Habet id Emblema Io. Baptista Pittonus, Aesopicus Gallus[1], qui gemmam inventam spernit, et vil<i>orem cibum quaerit, cum verbis, par ignoranze, significat hominem, qui inscius virtutis dulcissimos fructus spernit, vitiis sese immergens, et nutriens. Huius emblematis idem[2] author est.

Giovanni Battista Pittoni has this emblem, the rooster of Aesop spurning the gem he found and seeking after a humbler food, with the words par ignoranze, that means a man who, unaware of virtue, despises the sweetest fruits, plunging himself into the vices and feeding on them. He himself is author of this emblem.

Eadem denique ales cum lauri ramo in rostro, et cum verbo vigilando, hominem denotat, qui in vigiliis, non autem in somno, et otio vitam degat, ut bene operando aeternam adipiscatur gloriam.

Finally the same bird with a laurel branch in his beak, and with the verb keeping watch, denotes a man who spends his life in alertness, and not in sleep and idleness, so that acting fairly he may attain eternal glory.

Idem[3] porro de Gallina ex Alpheo in {epigrammatibus} <epigrammatis> Graecis εἰς φιλοστοργίαν hexastic<h>on legitur.

Χειμερίαις νιφάδεσσι παλυνομένα τιθάς ὄρνις,

Τέκνοις εὐναίας ἀμφέχεε πτέρυγας,

Μεσφαμὶν οὐράνιον κρύος ὤλε{ο}σεν. ἦ γὰρ ἔμεινεν

Αἰθέρος οὐρανίων ἀντίπαλος νεφέων.

Πρόκνη, καὶ Μήδεια, κατ’ἀΐδος αἰδέθητε

Μητέρες, ὀρνίθων ἔργα διδασκόμεναι.[4]

Moreover, the same is read concerning the hen, a composition in six lines eis philostorghían - on tenderly loving - drawn from Alpheus of Mytilene and which is present among Greek epigrams – see Greek Anthology:

Cheimeríais niphádessi palynoména tithás órnis,

Téknois eunaías amphékee ptérugas,

Mesphamìn ouránion krýos ølesen. ê gàr émeinen

Aithéros ouraníøn antípalos nephéøn.

Próknë, kaì Mëdeia, kat'aídos aidéthëte

Mëtéres, orníthøn érga didaskómenai.  

The domestic hen, covered by the winter snowflakes,

Was wrapping the chicks with the wings acting as nest,

until the cold of the sky killed her. In fact she remained
to fight against the clouds of the sky that are in air.

Procne, and Medea, mothers who are in the Hades, be ashamed,

receiving teaching from what the birds are doing.

Quos versus Franciscus Sanctius[5] a quodam Alphonso Nunio {Metylenensi} <Mitylenensi – Mytilenensi[6]> egregia indole iuvene, sibique amico ita {redditum} <redditos> tradit.

Gallina {hybernis} <hibernis[7]> nivibus cooperta cubili

Compacto ex plumis pignora<ta> cara[8] fovet.

Donec eam saevum frigus male perdidit, atque

Aethereis  mansit nuda parens nivibus.

Sit pudor, o Medea ferox, atque improba {Progne} <Procne>[9],

Et matres volucrum discite nunc opera.

Francisco Sánchez hands down them to us translated as follows by a certain Alphonsus Nunius of Mytilene, a youth of exceptional mind and friend of him:

The hen covered by winter snows

In the nest made of feathers heats her beloved sons.

Until the fierce cold didn't kill her, and

The mother hen became naked because of the snows of the sky.

Shame on you, cruel Medea. and wicked Procne,

and, mothers, now learn what the birds do.

{Vetisse} <Vertisse> etiam eadem carmina Fernandum Sanctium patrem suum ait, sed velut periphrastice sic.

Canus December, brumaque saeviens

Montes, et agros texuerat nive.

Gallina pullos, mitis ales,

Frigore non poterat tueri,

Nec fata caris[10] filiolis valet

Auferre, verum nidificat suis

Plumis, et alas ponit, et quam

Perdiderant, reparant salutem.

Ast ipsa vitam perdidit, et tulit

Mortem libenter. {Procnem}<Procne> aliter tamen

{Colchisque} <Cholchisque[11]> foedare utra audax

Passa manus proprio cruore.

Eiusdem aliter.

Bruma fremebat atrox, pennas Gallina reliquit,

Frigus ut a natis pelleret, atque obiit.

Hinc {Maedaea} <Medea[12]> ferox, hinc Procne discite: namque haec

Bis vitam pullis praebuit, ac moritur.

He says that also his father Fernando Sánchez translated the same verses, but in somewhat periphrastic manner as follows:

Hoary December and raging winter cold,

Had interwoven with snow mountains and fields.

The hen, mild bird, has not been able

To protect her chicks from the cold

Nor she is able to keep away the death

From her dear children, nevertheless she makes a nest

With her feathers, and lays on them her wings,

And they recover the life they had lost.

But she herself lost the life, and gladly

Bore death. Nevertheless in different way Procne

And the woman of the Colchis - Medea - both bold

Tolerated to have to soil their hands with their own blood.

Always of him, in another way:

Atrocious the cold quivered, the hen left her feathers to fall

To send away the cold far from her children, and she died.

From this, fierce Medea, from this Procne you must learn: and in fact she

Has given twice the life to chicks, and she dies.

Andreas Alciatus vero longe aliter vertit in emblemate nonagesimo tertio, cui titulus est, amor filiorum.

Ante diem vernam boreali cana Palumbes

Frigore nidificat, praecox, et ova fovet.

Mollius, et pulli ut iaceant, {ibi} <sibi> vellicat alas,

Queis nuda {hyberno} <hiberno[13]> deficit ipsa gelu.

Ecquid Cholchi pudet, vel te Procne improba? mortem

Cum volucris propriae prolis amore subit?

But Andrea Alciato translates in a quite different way in the emblem 93^rd, whose title is the love for children:

The wild dove before the spring’s arrival

Nests because of hoary northern cold, in advance, and heats her eggs.

And so that chicks may lie more softly she plucks her wings, naked of which she herself dies because of winter cold.

Woman of Colchis, or you wicked Procne, are you perhaps feeling ashamed?

Since the bird suffers death for love of her offspring?

Super eodem erga pullos amore Gallinae eiusmodi emblema habet Nicolaus Reusnerus[14] sub lemmate, nil christo triste recepto.

Praedatur pullos, pedibusque eviscerat uncis

Milvus edax, si quod devius error agit.

Colligit, et fidis tegit hos Gallina sub alis

Glocitu matrem testificata piam.

Terribilis Sat{h}anas sanctos affligit, et angit,

Et quacunque potest arte nocere, nocet.

Protegis alarum quos Christe {potente} <potenti> sub umbra,

Et saevo tutos solus ab hoste facis.

Nikolaus Reusner apropos of the same love of the hen toward chicks has the following emblem, under the title nothingness when Christ has been sadly accepted:

Abducts chicks, and disembowels them with his hooked claws

The voracious kite, if by chance an injudicious error is acting.

The hen gathers and covers them under her trustworthy wings

After she testified with her cackling that she is a devoted mother.

The terrible Satan afflicts the saints, and torments them,

And damages them with any possible harmful artifice.

Christ, you protect them under the powerful shade of your wings,

And you alone make them sure from the cruel enemy.