L'Allegro - III

Georg Lemberger
The Opening of the Seventh Seal
1524
hand-colored woodcut
(illustration to the "Luther" Bible)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Georg Pecham
Neptune in Shell Chariot
1594
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Philip Galle after Johannes Stradanus
Fishing with Nets in the Arno
ca. 1578-80
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Gentile da Fabriano
St Nicholas of Bari saving a Ship from sinking
1425
tempera on panel
(predella fragment)
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Michaelina Woutiers
Bacchanal
(self-portrait in pink at extreme right)
before 1659
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Lorenzo de Caro
Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf
ca. 1758
oil on canvas
Detroit Institute of Arts

Cesare Nebbia
Athena teaching Women to Weave
before 1614
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Martin Baes
Falling Icarus with Rearing Horse
1633
engraving
(leaf from Emblem Book)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Jost Amman
Abduction of Ganymede
1578
woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Nicolas Tournier
Drinkers at an Inn
ca. 1620-25
oil on canvas
Musée de Tessé, Le Mans

Anonymous French Artist
Triumph of Henri IV
ca. 1610
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Art d'Orléans

Jacques-Louis David
Napoleon crossing the Alps
1801
oil on canvas
(looted from France by Prussian troops in 1814)
Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin

Cherubino Alberti 
Statue of Prometheus
1590
engraving
(after Polidoro da Caravaggio)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

attributed to Giulio Benso
Two Men playing Racquet Game in an Interior
ca. 1630
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Francesco Guardi
Festivities to honor the Russian Heir in Piazza San Marco, Venice
1782
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anders Zorn
The Waltz
1891
etching
Zornmuseet, Mora, Sweden

It lightened sweet beauty; see how he flasheth flame from his eyes.  Hath Love produced a boy armed with the bolt of heaven?  Hail! Myiscus, who bringest to mortals the fire of thy Loves, and mayest thou shine on earth, a torch befriending me. 

If I came to thee in revel, Archinus, willingly, load me with ten thousand reproaches; but if I am here against my will, consider the vehemence of the cause.  Strong wine and love compelled me; one of them pulled me and the other would not let me be sober-minded.  But when I came I did not cry who I was or whose, but I kissed the door-post: if that be a sin, I sinned.

I shall bear, Bacchus, thy boldness, I swear it by thyself; lead on, begin the revel; thou art a god; govern a mortal heart.  Born in the flame, thou lovest the flame love hath, and again leadest me, thy suppliant, in bonds.  Of a truth thou art a traitor and faithless, and while thou biddest us hide thy mysteries, thou wouldst now bring mine to light.

Tell me, Cleonicus, did the bright Graces meet thee walking in a narrow lane and take thee in their rosy arms, dear boy, that thou hast become such a Grace as thou art?  From afar I bid thee all hail, but ah! dear, it is not safe for a dry corn-stalk to draw nearer to the fire. 

When Menecharmus, Anticles' son, won the boxing match, I crowned him with ten soft fillets, and thrice I kissed him all dabbled with blood as he was, but the blood was sweeter to me than myrrh. 

Love in the night brought me under my mantle the sweet dream of a softly laughing boy of eighteen, still wearing the chlamys; and I, pressing his tender flesh to my breast, culled empty hopes.  Still does the desire of the memory heat me, and in my eyes still abideth sleep that caught for me in the chase that winged phantom.  O soul, ill-starred in love, cease at last even in dreams to be warmed all in vain by beauty's images. 

– from Book XII (Strato's Musa Puerilis) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)