page_title: Upsilon
section_title: Symbolism
hierarchical_section_title: Upsilon / Symbolism
caption_attribution_description: English: Page from the work Champ Fleury&#160;: auquel est contenu l'art et science de la deue et vraye proportio des lettres ... Described a few pages earlier, Tory credits Pythagoras with the invention of the Y: "JE ne veulx icy oublier a dire que Ypsilon fut jadis invente du noble Philosophe natif de l'Isle de Samos nomme Pythagoras, en la quelle lettre il figu moralisant que Hercules, c'est a dire l'Homme dispose a Vertus, au temps qu'il estoit en son jeune aage de la dicte adolescence, allant ung jour pensif par les champs a l'escard / vint a ung grant chemin qui forcheoit &amp; se divisoit en deux aultres chemins, desquelz l'ung estoit moult large / &amp; l'aultre bien estroit, &amp; au large veit une femme nommee Volupte, qui luy tendoit la main pour le y faire entrer. Au chemin estroit estoit une Dame nommee Vertus, qui pareillement le vouloit faire entrer &amp; cheminer en sa voye." The man on the left side of the drawing plummeting into the fire is what was known in the classical tradition as a falling diphthong.
context_page_description: Upsilon or ypsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, Υʹ has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw.
context_section_description: Upsilon is known as Pythagoras' letter, or the Samian letter, because Pythagoras used it as an emblem of the path of virtue or vice. As the Roman writer Persius wrote in Satire III:
  and the letter which spreads out into Pythagorean branches has pointed out to you the steep path which rises on the right.
  Lactantius, an early Christian author (ca. 240 – ca. 320), refers to this: 
  For they say that the course of human life resembles the letter Y, because every one of men, when he has reached the threshold of early youth, and has arrived at the place "where the way divides itself into two parts," is in doubt, and hesitates, and does not know to which side he should rather turn himself.
caption: Geoffroy Tory Ypsilon
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