2i6 The Poets Beasts. 



path. It is no boxing-gloves with them, always the cestus. 

 They strike the shield always with the bare lance-point. 

 Their challenge is "to the death." So the poets always 

 have them in conflict. 



" As wilde bores gan they togeder smite, 

 That frothen white as fome for anger wood." 



" As when two bores with rankling malice met, 

 Their gory sides fresh-bleeding fiercely fret,- 

 Till breathless both themselves aside retire, 

 Where foaming wrath their cruel tusks they whet, 

 And trample the earth the whiles they may respire, 

 Then back to fight again." 



Chaucer and Spenser are especially fond of the wild boar 

 simile, and employ it with great effect for their furious 

 knights. " Hurtling round, advantage for to take," 

 "chafering and foaming," and "grinte with his teeth so 

 was he wroth." Later poets take their cues of course from 

 the elder. Thomson has " the brindled boar grins fell 

 destruction ; " Gray, " the tusky boar on surrounding foes 

 advanced." Darwin gives a sketch from Nature — 



" Contending boars, with tusk enamelled, strike 

 And guard with shoulder shield the blow oblique, 

 While female bands attend in mute surprise. 

 And view the victor with admiring eyes." 



But the wild hog, if I am not mistaken, is monogamous. 

 Gay, too, has a sketch of combatant boars which reads — from 

 the introduction of " Westphalia " and the ** mire " — as a 

 mock-heroic. 



" So when two boars in wild Ytene bred, 

 Or on Westphalia's fat'ning chestnuts fed. 

 Gnash their sharp tusks, and, roused with equal fire. 

 Dispute the reign of some luxurious mire ; 

 In the black flood they wallow o'er and o'er, 

 Till their armed jaws distil with foam and gore." 



