CYNEGETICA, III. 200-227 



hard by and watches for his own offspring. And 

 when the infant foal falls at the feet of his mother, 

 if it is a female, the father is fond of his child and 

 licks it on either side with his tongue and caresses 

 his dear offspring ; but if he sees that it is a male, 

 then, then the frenzied beast stirs his heart with 

 deadly jealousy about the mother and he leaps forth, 

 eager to rend <^ with his j aws the privy parts of his 

 child, lest afterward a new brood should grow up ; 

 while the mother, though but newly delivered and 

 weak from the travail of birth, succours her poor 

 child in the quarrel. As when in grievous war cruel 

 warriors slay a child before the eyes of his mother 

 and hale herself while she clings to her son yet 

 wTithing in his blood and wails with loud and lament- 

 able cry and tears her tender cheek and is drenched 

 below with the hot blood and warm milk of her 

 breasts ; even so the she Wild Ass is just as if she 

 were piteously lamenting and sorrow'fully waihng 

 over her son. Thou wouldst say that all unhappy, 

 bestriding her child, she was speaking honeyed words 

 and uttering this prayer. " O husband, husband, 

 wherefore is thy face hardened and thine eyes red 

 that before were bright ? It is not Medusa's ** brow 

 who turned men to stone that thou beholdest near ; 

 not the venomous offspring of Dragoness implacable ; 

 not the lawless whelp of mountain-roaming Lioness. 

 The child whom I, unhappy mother, bare, the child 

 for whom we prayed to the gods, even thine own 

 child, wilt thou with thine own jaws mutilate ? 

 Stay, dear, mar him not ! Ah ! why hast thou 

 marred him ? Wliat a deed thou hast done ! Thou 



Ov. M. V. 217 saxificae vultus Medusae ; Ov. lb. 555 ; Eur. 

 Ale. 1118 ; Find. P. x. 47 ; Apollod. ii. 4. 3. 



131 



