CYNEGETICA, II. 340-368 



whence again the channel goes straight to the very 

 heart and lungs. If one pours wax about the horns 

 of the wild Goat, he blocks the paths of its life and 

 the channels of its breath. 



Notable is the care which the dam among these 

 takes for her tender young and which the cliildren 

 take for their mother in her old age. And even as 

 among men, when a parent is fettered in the grievous 

 bonds of old age — hea\y of foot, crooked of limb, 

 feeble of hand, palsied of body, dim of eye — his 

 cliildren cherish and attend him with utmost heed, 

 repapng the care of their laborious rearing : so do 

 the young of the Goats care for their dear parents in 

 their old age, when sorro^\•ful bonds fetter their 

 hmbs. They cull with their mouths and proffer 

 them dewy food and flowery, and for drink they 

 bring them dark water which they draw fi-om the 

 river \^-ith their lips, while with their tongues thev 

 tend and cleanse all their body. Didst thou but 

 take the mother alone in a snare, straightway thou 

 mightst take the young lambs vrith thy hands. For 

 thou wouldst think that she was driving away her 

 children with her words, entreating them afar with 

 such bleatings as these : " Flee, children dear, the 

 cruel hunters, lest ye be slain and make me your 

 poor mother a mother no more ! " Such words thou 

 wouldst think she spoke, while they, standing before 

 her, first sing, thou wouldst imagine, a mournful 

 dirge about their mother, and then, breaking forth 

 in bleating, speak in human accents and as if they 

 used the speech of men and like as if they prayed, 

 utter from their lips such language as this : "In the 

 name of Zeus we pray thee, in the name of the 

 Archer Maid herself, release to us our dear mother, 



