Monday, February 6, 2012

Instanti Victoria

Here is today's emblem and distich by Joachim Camerarius, 3:10. The bird of Saturn here is, of course, the eagle, Jupiter's bird. As Pliny explains, the eagle prepares carefully for this fight: it rolls in the dust, collecting the dust on its feathers, and then alights on the stag's horns and shakes the dust into eyes. The stag then no longer knows which way it is running, which allows the eagle to drive the stag off a cliff. To the pursuing eagle goes the victory!

Instanti Victoria
Aspicis ut torquet volucris Saturnia cervum,
Nempe docet vigili cuncta labore dari.



Here is the vocabulary:

insto - press hard, pursue, approach
victoria - victory
aspicio - look at, observe, consider
ut - as, so, so as to
torqueo - turn, twist, torment
volucris - winged, flying, bird
Saturnius - Saturn's, belonging to Saturn
cervus - stag, deer
nempe - truly, certainly, of course
doceo - teach, educate
vigil - awake, alert; watchman
cunctus - all, every
labor-noun - work, hard work, effort
do - give, grant