The dolphin was highly regarded as the noble, speedy creature of the sea during the Renaissance era. He is affable and helpful to man and is a treasure amongst the sea of animals which inhabit the ocean. In the eighty-sixth emblem of Minerva Britanna, Henry Peacham dedicates the emblem to a woman whom he refers to as "E:L." This woman is compared to the dolphin in her graceful qualities amongst a lesser setting, just like the dolphin in the salty sea; she is able to "Remaine untainted of your Element." (Peacham) Dolphins were a widespread animal during the Emblematic Ages and were generally looked upon as speedy friends of seafarers and young boys. Pliny, Aristotle, Ovid, Browne and other scholars took note of the associated attributes.

Latin mottos were a very significant aspect of emblems and had a meaning that was crucial to understand the emblem in its entirety. Therefore only scholars who were astute in the Latin language could fully appreciate the whole implication of the emblem and all of the messages that were surrounding it. In salo sine sale means "in the salt but being without the salt." This translation corresponds to both the image of the dolphin being on the water as opposed to in the water, and also to the verses when they state:

Himselfe is fresh, and doth no whit retaine

The brinish saltnes of the boundless Sea

Wherein he lives. (Peacham)

The dolphin exists amongst the salt, but is able to disassociate himself from it even though he lives in it. Although he lives in a salty environment, the dolphin remains clean and full of grace, just like the lady to whom the piece is dedicated.

The "great Ladie" is compared in utmost admiration to the mythological goddess Diana who epitomized grace in a tense atmosphere for she was the "noble huntress" of mythology. In reference to Diana, he describes the "great Ladie" as being high above her surroundings when he writes:

Diana-like, whose brightnes did excel,

When many starres, within your climate fell. (Peacham)

Peacham is insinuating that this woman who was worthy of a dedication and as a subject in his emblems book exceeds the limits of her vulgar and brutish surroundings. She has a sense of regality in a setting that would normally hinder such an attribute. The dolphin is compared to the woman in the sense that he is detached from the ocean in which he inhabits, and even though his environment is limiting in some ways, he is able to make the most of it and maintain his poise.

An archetypal impresa that includes the dolphin is the image of the dolphin coiled around the anchor in Festina Lente. When the device is used for coinage, the individual symbols demonstrate a message significant to the leader of that time:

The coin itself is a circle and stands for eternity (has neither beginning nor end),

the anchor (holds back and ties down a ship) stands for slowness, and the dolphin

Expresses speed (as the fastest and in its motions the most agile of living creatures).

(Festina Lente)

The dolphin was held with high esteem for its dexterity through the water and the way in which it interacted with the water.

Erasmus reiterates this concept by further highlighting the purpose of both the anchor and the dolphin; "…the anchor symbolizes delay in considering and the dolphin speed in finishing…" (Festina Lente). The emphasis of the message of the impresa is the balance and harmony that delineates from combining the pensive qualities of the anchor and the speed from the dolphin that reaches the desired means. Alciato also explains the significance of the dolphin for helping the sailors place the anchor at the ocean's floor when he writes, "…the dolphin, devoted to mankind, embraces so that it can fiz more safely in the deepest seas." (Alciato 144)

The Aberdeen Bestiary describes the speed of dolphins as well as their attraction to music. During the time that emblems were widespread, dolphins were perceived as virtually mythological creatures with tremendous capabilities.

There is no swifter creature in the sea.

For they often leap through the air over

ships; but when they play beforehand in

the swell and leap headlong through the

mighty waves, they seem to foretell

storms. (The Aberdeen Bestiary Project)

In reality, scientists and scholars alike know today that this is literally a virtual impossibility. The likelihood of a dolphin really being able to leap over a ship is very limited, if likely at all. Attributed the mystical characteristics of a seer is also completely contrary to fact. However, the age with which this work and many others were written is based around tradition and not scientific evidence, and therefore information such as that of The Aberdeen Bestiary was commonly accepted as truth.

Many scholars of the "age of emblems" wrote about the physical traits of dolphins and compared them to other more common land animals, such as the pig. Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica describes a "porkpisce," apparently an old English term for a dolphin in relation to a pig:

The porkpisce (that is the dolphin) hath his name from the hog hee resembles in

Convexity and curvitye of his backe, from the head to the tayle: nor is hee

otherwise curbe, then as a hog is: except that before a storme, hee tumbles just as

a hog runs… his skin not scaly, but smoothe and black, like a hog…

(Browne's Vulgar Errors)

Browne proposes that the dolphin is very much like a pig in its physical appearance and its personality characteristics. Other intellectuals of that time compared the countenance of the dolphin to that of a pig with the upturned snout, the small eyes and the teeth.

Pliny alludes to the concept that was common knowledge during the years that these works were written of taking great interest in young boys and following them around, as he described in some stories that he recounts.

…called Simo…the Dolphin…taking bread and other victuals at his hand, would

gently offer him his backe to mount upon, and then downe went the sharpe

pointed prickes of his fines, which he would put up as it were within a sheath for

fear of hurting the boy. (Pliny "Of Dolphins")

His description of the fins of the dolphin are also incorrect as society knows the structure of the modern-day dolphin, for today's image of the physical appearance of a dolphin is without any spiny attributes but rather of a very smooth surface. The traditions of that age led the public to believe that the prickly fins of the dolphin were accurate accounts of its appearance.

Dolphins were a highly admired species of animal during the creation of emblems, and they were therefore a topic for many emblems and depicted as an image of greatness that individuals should aspire to imitate in their kindness and aid to others. The dolphin's speed was also a trait to be admired, for it implied that the dolphin was productive and crafty, and therefore was successful in its achievements. Ovid's Metamorphoses describes "…wond'ring dolphins o'er the palace glide…" in reference to the graceful quality of their movement in the water, as Peacham alluded to his "gliding" over the water, and not being part of the water. The dolphin is a being to be placed on a pedestal, as its qualities exceed those of many human beings.

-Whitney Sones

Links:

* The Aberdeen Bestiary Project: Text f73r The whale. The flying fish. The dolphin.

http://www.clues.abdn.ac.uk:8080/besttest/alt/translat/trans73r.html

* Alciato Emblem 144 (English)

http://www.mun.ca/alciato/e144.html

* Aristotle's historia animalia Parts 6 and 7

http://info.med.yale.edu/therarad/summers/aristot.htm

* Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar Errors V.ii: Of pictures of Dolphins

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudo52.html

* The Adage Festina Lente

http://www.mnemosyne.org/festin-3.html

* The Ninth Booke of Plinies Naturall History: Chapter VIII "Of Dolphins"

and Chapter IX "Of Porpuisses"

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny9.html

* The Internet Classics Archive/ Metamorphoses by Ovid

http://classics.mit.edu/Ovid/metam.html