—
Scribit in marmore leſus.
Paradin, 1562.
Certains fols éuentés s’ aſſeurans trop ſus leur credit & richeſſes, ne font point cas d’iniurier ou gourmander de faict & de paroles une pauure perſonne, eſtimans que à faute de biens, de faueur, de parens, ou d’amis elle n’aura jamais le moyen de ſe venger, ou leur rẽdre la pareille, ains qu’elle doiue lien toſt oublier le mal qu’elle a receu. Or combien ces Tirans (c’eſt leur propre nom) ſoyent abuſez de leur grande folie & ignorance, l’occaſion & le temps le leur fera à la fin connoiſtre, apres les auoir admoneſtez par ceſte Deuiſe d’un homme aſſis, qui graue en un tableau de marbre ce qu’il a en memmoire auec ces parolles: Scribit in marmore læsus. (f.160.)
The word here propounded is of very high antiquity. The prophet Jeremiah (xvii. 1 and 13) set forth most forcibly what Shakespeare names “men’s evil manners living in brass;” and Whitney, “harms graven in marble hard.” “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars.” And the writing in water, or in the dust, is in the very spirit of the declaration, “They that depart from me shall be written in the earth,”—i.e., the first wind that blows over them shall efface their names,—“because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.”
Some of Shakespeare’s expressions,—some of the turns of thought, when he is speaking of injuries,—are so similar to those used by the Emblem writers in treating of the same subject, that we reasonably conclude “the famous Scenicke Poet, Master W. Shakespeare,” was intimate with their works, or with the work of some one out of their number; and, as will appear in a page or two, very probably those expressions and turns of thought had their origin in the reading of Whitney’s Choice of Emblemes rather than in the study of the French and Italian authors.
Of the same cast of idea with the lines illustrative of Scribit in marmore læsus, are the words of Marc Antony’s oration over Cæsar (Julius Cæsar, act iii. sc. 2, l. 73, vol. vii. p. 375),—
“I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.