“Qvand le vent est fort & subit, Violent pour robe emporter, L’homme se serr[e/] en son habit, Affin qu’il ne luy puisse oster. Mais quand le Soleil vient iecter Sur luy ses rays clers & luysantz, Le cauld le faict sans arrester Despouiller ses habitz plaisantz. * Ainsi ãmytié & doulceur Faict plus que force & violence, Doulceur est d’amour propre sœur, Qui rend l’homme plein d’excellence. II ne fault doncq mettr[e/] en silence Ceste tres noble courtoisie, Mais l’extoller en precellence; Comm[e/] vne vertu bien choisie. * Hommes, chassez de vous rigueur Qui vostre grand beaulté efface, Prenez de doulceur la vigueur, Qui enrichera vostre face. Doulceur ci bien meilleure grace, Qui rend le visag[e/] amoureux, Que d’estre dict en toute place L’oultre cuidé, fol, rigoureuz.” There is a brief allusion to this fable in _King John_ (act iv. sc. 3, l. 155, vol. iv. p. 76), in the words of Philip, the half-brother of Faulconbridge,— “Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can Hold out this tempest.” _Moderata vis impotenti violentia potior_,— [Illustration: _Freitag, 1579._] The same fable is given in Freitag’s “MYTHOLOGIA ETHICA,” Antwerp, 1579, p. 27. It is to a very similar motto,— “Moderate force more powerful than impotent violence,”—to which are added, below the woodcut, two quotations from the Holy Scriptures,— “_Non quia dominamur fidei._”—2 Cor. i. 24. “_Factus sum infirmis infirmus; vt infirmos lucrifacerem._”—1 Cor. ix. 22. “Not that we have dominion over your faith;” “To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak;” implying that not by the rigid exercise of authority, but by a sympathising spirit, the true faith will be carried onward unto victory. Now, as the motto of the second knight existed in French, and, as we have seen, Emblem-books were translated into Spanish, the supposition is justifiable, though we have failed to trace out the very fact, that the author of the _Pericles_—Shakespeare, if you will—copied the words of the motto from some Spanish Emblem-book, or book of proverbs, that had come within his observation, and which applied the saying to woman’s gentleness subduing man’s harsher nature. Future inquirers will, perhaps, clear up this little mystery, and trace the very work in which the Spanish saying is original, _Piu por dulzura que por fuerza_.