Editorial note
I’ve chosen to preserve Pulter’s spelling and capitalization, while expanding superscripts and contractions and lightly modernizing punctuation.
Headnote
Over time, the unicorn has served as a—perhaps the—quintessential bestiary beast, one existing only in the pages of the bestiaries and related works. Pulter’s fourteenth emblem falls into the latter category. It takes as its point of departure a common piece of bestiary lore: that when the otherwise-elusive unicorn encounters a female virgin, “it leaps into her lap and embraces her, and goes to sleep there,” and so is taken. Bestiary, ed. Richard Barber (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993), 36.
1 As fanciful as this tale may sound to modern ears, Pulter then applies it to a still more curious purpose, associating it with the biblical histories of Samson and Solomon as an example of perfidious feminine seduction. Never mind that the stories in question draw on very different literary sources. Never mind that the unicorn’s maiden coexists uneasily with malign temptress-figures like Samson’s Dalila and Solomon’s wives. And never mind that the unicorn, who is not even human, seems a poor cautionary figure for “Youthfull Gallants” ensnared by feminine wiles. In fact, Pulter pursues a different logic here, a logic of metaphorical and typological association that trumps all these issues. Again the bestiaries offer guidance, commonly noting that “Our Lord Jesus Christ is the spiritual unicorn of whom it is said: ‘My beloved is like the son of the unicorns’ [Song of Songs 2.9].”2 This connection established, it becomes easy to relate the unicorn to Samson and Solomon, both of whom were understood from classical times forward to be Old Testament anticipations of Christ. Saint Caesarius of Arles, Sermons, trans. Sister Mary Magdeleine Mueller, 3 vols. (Washington, DC: Catholic UP, 1964), vol. 2, sermon 118, pp.182-9. Origen, Commentary on John, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Allan Menzies, v. 9 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912), 10.22, p. 403.
3 On this logic, Samson, betrayed into slavery by Dalila, and Solomon, betrayed into idolatry by his wives, both prefigure the unicorn Jesus, consigned to the cross by the first and worst of all feminine betrayals—Eve’s. To be sure, Samson and Solomon collude in their downfall by yielding to what Milton would call “uxoriousness”—the fault of overvaluing the feminine—but in the case of the unicorn/Christ, masculinity evades even this secondary level of responsibility, which is relayed instead onto Adam. Woman remains the root of all evil, and the emblem develops out of a hermeneutics as conservative as its gender politics.Line number 1
Gloss note
The earliest accounts of the unicorn associate it with India (see e.g. Ctesias’ Indica). However, by the 1500s, travelers had begun placing it in Africa—especially Ethiopia—as well.Line number 5
Gloss note
Jan van Linschoten attributes this behavior to the rhinoceros, which he notes “some think . . . the right Unicorne, because there as yet hath no other been founde” (Discourse of Voyages into ye Easte and West Indies [London, 1598], 1.47, p. 88). The second of the so-called Unicorn Tapestries, woven in the Low Countries between 1495 and 1505 and currently housed in the Met Cloisters, depicts this activity (see image in the headnote for this edition).Line number 6
Gloss note
The three key figures in this emblem—the unicorn, Samson, and Solomon—all serve as models of governance or leadership, qualities compromised in each case by an abdication of reason in the face of feminine wiles.Line number 8
Gloss note
According to a wholly separate tradition repeated by Shakespeare, the unicorn could also be “betrayed with trees” (Julius Caesar 2.1)—i.e. captured by being induced to run its horn into a tree-trunk.Line number 15
Gloss note
Notably among his exploits, Samson slew a thousand Philistines using the jawbone of an ass as a club (Judges 15.19). As to his similarity to Christ, Caesarius of Arles (468-542) observes, “What was the meaning of Samson? If I say he signified Christ, it seems to me that I speak the truth. . . . Inasmuch as Samson performed virtues and miracles he prefigured Christ, the head of the Church. When he acted prudently, he was an image of those who live justly in the Church” (Sermons, trans. Sister Mary Magdeleine Mueller, 3 vols. [Washington, DC: Catholic UP, 1964], vol. 2, sermon 118, pp.182-9).Line number 17
Gloss note
For Origen, “Solomon was an image of the Saviour” (Origen, Commentary on John, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Allan Menzies, vol. 9 [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912], 10.22, p. 403). Saint Augustine declares that whereas “[t]he name of Solomon is interpreted to mean peacemaker: now Christ is the True Peacemaker, of whom the Apostle says, ‘He is our Peace, who has made both one.’ Ephesians 2:4 . . . [T]herefore, He is the true Solomon; for that Solomon was the figure of this Peace maker, when he built the temple” (Exposition on Psalm 127, 1, in Philip Schaff, ed. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, trans. J. E. Tweed [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing, 1888], first series, vol. 8).Line number 24
Gloss note
Sexual infatuation was understood as madness and therefore the opposite of reason. See Shakespeare: “Love is merely madness” (As You Like It 3.2).Line number 24
Gloss note
“Fancy” appears here in the sense of “to take a fancy to; to entertain a liking for; to be pleased with; to like . . . (in early use often=to be or fall in love with)” (OED “Fancy” v. II.8.a). Sorry, but there are no notes associated with
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