118 pltis^t's natural history. [Book VII. 



his birth cast naked upon the naked earth,^ does she abandon 

 to cries, to lamentations, and, a thing that is the case with no 

 other animal whatever, to tears : this, too, from the very mo- 

 ment that he enters upon existence.^ But as for laughter, 

 why, by Hercules ! — to laugh, if but for an instant only, has 

 never been granted to man before the fortieth day' from his 

 birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity. 

 Introduced thus to the light, man has fetters and swathings 

 instantly put upon all his limbs, ^ a thing that falls to the lot 

 of none of the brutes even that are born among us. Born to 

 such singular good fortune,^ there lies the animal, which is 

 destined to command all the others, lies, fast bound hand and 

 foot, and weeping aloud ! such being the penalty which he 

 has to pay on beginning life, and that for the sole fault of 

 having been born. Alas ! for the folly of those who can think 

 after such a beginning as this, that they have been born for the 

 display of vanity ! , 



The earliest presage of future strength, the earliest bounty 

 of time, confers upon him nought but the resemblance to a 

 quadruped.^'* How soon does man gain the power of walking ? 

 How soon does he gain the faculty of speech ? How soon is his 

 mouth fitted for mastication ? How long are the pulsations of 

 the crown of his head to proclaim him the weakest of all ani- 



' It seems to have been the custom among the ancients to place the new- 

 horn child upon the ground immediately after its birth. 



'^ Pliny appears to have followed Lucretius in this gloomy view of the 

 commencement of human existence. See B. v. 1. 223, et seq. 



■^ This term of forty days is mentioned by Aristotle, in his Natural 

 History, as also by some modern physiologists. — B. 



^ We may hence conclude, that the practice of swathing young infants 

 in tight bandages prevailed at Rome, in the time of Pliny, as it still does 

 in France, and many parts of the continent; although it has, for some 

 years, been generally discontinued in this country. Buffon warmly con- 

 demned this injurious system, eighty years ago, but without effect. — B. 



■^ " Feliciter natus ;" this appears so inconsistent with what is stated in 

 the text, that it has been proposed to alter it into infeliciter, although 

 against the authority of all the MSS. ; but it may be supposed, that 

 ]*liny, as is not unusual with him, employs the term ironically. — B. 



'" This reminds us of the terms of the riddle proposed to (Edipus by 

 the Sphinx : " What being is that, which, with four feet, has two feet and 

 three feet, and only one voice ; but its feet vary, and where it has most it is 

 wea-kest .^" to which he answered, That it is man, who is a quadruped 

 (going on feet and hands) in childhood, two-footed in manhood, and 

 moving with the aid of a staff in old age. 



