Early Morning Sunday Epigrams

Ok, so this is a little late (8:53pm), but at least it's still Sunday. As I mentioned before, I'm not just going to use this slot to publish epigrams, but poetry from emblem books and the like. This week our poem comes from George Wither's A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne (London, 1635; STC 25900a). Since the pagination is all over the place, I'll instead give the illustration and book number to reference:

Book I, Illustration XVIII.
From thence, where Nets and Snares are layd,
Make-hast; els you be betray'd.

[Woodcut of a butterfly and a spider in its web.]
The nimble Spider from his Entrailes drawes
A suttle Thread, and curious art doth show
In weaving Nets, not much unlike those Lawes
Which catch Small-Thieves, and let the Great-ones goe.
For, as the Cob-web takes the lesser Flyes,
When those of larger size breake through their Snares;
So, Poore men smart for little Injuries,
When Rich-men scape, whose Guilt is more then theirs.
      The Spider, also representeth such
Who very curious are in Trifling things,
And neither Cost, nor Time, nor Labour grutch,
In that which neither Gaine nor Pleasure brings.
But those whom here that Creature doth implye
Are chiefely such, who under cunning shewes
Of simple-Meanings (or of Curtesie)
Doe silly Men unwarily abuse.
Or else, it meanes those greedy-Cormorants
Who without touch, of Conscience or Compassion,
Seeke how to be enricht by others wants,
And bring the Poore to utter Desolation.
      Avoyd them therefore, though compell'd by need,
Or if a Storme inforce, (yee lab'ring Bees)
That yee must fall among them; Flie with speed
From their Commerce, when Calmes your passage frees.
Much more, let wastfull Gallants haste from these;
Else, when those Idling-painted-Butterflies,
Have flutter'd-out their Summer-time, in ease,
(And spent their Wealth in foolish Vanities)
      The Blasts of Want may force them to be brought
      For shelter thither, where they shall be caught.

I find all of the animal imagery used in this emblem interesting – casting gallants and prodigals as "Idling-painted Butterflies" with "foolish Vanities" seems an apt description to me. The description of the law as a spider's web reminds me of a similar passage in John Webster's Duchess of Malfi, where Antonio and Delio are discussing the Duke, Ferdinand:

      Ant. The Duke there? a most peruerse, and turbulent Nature,
What appeares in him mirth, is meerely outside,
If he laugh hartely, it is to laugh
All honesty out of fashion.
      Del. Twins?
      Ant. In qualitie:
He speakes with others Tongues, and heares mens suites,
With others Eares: will seeme to sleepe o'th bench
Onely to intrap offenders, in their answeres;
Doombes men to death, by information,
Rewards, by heare-say.
      Del. Then the Law to him
Is like a fowle blacke cob-web, to a Spider,
He makes it his dwelling, and a prison
To entangle those shall feede him. (sig. B3v; 1.1)

The association of the cormorant with greed and gluttony has a long-standing history (e.g. "the hote cormeraunt, of glotenye" in Chaucer's Parlement of Foulys, f.486r.) This association led Israel Gollancz, first in 1916 and later in 1931, to suggest that the name "Shylock" was derived from an Englished form of the Hebrew word for "cormorant", which in Elizabethan parlance "was an expressive synonym for usurer". Finally, I find it interesting that the emblem acknowledges, albeit grudgingly, the social reality of usury in the figure of the "lab'ring Bees", who are "compell'd by need" or misfortune (the "Storme"?) to rely on loans from usurers.

There is a growing body (pun intended) of scholarship focusing on ideas of embodiment, interiority, and selfhood in Renaissance literature. I'd be interested to know what these critics would make of the Spider, since the web is but a "suttle Thread" drawn "from his Entrailes".