Jacob Cats

Jacob Cats (10 November 1577, Brouwershaven (Zeeland) - 12 September 1660, the Hague) was a Dutch poet, humorist, jurist and politician. He is most famous for his emblem books.

"Its title, ‘Alcibiades' Silenus’ is resulting in the connotation of silenus being ugly on the outside and valuable on the inside.

Cats has used this connotation again in a metaphorical sense for an EMBLEM: at first sight incomprehensible, but on closer inspection containing a moral lesson.
In the three parts of his book Cats used the same set of illustrations three times, but with three different sets of text. The illustration is used once to apply to love (the emblem as a symbol of love), once to provide a moral lesson, and once as a pious exhortation."