On the Names of Plants

original: "NVNCVPATORIA"

The Prince of princes, God the Best and Greatest, has adorned and decorated your Highness original: "Clementiam tuam," a formal address to a ruler. For this reason, I judge it more prudent not to touch upon the praises of so great a Prince, rather than to set them forth with insufficient elegance and abundance as they deserve. Add to this that it is fitting for the highest and most famous Princes to be praised and celebrated by men who are themselves great and distinguished in learning and eloquence; I, a little man of the lowest lot, equipped with neither learning nor eloquence, neither should nor can be joined to their ranks.

For if that Athenian citizen, a man of the lowest birth, was praised—who, though he had devised the best counsel, did not wish to present it himself but wanted another possessing authority to set it forth (lest the advice have less weight on account of the meanness of his own person)—if he, I say, is praised because he considered that one must weigh not only what is said, but also by whom it is said when it pertains to everyone: how much more rightly do I act by abstaining from that subject? For since it is a most ample theme requiring great eloquence, it ought to be handled by the highest and most excellent men.

Therefore, I come to the remaining two causes (lest I be too wordy) which seem to favor our undertaking more than the one just mentioned. For just as the nourishing Sun illuminates the lower world with its light, receiving meanwhile no splendor from the same: so your Highness abbreviated as C.T. for "Celsitudo Tua" will not disdain, as we hope, to adorn and illuminate our work with your most illustrious name, even if nothing, or very little splendor, returns to your Highness from it. And yet, it shall not be altogether a disgrace, but rather a praise and ornament—so far as we can judge—in whatever place Tragus Hieronymus Bock, known as Tragus, the author of this botanical work may be held by the critics original: "zoilis," referring to Zoilus, a harsh critic of Homer. For since it has hitherto been received with such great favor among our Germans, many of even the most learned men have preferred these books on the Nature of Plants original: "Stirpium natura" above all others...