"Envy, my son, wears herself away, and droops like a lamb under the influence of the evil eye"

This quote by Jacopo Sannazaro is an alerting to his boy concerning the threats of envy. Envy is a harmful emotion that can consume a person and trigger them to come to be unhappy and also resentful. It is compared to a lamb, a gentle as well as innocent animal, that is compromised and also made sick by the "evil eye" of another. The "bad eye" is a superstitious notion that recommends that a person can cause injury to one more merely by taking a look at them with envy or malignance. Sannazaro is alerting his kid that envy can be an effective force that can trigger an individual to endure as well as end up being ill. He is motivating his kid to be familiar with the dangers of envy and also to avoid it in order to safeguard himself from its dangerous effects.