Whereat, an ante, with longe experience wise? And frost, and snowe, had manie winters seene: Inquired, what in sommer was her guise. Quoth she, I songe, and hop’t in meadowes greene: Then quoth the ante, content thee with thy chaunce, For to thy songe, nowe art thou light to daunce?” Contraria induſtriae ac deſidiæ præmia. [Illustration: _Freitag_, 1579.] _Propter frigus piger arare noluit: mendicabit ergo æſtate, & non dabitur illi._ _Prouerb. 20, 4._ “The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.” Freitag’s representation makes indeed a change in the season at which the “ante, with longe experience wise,” administers her reproof; but it is equally the school for learning in the time of youth and strength, to provide for the infirmities of age and the adversities of fortune. And more than similar in spirit to the Emblem writers which preceded, almost emblems themselves, are the whole scenes from the _Merchant of Venice_, act ii. sc. 7 and 9, and act iii. sc. 2, where are introduced the three caskets of gold, of silver, and of lead, by the choice of which the fate of Portia is to be determined,[90]— “The first, of gold, who this inscription bears, ‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire;’ The second, silver, which this promise carries, ‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves;’ This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt, ‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’” Act ii. sc. 7, lines 4–9. And when the caskets are opened, the drawings and the inscriptions on the written scrolls, which are then taken out, examined and read, are exactly like the engravings and the verses by which emblems and their mottoes are set forth. Thus, on unlocking the golden casket, the Prince of Morocco exclaims,— “O hell! what have we here? A carrion Death, within whose empty eye There is a written scroll! I’ll read the writing. [_Reads._] All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms infold. Had you been as wise as bold, Young in limbs, in judgment old, Your answer had not been inscroll’d: Fare you well; your suit is cold.” Act ii. sc. 7, lines 62–73. The Prince of Arragon, also, on opening the silver casket, receives not merely a written scroll, as is represented in Symeoni’s “DISTICHI MORALI,”—_Moral Stanzas_,—but what corresponds to the device or woodcut of the Emblem-book; “The portrait of a blinking idiot,” who presents to him “The schedule,” or explanatory rhymes,—