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DOI Artikel:Paszkiewicz, Piotr: Noctural bird of wisdom: symbolic functions of the owl in emblems
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18898#0083
13. An Owi in Love with a Girl, in: A. Alciati, Emblematum liber, 1550
Conscia sic culpae, celat miseranda pudorem:
Et latet iii tenebris, fleląue, gemitąue nigris:
Quam fugiunt et ayes, et pellunt aethere toto:
Nec reperit tutum pulsa repulsa locum.
Imperat heu ąuoties menti furiosa libido
Foemineae: rectum nescit habere modum.
Quae semel amisi rupit si frena pudoris:
Mente furens caeca perpetrat omne nefas.
Quod licet, ingratum est: quod non licte, acrius urit:
Semina neąuitiae frangere nemo potesfjC'.
The popularity of emblematic books and the fact that the iconographic tradition od the 15th
and 16th centuries remained vivid in the 17th century must have affected visual representations
in the period in question. As in everyday life, debauchcry and drunkcnness went hand in hond
also in painting. The owi was often presented as an allegory af the two vices at oncc.
This is the role in which the owi appears in Jan Steen's painting After Drinking Bout, in the
Rijksmuseuum in Amsterdam. It reprcsents a drunken womean lying on a bench, accompanied
56. Nicolas Reusner, Emblematu, Frankfurt, 1581 No 16:
Since tlie temptress Nictiraena gave herself to lier fatlicr, she, turned owi, has fled daylight. Awarc of her fault, mis-
erable, she thus conccals lier shame and her own self in tears and sighs amidst hlack darkness. Ha ted by all birds, ex-
pelled from throughout the sky, totally rejected, sbc finds no refuge. Woe, as long as woman*s naturę ia reined by un-
tame desire and knows no restraint. She who breaks the reins and rids herself of shame will, in blind madness, commit
all sorts of sins. What is accepted is not favoured. What is forbidden, however, incites her all the more passionately
and no one is able to uproot the sced of cvii.
77
Conscia sic culpae, celat miseranda pudorem:
Et latet iii tenebris, fleląue, gemitąue nigris:
Quam fugiunt et ayes, et pellunt aethere toto:
Nec reperit tutum pulsa repulsa locum.
Imperat heu ąuoties menti furiosa libido
Foemineae: rectum nescit habere modum.
Quae semel amisi rupit si frena pudoris:
Mente furens caeca perpetrat omne nefas.
Quod licet, ingratum est: quod non licte, acrius urit:
Semina neąuitiae frangere nemo potesfjC'.
The popularity of emblematic books and the fact that the iconographic tradition od the 15th
and 16th centuries remained vivid in the 17th century must have affected visual representations
in the period in question. As in everyday life, debauchcry and drunkcnness went hand in hond
also in painting. The owi was often presented as an allegory af the two vices at oncc.
This is the role in which the owi appears in Jan Steen's painting After Drinking Bout, in the
Rijksmuseuum in Amsterdam. It reprcsents a drunken womean lying on a bench, accompanied
56. Nicolas Reusner, Emblematu, Frankfurt, 1581 No 16:
Since tlie temptress Nictiraena gave herself to lier fatlicr, she, turned owi, has fled daylight. Awarc of her fault, mis-
erable, she thus conccals lier shame and her own self in tears and sighs amidst hlack darkness. Ha ted by all birds, ex-
pelled from throughout the sky, totally rejected, sbc finds no refuge. Woe, as long as woman*s naturę ia reined by un-
tame desire and knows no restraint. She who breaks the reins and rids herself of shame will, in blind madness, commit
all sorts of sins. What is accepted is not favoured. What is forbidden, however, incites her all the more passionately
and no one is able to uproot the sced of cvii.
77