Fame and Infamy : A sting to Virtue
kwaw said:
Acts 26:14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? [it is] hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
King James Version 1611
"Yet it is right to respect also the country where I was born, since this is the divine law, and to obey all her commands and not oppose them, or as the proverb says kick against the pricks. For inexorable, as the saying goes, is the yoke of necessity."
Emperor Julian Orations 246B
The word translated 'prick' is a greek word meaning sting, prick, (ox) goad:
Dionysus: I would sacrifice to the god rather than kick against his spurs in anger, a mortal against a god.
(Bacchae 792-796)
Pindar:
[81] A crafty citizen is unable to speak a compelling word among noble men; and yet he fawns on everyone, weaving complete destruction.3 I do not share his boldness. Let me be a friend to my friend; but I will be an enemy to my enemy, and pounce on him like a wolf, [85] treading every crooked path. Under every type of law the man who speaks straightforwardly prospers: in a tyranny, and where the raucous masses oversee the state, and where men of skill do. One must not fight against a god, [89] who raises up some men's fortunes at one time, and at another gives great glory to others. But even this [90] does not comfort the minds of the envious; they pull the line too tight and plant a painful wound in their own heart before they get what they are scheming for. It is best to take the yoke on one's neck and bear it lightly; kicking against the goad [95] makes the path treacherous. I hope that I may associate with noble men and please them.
(Pythian 2, translated by T. K. Hubbard)
Emperor Julian c.350 ad:
"Yet it is right to respect also the country where I was born, since this is the divine law, and to obey all her commands and not oppose them, or as the proverb says kick against the pricks. For inexorable, as the saying goes, is the yoke of necessity."
(Orations 246B)
Kwaw
AIGISTHOS.
Thou such things soundest -- seated at the lower
Oarage to those who rule at the ship's mid-bench?
Thou shalt know, being old, how heavy is teaching
To one of the like age -- bidden be modest!
But chains and old age and the pangs of fasting
Stand out before all else in teaching, -- prophets
At souls'-cure! Dost not, seeing aught, see this too?
Against goads kick not, lest tript-up thou suffer!
Aeschylus, Agamemnon
GETA.
I came to experience it, I know that. I'm quite sure that I was forsaken by my good Genius, who must have been angry with me.(74)
2 I began to oppose them at first; but what need of talking? As long as I was trusty to the old men, I was paid for it in my shoulder-blades. This, then, occurred to my mind: why, this is folly to kick against the spur.(78)
3 I began to do every thing for them that they wished to be humored in.
Ge.
Mihi usus venit, hoc scio:
Memini relinqui me Deo irato meo.
Coepi adversari primo. Quid verbis opus est?
Seni fidelis dum sum, scapulas perdidi.
Da. Venere in mentem mili istaec; "Namque inscitia est,
Adversum stimulum calces?"
P. Terentius Afer, Phormio, or The Scheming Parasite (ed. Henry Thomas Riley)
In later decks at least, such as the Belgian and Vieville, perhaps there is a relationship between infamy and fama as a spur to virtue.
In the Belgian pattern
XIIII · LA TEMPERENCE
Temperance
Temperance holds a jug in one hand pouring liquid into a jug on the ground, in the other she holds a [butterfly headed?] sceptre [the Bodet looks like it is topped by a winged dildo Or possibly a palm branch]. She has a banner that reads Fama Sol, as Ross has previously noted Alciato 1543 calls the 14th card Fama:
Mundus habet primas, croceis dein Angelus alis:
Tum Phoebus, luna, & stella, cum fulmine daemon:
Fama necem, Crux antesenem, fortuna quadrigas:
Cedit amor forti & justo, regemque sacerdos:
Flaminicam regina praeit queis caupo propinat
Omnibus, extremò stultus discernitur actu."
The World has first place, then the Angel with golden wings:
Next Phoebus, the Moon, and the Star, with lightning, the demon:
Fame (before) death, the Cross before the old man, fortune (before)
the chariot:
Love cedes to the strong and the just; the priest precedes the king,
And the queen the Flaminica, and the innkeeper passes the cup
To All; the fool is set apart, outside of the sequence.
The Vieville too shows the inscription SOL FAMA on this card.
So we have infamy (in the form of the hanged man) and fame (identified with the figure of temperance) on either side of death. Fama here triumphing over death, and against the idea of the hanged man kicking againts the prick/goad/sting, we have also Fama as the sting/prick/goad to virtue:
From The Iconologia of Cesare Ripa
"Hesiodus proves, in the beginning of his book of the works and days, that a strife to honor and a good name is very honorable; because by this strife, the virtuous seem to strive with those who run with them, and seems to have a little advantage of him; hence comes the proverb: "Figulus figulum adit", "It is the one beggar's woe, that he sees the other give." And this we see amongst all artists of one Trade, how virtuous soever they be, that the one envies the other. This we see also among the Learned, that the one lessens and dispises another's work, for they envy the good name of their virtuous Countrymen; and it happens often, that they praise those, after they are dead, whom in their lifetime they have dispised. The student being moved through a certain envy of honor, which is occasioned in him by the sting of an honorable name, desiring to excell above all others and to be held the supreme above all others, and this makes him moil and toil to arrive at all the signs of perfection.
The hieroglyphic figure of the good fame is the Trumpet, signifying renown and a good name, saith Pierius. For the same animates the soldiers, and awakens them out of their sleep. The same does the Trumpet of a good fame, for she awakens a virtuous mind of the sleep of laziness, and causes them to stand always upon sentry, being willing to make a good progress in their exercises to get an [eternal] name of honor. The same does also the Trumpet among the soldiers, inflames their minds and makes them long for the Battle. The Trumpet of a good fame and honor, inflames also the mind with a sting of virtue; wherefore Plutarch speaks thus of moral virtue: "The lawgivers occasion in the cities love of honor and envy, but against the enemies they use Trumpets and flutes, to kindle the flame of wrath and desire of fighting." And certainly there is nothing that kindles the mind more to virtue than the Trumpet of fame and honor, and that especially in young men.
The crown, or garland, and palm adorned with Tassels, is a figure of the reward of virtue, by which the virtuous stand in a continual war and envy."