CYNEGETICA, I. 254-280 



And, ye blessed Gods, without their knowledge he 

 wrought his wickedness and there was fulfilled a 

 union monstrous and abominable and most abhorred 

 of horses, hke that dread marriage that was made of 

 old among men, the Cadmean bridal of the wanderer 

 Oedipus." But when they were made naked and 

 knew their sin, and in sorrow and with eyes askance 

 looked one on the other, the unhappy mother on 

 her dishonoured son, and he anon, victim of a terrible 

 and evil union, upon his poor unmothered* mother, 

 they leapt on high, snorting terribly, and brake their 

 bonds and went neighing loudly as if they were 

 caUing the blessed gods to witness their evil plight 

 and cursing him who contrived their woeful union ; 

 and at last, rushing wildly in their grief, thev dashed 

 their foreheads against the rocks and brake the bones 

 and took away their light of life, self-slain, leaning 

 their heads on one another. So report proclaims the 

 fame of the horses of former days. Now of all the 

 breeds of horses that the infinite earth nourishes most 

 swift are the Sicilian, <^ which dwell in Lilybaeum ** and 

 where the three-peaked hill that covers Enceladus,* 

 as the thunderbolt belches forth in beams reaching 

 to the sky, discharges the eternal fire of Sicilian 

 Aetna. Fleeter than the Sicilian are by the streams 

 of Euphrates the Armenian and Parthian f horses of 

 flowing mane. Yet the Parthian horses are greatly 

 excelled by the Iberian,^ which gallop over the plains 

 with swifter feet. With them might vie only the 



' Giant buried under Aetna : Apollod. i. 6. 2; Callim./r. 

 I IT: Luc. vi. 293; Verg. Aen. iii. 578; Stat. T. ill, 595; 

 Q. Sm. V. 6i2. 



> Cf. 30-2 and C. iv. 112 f. ; Strab. o25; Gratt. 508; Ridir. 

 pp. 189 f. 



" Ridg. pp. 256 f. 



31 



