Bees.

The bees, all identical in appearance, zoom into their hives in three orderly rows.

The bees, all identical in appearance, zoom into their hives in three orderly rows.

The text here is…imaginative.

Text Translation:

Of bees. Bees, apes, are so called either because they hold on to things with their feet, or because they are born without feet (the Latin word for ‘foot’ is pes). For afterwards they acquire both feet and wings. Expert in the task of making honey, they occupy the places assigned to them; they construct their dwelling-places with indescribable skill, and store away honey from a variety of flowers. They fill their fortress, made from a network of wax, with countless offspring. Bees have an army and kings; they fight battles. They flee from smoke; they are irritated by noise; many are found to have been born from the corpses of oxen. To produce them, you beat the flesh of dead calves, so that worms come forth from the putrefying blood; these later become bees. Properly speaking, however, only the creatures that come from oxen are called bees; those that come from horses, are hornets; those from mules, drones; wasps, from asses.

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Eagle.

Two panels of eagles fishing and plunging into the rejuvenating spring.

Two panels of eagles fishing and plunging into the rejuvenating spring.

Text Translation:

Of the eagle. The eagle is so called because of the sharpness of its eyes, for it is said to be of such keen vision that it glides above the sea on unmoving wings, out of human sight, yet from such a height sees small fish swimmming below and, swooping down like a missile thrown from a siege engine, it seizes its prey on the wing and carries it to land. When the eagle grows old, however, its wings grow heavy, and its eyes grow dim. Then it seeks out a spring and, turning away from it, flies up into the atmosphere of the sun; there it sets its wings alight and, likewise, burns off the dimness in its eyes in the sun’s rays. Descending at length, it immerses itself in the spring three times; immediately it is restored to the full strength of its wings, the former brightness of its eyes.

In the same way, you, O man, with your old clothes and dim eyes, should seek the spiritual spring of the Lord and raise the eyes of your mind to God, the fount of righteousness, and your youth will be renewed like that of the eagle. It is also said of the eagle that that it exposes its young to the sun’s rays, holding them in its claws in mid-air. If any of them, struck by the light beating down from the sun, maintains a fearless gaze without damaging its sight, this is taken as proof that it has shown itself true to its nature. But if the young bird turns its eyes away from the rays it is rejected as unworthy of its kind and of such a father and, being unworthy of being begotten, it is considered unworthy of being reared. The eagle condemns it not in a harsh manner but with the honesty of a judge.

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Peacock.

A fine portrait including the peacock's tail.

A fine portrait including the peacock’s tail.

Text Translation:

Of the peacock The peacock gets its name, pavo, from the sound of its cry. Its flesh is so hard that it hardly decays and it cannot easily be cooked. A certain poet said of it: ‘You are lost in admiration, whenever it spreads its jewelled wings; can you consign it, hard-hearted woman, to the unfeeling cook?’ (Martial, Epigrams, xiii, 70) ‘Solomon’s fleet went to Tharsis once every three years and brought from there gold and silver, elephants’ teeth and apes, and peacocks’ (see 2 Chronicles, 10: 21).

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Ducks.

The ducks are shown not swimming but on land. They are multi-coloured and include the green and brown mallard.

The ducks are shown not swimming but on land. They are multi-coloured and include the green and brown mallard.

Text Translation:

Of ducks. The duck, anas, has been aptly named because it is constantly swimming, natare. Some of its species are called Germanie, ‘from Germany’, because they eat more than the rest. The goose, anser, derives its name from the duck, either because they are similar or because the goose too is constantly swimming. The goose marks the watches of the night by its constant cry. No other creature picks up the scent of man as it does. It was because of its noise, that the Gauls were detected when they ascended the Capitol.

Each species of bird is born twice; for first the eggs are produced, then they are given form and life by the warmth of the mother’s body. They are called eggs, ova, because inside they are full of fluid. Anything that has fluid on the outside is umidum, ‘wet’; anything with fluid on the inside is called vividum, ‘life containing’. Some people think that the word ovum is of Greek origin. For the Greeks call eggs oa, losing the v. Some eggs are conceived by useless wind; nothing can be hatched from them, however, unless they have been conceived through intercourse with a male bird and penetrated by the spirit carried in his seed. Such is the quality of eggs, they say, that wood soaked in them will not burn, nor clothing, in turn, catch fire. In addition, eggs mixed with chalk, it is said, will glue pieces of glass together.

Folio 59r – the swan, continued. De anatibus; Of the duck.

Swan.

The animal depicted is the mute swan. The characteristic knob at the base of the beak should be black instead of white as shown here. The white paint is covered with a thick coat of glair (made from egg white) which gives the feathers a luxurious sheen.

The animal depicted is the mute swan. The characteristic knob at the base of the beak should be black instead of white as shown here. The white paint is covered with a thick coat of glair (made from egg white) which gives the feathers a luxurious sheen.

Text Translation:

Of the swan. The swan, olor, is the bird which the Greeks call cygnus. It is called olor because its plumage is wholly white; no-one can recall seeing a black swan. In Greek olos means ‘entire’. The swan is called cignus, from its singing; it pours forth the sweetness of song in a melodious voice. They say that the swan sings so sweetly because it has a long, curved neck; inevitably, a voice forcing its way through a long, flexible passage produces a variety of tones. They say, moreover, that in the far north, when bards are singing to their lyres, large numbers of swans are summoned by the sound and sing in harmony with them. The Latin name for the swan, I repeat, is olor; the Greeks call it cignus. Sailors say that seeing a swan is a good omen for them; Emilianus said: ‘When you are observing birds for omens, the swan is always the most favorable bird to see; sailors set great store by it because it does not plunge beneath the waves’.

The swan has snow-white plumage and dark flesh. In a moral sense, the white colour of its plumage signifies the effect of deception, whereby the dark flesh is hidden, in the same way that a sin of the flesh is concealed by pretence. When the swan swims in a river, it holds its neck and head high, as a proud man is led astray by transitory things and even glories at the time in his temporary possessions. They say that in the far north, when bards are singing to their lyres, large numbers of swans fly there and sing in harmony with them. In the same way those who long for sensuous pleasure with all their hearts, like the swans flying north, harmonise with other pleasure-seekers. But when, at the very end, the swan dies, it is said to sing very sweetly as it is dying.

Likewise, when the proud man departs this life, he still delights in the sweetness of this present world and, dying, remembers the evil he has done. When the swan is plucked of its white plumage, it is set on the spit and roasted at the fire. Likewise, when a rich, proud man is stripped at death of his worldly glory, he will descend to the fires of hell where he will be tormented; he who used to seek food in the lowest places, descending into the abyss, is fed into the fire.

Folio 58v – the crow, continued. De cigno; Of the swan.

Crow.

Portrait of the Crow in a Roundel.

Portrait of the Crow in a Roundel.

Text Translation:

Of the crow The crow is a long-lived bird, called cornix in Latin and Greek. Soothsayers assert that the crow can represent by signs the concerns of men, show where an ambush is laid and foretell the future. It is a great crime to believe this – that God confides his intentions to crows. Among the many omens attributed to crows is that of presaging by their caws the coming of rain. Hence the line: ‘Then the crow loudly cries for rain’ (Virgil, Georgics, 1, 388).

Another strike against the christian god. What’s wrong with confiding in crows?

Let men learn from the crow’s example and its sense of duty, to love their children. Crows follow their young in flight, escorting them attentively; they feed them anxiously in case they weaken. A very long time passes before they give up their responsibility for feeding their offspring. In contrast, women of our human race wean their babies as soon as they can, even the ones they love. Rich women are altogether averse to breastfeeding. If the women are poor, they cast out their infants, expose them and, when the babies are found, deny all knowledge of them. The rich themselves also kill their children in the womb, to avoid dividing their estate among many heirs; and with murderous concoctions they destroy in the uterus the children of their own womb; they would rather take away life than transmit it. What creature but man has taken the view that children can be renounced? What creature but man has endowed parents with such barbarous rights? What creature but man, in the brotherhood created by nature, has made brothers unequal? Different fates befall the sons of a single rich man. One enjoys in abundance the rights and titles of his father’s entire heritage; the other complains bitterly at receiving an exhausted and impoverished share of his rich patrimony. Did nature distinguish between what each son should receive? Nature has shared things equally among everyone, giving them what they need to be born and survive. Let nature teach you to make no distinction, when dividing your patrimony, between those whom you have made equal by the title bestowed by brotherhood; for truly as you have bestowed on them the equal possession of the fact of their birth, so you should not grudge them the equal enjoyment of their status of brotherhood.

Folio 58r – the quail, continued. De cornice ; Of the crow.

Word Wednesday.

We have two words today, because they are both from the same book, and I did not wish to choose between them.
 

Salubrious / Obliquity

 
Salubrious, adjective: favourable to or promoting health or well-being.

-salubriously, adverb.

-salubriousness, noun.

-salubrity, noun.

[Origin: Latin salubris; akin to salvus safe, healthy.]

(1547)

“Bloomsbury to the north and Soho to the west were far from salubrious parts of London, but St. Giles’s remained one of the worst blackspots on the London map until the 1890s.” – Rivals of the Ripper: Unsolved Murders of Women in Late Victorian London, Jan Bondeson.

Obliquity, noun, plural -ties.

1: deviation from moral rectitude or sound thinking.

2a: deviation from parallelism or perpendicularity; also: the amount of such a deviation. b: the angle between the planes of the earth’s equator and orbit having a value of about 23°27′.

3a: indirectness or deliberate obscurity of speech or conduct. b: an obscure or confusing statement.

[Origin: Middle French obliquité from Latin obliquitatem slanting direction, obliquity.]

(15th Century)

“The Era newspaper blamed the police for their hounding of Smith and insisted that ‘the mental obliquity and professional incapacity displayed by the police in getting up the case against Smith, for the Cannon Street murder, shows more than ever the absolute necessity that exists for the establishment of a public prosecutor’. – Rivals of the Ripper: Unsolved Murders of Women in Late Victorian London, Jan Bondeson.

These two words definitely do not belong together, but I love the way they sound together: Salubrious Obliquity.