Pleasure and Pain represent as twins, since there never is one without the other; and as if they were united back to back, since they are contrary to each other.
[6] Clay, gold.
[Footnote: 7. oro. fango: gold, clay. These words stand below the allegorical figure.]
If you take Pleasure know that he has behind him one who will deal you Tribulation and Repentance.
[9] This represents Pleasure together with Pain, and show them as twins because one is never apart from the other. They are back to back because they are opposed to each other; and they exist as contraries in the same body, because they have the same basis, inasmuch as the origin of pleasure is labour and pain, and the various forms of evil pleasure are the origin of pain. Therefore it is here represented with a reed in his right hand which is useless and without strength, and the wounds it inflicts are poisoned. In Tuscany they are put to support beds, to signify that it is here that vain dreams come, and here a great part of life is consumed. It is here that much precious time is wasted, that is, in the morning, when the mind is composed and rested, and the body is made fit to begin new labours; there again many vain pleasures are enjoyed; both by the mind in imagining impossible things, and by the body in taking those pleasures that are often the cause of the failing of life. And for these reasons the reed is held as their support.
[Footnote: 676. The pen and ink drawing on PI. LIX belongs to this passage.]
[Footnote: 8. tribolatione. In the drawing caltrops may be seen lying in the old man’s right hand, others are falling and others again are shewn on the ground. Similar caltrops are drawn in MS. Tri. p. 98 and underneath them, as well as on page 96 the words triboli di ferro are written. From the accompanying text it appears that they were intended to be scattered on the ground at the bottom of ditches to hinder the advance of the enemy. Count Giulio Porro who published a short account of the Trivulzio MS. in the “Archivio Storico Lombardo”, Anno VIII part IV (Dec. 31, 1881) has this note on the passages treating of “triboli”: “E qui aggiungerò che anni sono quando venne fabbricata la nuova cavallerizza presso il castello di Milano, ne furono trovati due che io ho veduto ed erano precisamente quali si trovano descritti e disegnati da Leonardo in questo codice”.
There can therefore be no doubt that this means of defence was in general use, whether it were originally Leonardo’s invention or not. The play on the word “tribolatione”, as it occurs in the drawing at Oxford, must then have been quite intelligible.]
[Footnote: 9—22. These lines, in the original, are written on the left side of the page and refer to the figure shown on PI. LXI. Next to it is placed the group of three figures given in PI. LX No. I. Lines 21 and 22, which are written under it, are the only explanation given.]
Evil-thinking is either Envy or Ingratitude.
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.