flies

Ace of Flies

Tenui Sed Fortis

Ace of Flies

Slender but strong. The web catches what force cannot hold.

The web catches what force cannot hold. Tenui sed fortis — slender but strong — announces the suit of unexpected power.

Paradin understood that the spider’s filament, nearly invisible, accomplishes what walls cannot. Persistence defeats resistance; patience outwaits strength.

The Ace of Flies inverts the hierarchy of the impressive. Here begins a meditation on smallness as strategy, on the overlooked as unconquerable.

Source: Paradin, Devises Héroïques, 1557, p. 121