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Amorum Emblemata: Tristan I'Hermite and the Emblematic Tradition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
In 1626 Tristan I'Hermite was commissioned to write a poetic description of Berny, the country house near Bourg-la-Reine to which the Marquise de Puisieux had been obliged to withdraw following her husband's disgrace at court. The chateau, a handsome maison de plaisance surrounded by extensive formal gardens, was one of the earliest designed by François Mansard and had been built for the father-in-law of the marquise, the Chancellor Sillery.
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- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1968
References
1 See Bernardin, N. M., Un précurseur de Racine, Tristan I'Hermite, sieur du Solier, 1601- 1655, safamille, sa vie, ses oeuvres … (Paris, 1895), PP- 108ff.Google Scholar Cf. Tallemant des, Rcaux, Historiettes, ed. Antoine, Adam (Paris, 1960), 1, 201–204.Google Scholar
2 I quote from the first edition of the Vers heroiques (Paris, 1648), p. 169.
3 P. 202.
4 Vers héroiques, pp. 169-200 [=190]. See p. 200, where the poem is said to be ‘un des premiers ouvrages de FAutheur.'
5 Tristan may of course be describing in these verses the actual decoration of Berny; in that case both he and the painter of the scenes are following the same source.
6 I (London, 1939), 10, 77, 89.
7 There arc several editions in 1608; what appears to be the first contains verses in Latin, English, and Italian. Another has verses in Latin, Dutch, and French. Later (and pirated) editions print verses in other languages as well. For a summary bibliography of Van Veen's emblematical publications, sec Praz, 11 (London, 1947), 168-170, and cf. 1, 90, n.i.
8 Emblemes $amour lllustrez Sune Explication en prose fort facille pour entendre le sens moral de chaque Embleme (no place or date of publication). A measure of the popularity of this collection is afforded by the fact that the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal alone owns three editions of it. Praz mentions it, II, 169.
9 Délie, dixain 94; Soupirs str. uv; see Praz, 1, 102.
10 Cf., for example, Tristan's poem and the emblem in Amorum Emblemata. (The edition I follow gives no place or date of publication but is similar in all general respects to the editions of 1608 and 1611 described in full by De Vries, A. G. C., De Nederlandsche Emblemata (Amsterdam, 1899)Google Scholar, nos. 45 and 46.) Cupid hunts a stag, accompanied on the opposite page by these verses in French:
II faut courir le cerf, par monts, vaux, par campaignes,
La Dame aussi se veut par grand pourchas matter,
n'Attens qu'elle se vienne entre tes bras jetter.
Ce que sans peine on prend, bien tost en le desdaigne.
On p. 123, one sees Cupid, struck through by an arrow, pointing to lilies which have turned black and to a cloudy sky. The verses on the opposite page are the following:
San vous tout m'est fascheux et rien ne me peut plaire,
Les lis me semblent noirs, et obscur le soleil:
Quand plus je ne vous vois, ô clarté de mon oeil.
Par l'absence à l'amant toute chose est contraire.
Fortunately, Tristan's verses improve on his model!
11 The poem is reproduced by Bernardin, pp. 600-601.
12 For its bibliography, see Praz, n, 124; see also 1, 107ff.
13 Cupids addresse to the Ladies. Emblemata amatoria. Emblems of Love. Embleme d'Amore. Emblemes d'Amour (London, 1683). The sonnet is found on an unnumbered preliminary page. The emblems are crude reworkings of those found in the Embèemes d'amour quoted earher and in the Thronus Cupidinis, both of which have, in part, Van Veen as an ultimate source. See Praz, 1, 116ff.
14 Another instance of the use by Tristan and Philip Ayres of the same theme is that of ‘la belle gueuse’ or fair beggar maid, upon which both poets composed sonnets. See the interesting chapter ‘Trois belles Mendiantes’ in Valery Larbaud, Technique (Paris, 1932), pp. 77-104.
15 The fundamental study of'hieroglyphic’ literature in the Renaissance is still that of Karl Giehlow, ‘Die Hieroglyphenkunde des Humanismus in der Allegorie der Renaissance,’ Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhochsten Kaiserhauses, Bd. 32 (1915), Heft 1.
16 Cf. Praz, 1, 19; see also Frances, Yates, French Academies of the XVIth Century (London, 1947), p. 132.Google Scholar According to certain authors in the XVIth century, these truths were passed to the Druids in France; see D. P. Walker, ‘The Prisca Theologia in France,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XVII (1954), 204-259.
17 Commentaires hieroglyphiques ou Images des choses (Lyon, 1576), [fol.5v].
18 See, however, George Couton, La Poétique de la Fontaine, Publications de la Fac. des Lettres de l'Université de Clermont-Ferrand, He série, fasc. 4 (Paris, 1957), on La Fontaine and emblems. A useful résumé of the history of emblem literature in French may be found in Pierre Mesnard, ‘Symbolisme et humanisme,’ in Umanesimo e simbolismo, Atti del IV Convegno internazionale di studi umanistici, ed. Enrico Castelli (Padua, 1958), p. 125-129. See also Ludwig, Volkmann, Bilderschriften der Renaissance: Hieroglyphik und Emblematik in ihren Beziehungen und Fortwirkungen (Leipzig, 1923).Google Scholar
19 A recent book on the gardens of Versailles reveals the symbolism inherent in their plan: Edouard Guillou, Versailles, lepalais du soleil (Paris, 1963). See also the very interesting Guide de Versailles mysterieux, by Rene Alleau (Paris, 1966). For contemporary symbolic interpretations of Poussin's paintings seen as emblems, see Louis, Hautecoeur, Literature et peinture en France du XVIIe au XXe siècle (Paris, 1942), pp. 10–12.Google Scholar