The Beard- Blown Goat. 265 



the astral honours of the goat are rather exceptionaL The 

 Milky Way, "the bridge of souls," is the she-goat — ^the 

 same whose milk " nurse Amalthea skimmed for the boy 

 Jupiter," and when called "St. James' Way," is still of 

 caprine significance, though perhaps of a kind somewhat 

 deplorable for the animal concerned, inasmuch as on that 

 Saint's day it was the custom in Germany to throw a goat 

 out of the window. The Pleiades, again, are called in many 

 parts of Europe the Seven She-goats, and no one who has 

 read of the notable ride of Don Quixote and his Squire on 

 the wooden horse Clavileno, can forget how Sancho — wish- 

 ing to have something to say as to what he saw when blind- 

 folded — declares to the Duchess that he found himself at 

 one point of the journey so near the sky that it was not a 

 span above him. 



" And it so fell out that we passed close by the place 

 where the seven she-goats are kept ; and, truly, having been 

 a goatherd in my youth, I no sooner saw them but I longed 

 to play with them awhile : and had I not done so, I verily 

 think I should have died ; so what does I but, without 

 saying a word, softly slide down from Clavileno, and play 

 with the sweet litde creatures, which are like so many 

 violets, for almost three-quarters of an hour." 



On being further questioned, he goes on to say that two 

 of them were green, two carnation, two blue, and one 

 motley-co'.oured. The Duke protests that he had never him- 

 self seen such goats. " No," replies Sancho ; " but your 

 highness will allow that there must be some difference 

 between celestial goats and those of the lower world." 



The she-goat in Aquarius has two kids, and Hindoo 

 astrology knows them as the Rain-bringers. In this aspect 

 they descended to the Romans, and Ovid, Horac^ and 

 Virgil have each of them due reference to the '* signum 

 pluviale capel'.se." Her character is always beneficent and 

 motherly, whether we find her in classical fancy as Galathea, 



