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Cupid complains to Venus of being stung by bees when stealing a honeycomb. This is to be taken as a moral commentary; as the abbreviated Latin inscription observes: life's ‘pleasure’ is mixed with ‘pain’. The inscription translates as: 'Young Cupid was stealing honey from a hive when a bee stung the thief on the finger. So it is for us: the brief and fleeting pleasure we seek/ is mingled with sadness and brings us pain'. The subject derives (but the last two lines of the inscription do not) from the Greek poet Theocritus' 'Idyll' 19, ‘The Honeycomb Stealer’. The work of Theocritus was published in the original Greek by Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1495/6, and it is possible that Cranach may have had access to this edition through his employers, the Electors of Saxony.