Debemus parentibus in primis, ut pietate illis respondeamus: quod bruta animalia [268] praestare minime norunt, praeter Ciconias, quae authore Aeliano[1] parentum senectutem nutriunt. Summa haec est, allegoria faciet ad ostendendam vim pietatis, ac benevolentiae cuiusquam erga suos. Nullum enim animal, teste D. Bernardo[2], circa pullos suos tanta compassione movetur, sicut Gallina{,}<.> Fit enim non solum, ut diximus, toto corpore hispida, voce rauca, sed toto etiam fervens animo, et omnibus membris infirma, et usque ad supremum defectum perveniens. Si ergo, inquit D. Bernardus, in tantum pullis suis Gallina animal irrationale compatitur, quanto putas optimum Iesum humano generi fuisse compassum? Ad quantam pietas eum debilitatem, et infirmitatem pervenisse? Quanta putas ipsum macie confectum fuisse, qui pro omnibus cognoscitur doluisse? Unde {Esaias} <Isaias>: Vere languores nostros ipse tulit, et peccata nostra ipse portavit.

First of all we have to do this towards our parents, to repay them with affection: the animals devoid of reason don’t know to do this at all, except storks, which, as Aelian reports, nourish the old age of their parents. This is the final touch, the allegory will be proper to express the strength of the love and the benevolence of whoever towards his relatives. For no animal, as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux affirms, is moved by so much compassion towards its chicks as the hen. For as we said she not only becomes ruffled in the whole body, with hoarse voice, but also shaken in the whole mind, and weak in all parts, and who gets to the point of the extreme weakness. Saint Bernard says: If therefore the hen, irrational animal, does suffer so deeply together with her chicks, how much do you think that the very good Jesus has suffered together with humankind? The love, to how much weakness and exhaustion led him? By how much emaciation do you think he has been worn out, he who is known for to have suffered for everybody? Whence Isaiah: Truly He burdened Himself with our weakness, and He Himself undertook our sins.

MORALIA.

MORAL MATTERS

Omnes in primis Galli Gallinacei vitae actiones veri patrisfamilias, et qui in eo omnem suam curam ponit, et studium, ut familiae suae de omnibus necessariis prospiciat, significare {potest} <possunt>[3]. Haec enim ales tota die quicquid virium habet, id totum ad suorum confert salutem, et nullius rei minus, quam sui ipsius solicita est. Unde sapientissimus Pythagoras tam providam animalis, et erga suos promptam naturam considerans, dixit, nutriendum quidem Gallum esse: at non immolandum, quod ut alii aliter interpretantur, ita ego inter caetera hoc dico denotare, homini hanc Galli solicitudinem ad res corporis curandas esse quidem necessariam verum non sic esse necessariam, ut eam etiam ad sacrificium, et cultum divinum ferre debeamus ut quem {omnes} <omnis> aeternae curae liberum esse decet, nec ulla terreni pabuli solicitudine {destineri} <detineri>. Absit ergo Gallinaceus a sacrificiis hac quam dico ratione. Iam et illud {moneri} <monere> videtur caetera quidem animalia immolari posse, Gallum citra piaculum non posse, eo quod is qui optimum totius vitae exemplar occidit, videatur indicare sibi nihil amplius opus esse laudatissimis huiusce animalis dotibus, citra quas tamen probo, sapientique viro non fuerit vivendum. Alendus igitur Gallus, et perpetuo, dum vivimus, imitandus, tum in familia alenda, et propugnanda, tum in vitae officiis per oportunas temporum vices distribuendis.

Firstly all roosters are able to symbolize the activities of a true head of family, since he spends all his attention and care to such an extent that he supplies his family with everything is necessary. For this bird during the whole day devotes any energy he possesses to the comfort of members of his family and he doesn’t worry about nothing, less than about himself. Hence the most wise Pythagoras, examining a so much thoughtful nature and available toward its family of an animal, said that without doubt the rooster must be fed: but not that he must be immolated, a thing that, as others interpret otherwise, so among other things I say that it points out what follows, that for a human being this solicitude of the rooster in taking care of the bodily things is without doubt necessary, but that in truth it is not so necessary that it ought be addressed to the sacrifice and the divine cult, as he whom suits to be free from any eternal worry, neither to be hindered by any nagging thought for the worldly food. Therefore the rooster should be absent from sacrifices for the reason I am explaining. Certainly it seems that also that point of view is saying that the other animals can be immolated, but not the rooster out of an expiatory sacrifice, since he who kills an excellent model of all a life would seem to point out that he doesn’t any longer need the very precious qualities of this animal, without which nevertheless I think that also to a wise man it would not be worthwhile to live. Therefore the rooster must be raised, and until we are alive he must be perpetually imitated, both in maintaining and protecting the family, as well as in distributing the duties of the life through proper turnovers of times.

Eodem pariter modo nobis liberalitatis, ac benignitatis exemplar est. Quemadmodum enim omnia, quae habet, Gallus suis impartit, ita vir quispiam pius ac liberalis sua, quae corrasit, non sibi soli servare debet, sed pauperibus etiam benigniter aliquid erogare, iuxta illud Iob: Non comedi ex eis solus, etc. Principem item ecclesiasticum eleganter Gallo comparaveris, etenim uti hic oculo uno grana, ut diximus familiae suae dividit: altero Accipitrem observat, et contra irruentem in eam sese alacris opponit. Ita ille duo ob oculos potissimum ponere debet, curam nempe humanarum mortaliumque ac caelestium, aeternarumque rerum. Illas bene administrare cognoscitur, si alienus ab omni avaritiae macula pauperibus, subditisque de necessariis prospiciat, vel saltem quae sibi supersunt, eis communicet, nihilque sibi praeter necessaria reservet.

In the same identical way he is for us a model of generosity and goodness. For as the rooster shares with his family everything he possesses, so any man devoted toward his relatives and magnanimous doesn’t have to hold only for himself the things he accumulated, but has to give something with benevolence also to poor people, according to that verse of Job: I have not eaten only from them, etc. Similarly you will be able in an elegant way to compare a boss of the Church to a rooster, and in fact like this, as we said, with an eye he distributes the grains to his family, with the other he keeps a close watch on the hawk and with ardor he clashes with it while it is attacking him. Thus the former has to set in front of his eyes above all two things, and precisely the care of human and deadly things and of celestial and eternal ones. You understand that he knows to manage them well if extraneous to any stain of avarice he is able to provide the poor men and the subordinates with necessary things, or at least to share with them what he has in excess, and he doesn’t hold for himself nothing except those things necessary to him.

Harum vero curam gerere dicetur, si contra omnem diaboli vim sese subditosque Gallum imitans defendat. Diabolus autem verus Accipiter est, qui nobis futuram aeternitatem invidet, nosque suae poenae socios perpetuos asciscere conatur. Grana vero, quorum esu quotidie fruimur, egregie necessaria nobis designant. Praeterea tam fervens Galli erga suos amor nos etiam admonet, ut uxores nostras, abiectis omnibus scortis, quae mera maritorum pestis sunt, ac pernities, amemus. Quare veteres insignis, legitimique matrimonii coniunctionem significaturi, mortuorum sepulchris Gallum, et Gallinam insculpebant, se invicem deosculantes.

But it will be said that he has care of these things if is able to defend himself and the subordinates in imitating the rooster. For the devil is a true hawk which envies us the future eternity, and it tries hard in order to receive us as perennial sharing of its punishment. But the grains, of which we take advantage as food every day, indicate very well the things which are necessary for us. Furthermore a so ardent love of the rooster toward his relatives exhorts us also to love our wives pushing away all the prostitutes who are an authentic plague and ruin of husbands. Therefore the ancients, when they want to signify the union of a special and legitimate marriage, carved on tombs of dead persons a rooster and a hen kissing each other.

Satis superque supra ostendimus a nonnullis Theologis Christianis {concionatores} <contionatores>, et divinos homines intelligi, qui nobis verba salutis enunciant, quique iacentibus in tenebris, et umbra mortis, lucem, quae Deus est, praenunciant, et a nobis mentis nostrae veternum, ac torporem suo cantu excutiunt. Alius aliam comminisci poterit expositionem.

Previously we have shown in plenty that by some Christian theologians they are intended as instigators and divine men those who reveal us the words of salvation, and those who preannounce the Light, that is God, to those people lying in darkness and gloom of death, and that with their song they move away from us the apathy and the numbness of our mind. Whoever will conceive whatever interpretation.

Possunt autem et Thrasones, gloriosique ac stolidi homines, nimium sibi arrogantes per Gallos notari. Nam uti hos habendos esse quidem Pythagoras dicebat, et non penitus abijciendos, non autem ad sacra admittendos, ita illi ab arcanis, et seriis gravibusque sermonibus reijciendi sunt. Quod secus tamen hodie (proh dolor) a Regibus plerisque et Principibus fieri videmus. Alius amantes, et qui continue amore depereunt, interpretari per Gallum poterit, quo pacto videntur Athenienses significasse, cum Anterotis[4] aram constituerunt, in qua pueri nudi et formosi signum inerat, in ulnis geminos sustinentis generosos Gallos, et se in caput impellentis, quibus Timagoram, et {Meletam} <Meletem>[5], seu Melitum (utrunque enim legimus) qui amore perierunt, significabant. Historia notissima est apud Pausania, et Suidam[6], quanquam nonnihil inte<r> se {e}varient. <ille in Attica, hic in dictione Melitus, Gyraldus. Gestat autem puer gallinaceos: quod una cum duobus gallis, quos a Melito sibi dono datos ulnis gestabat, ex arce Athenis se praecipitasset. Pausanias aliter hanc historiam referens, gallinaceorum quoque non meminit.>[7]

In fact those braggart - as a Thraso - and vainglorious and excessively arrogant men can be branded as roosters. For Pythagoras said that they must be judged like these, and that they don’t must be entirely despised, but that they don’t must be admitted to the sacred ceremonies, so much they are to be kept away from secret things and from serious and important discourses. A thing that otherwise today (oh, what a pain) nevertheless we see to be carried out by most of kings and princes. Another through the rooster can interpret the lovers and those who are continuously melt of love, as it seems that Athenians wanted to represent when they set up the altar of Anteros on which there was the image of a naked and charming boy sustaining on forearms a couple of pure-bred roosters, and throwing himself headlong down, by whom they indicated Timagoras and Meles, or Melitus (for we can read both these names) who died for love. The history is well-known in Pausanias and in the lexicon Suidas, although they disagree quite a lot between them: Pausanias in Attica, the lexicon Suida at the word Mélitos, as Giglio Gregorio Giraldi is referring. For the boy carries the roosters: since in Athens he would have thrown himself from the acropolis together with the two roosters he was carrying on forearms and given him as gift by Melitus. Pausanias reporting otherwise this history doesn’t mention the roosters too.