Otto van Veen

Inscribed on the album page below the design, in brown ink, "Nil aúri cúpidum refraenat (title) / ____ cum te neque fervidus aestus / Dimoveat lúcro, neque hyems, ignis, mare, ferrúm, / Nil obstet tibi, dúm ne sit te ditior alter, / Sic festinanti semper locupletior obstat. / Út cum carceribus missos rapit ungula cúrrus, / Instat eqúis auriga, suos vincentibus, illum / Praeteritum temnens extremos inter eúntem / Indè fit ut raro, qui se vixisse beatúm, / Dicat et exacto contentús tempore vitae / Cedat út conviva satur reperire queamus" (While as for you, neither burning heat, nor winter fire, sea, sword, can turn you aside from gain - nothing stops you, until no second man be richer than yourself. In such a race there is never a richer in your way. 'Tis as when chariots are let loose from the barriers and swept onwards behind the hoofed steeds: hard on the horses that outstrip his own presses the charioteer, caring naught for that other whom he has passed and left in the rear. Thus it comes that seldom can we find one who says he has had a happy life, and who, when his time is sped, will quit life in contentment, like a guest who has had his fill). The text is from Horace, "Satires", Book I, 1, lines 38-40, and lines 113-19; not Book II, 1, as cited in the 1607 "Emblemata".