Sirenes

Andrea Alciato, 1648 “Sirenes.” Emblemata, Emblema CXV, page 139, the motto printed over the woodcut.

Andrea Alciato, 1648 “Absque alis volucres, & cruribus absque puellas,
Rostro absque & pisces, qui tamen ore canant,
Quis putat esse ullos? iungi hæc Natura negauit:
Sirenes fieri sed potuisse docent.
Illicium est mulier, quæ in piscem desinit atrum,
Plurima quòd secum monstra libido vehit.
Aspectu, verbis, animi candore trahuntur,
Parthenope, Ligia, Leucosiaque viri.
Has Musæ explumant, has atque illudit Vlysses:
Scilicet est doctis cum meretrice nihil.” Emblemata, Emblema CXV, the epigram printed under the woodcut on page 139 and running on to page 140; the catchword at the foot of 139 is Illicium, the first word of the continuation.

Symbolica, 2026 Alciato's epigram, put into English here: Birds without wings, and girls without legs, and fish without a snout, which nevertheless sing with their mouths. Who thinks any such things exist? Nature denied that these be joined: but the Sirens teach that it could be done. A lure is the woman who ends in a black fish, because lust carries very many monsters along with it. By sight, by words, by brightness of spirit, men are drawn: Parthenope, Ligeia and Leucosia. The Muses pluck these of their feathers, and Ulysses mocks them, which is to say that the learned man has nothing to do with a harlot.

The motifs the picture carries, filed by role. The marks on the picture itself come with the entry.

1. 1The Watercentral motif as it reads here: Emblema CXV
2. 2The Demon and the Monstersecondary motif

Three sirens drawn with fish tails, playing a lute, a flute and a lyre, and the ship with a figure at the mast. By eye

The picture read whole, in the archive's words, from the sources quoted on the marks. Read on, and the picture follows: the motif under discussion keeps its colour.

Not yet decoded: the motifs are tagged by eye and the readings above are quoted from their sources. The marks on the picture and the sourced notes come with the entry.