The mythic tale of Actæon transformed into a stag, and hunted by hounds because of his rudeness to Diana and her nymphs, was used to point the moral of widely different subjects. Alciatus (Emb. 52, ed. 1551, p. 60) applies it “_to the harbourers of assassins_” and makes it the occasion of a very true but very severe reflection. In receptatores ſicariorum. [Illustration] _Latronum furumque manus tibi Scæua per vrbem It comes: & diris cincta cohors gladijs. Atque ita te mentis generoſum prodige cenſes, Quòd tua complurειs allicit olla malos. En nouus Actæon, qui poſtquàm cornua ſumpſit In prædam canibus se dedit ipſe ſuis._ _Alciat, 1551._ “Of thieves and robbers evil-omen’d bands the city through Go thy companions; and a cohort girded with dreadful swords. And so, O prodigal, thou thinkest thyself of generous mind, Because thy cooking pot allures very many of the bad ones. Lo, a new Actæon, who after he assumed the horns, Himself gave himself a prey to his own dogs.” The device is graphically drawn: Actæon is in part embruted; he is fleeing with the dogs close upon him. Supposing Shakespeare to have seen this print, it represents to the life Pistol’s words in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 106, vol. i. p. 186),— “Prevent, or go thou, Like Sir Actæon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.” “EX DOMINO SERVUS,”—_The slave out of the master_,—is another saying which the tale of Actæon has illustrated. The application is from Aneau’s “PICTA POESIS,” fol. 41. On the left hand of the tiny drawing are Diana and her nymphs, busied in the bath, beneath the shelter of an overhanging cliff,—on the right is Actæon, motionless, with a stag’s head; dogs are around him. The verses translated read thus,— “Horns being bestowed upon Actæon when changed to a stag, Member by member his own dogs tore him to pieces. Alas! wretched the Master who feeds wasteful parasites; A ready prepared prey he is for his fawning dogs! It suggests, he is mocked by them and devoured, And out of a master is made a slave, bearing horns.” But Sambucus in his _Emblems_ (edition 1564, p. 128), and Whitney after him (p. 15)—making use of the same woodcut, only with a different border—adapt the Actæon-tragedy to another subject and moral, and take the words, _Pleasure purchased by anguish_. Voluptas ærumnoſa. [Illustration: _Sambucus, 1564._]