HALIEUTICA, IV. 187-216 



now to that. And his mind is not set upon foraging 

 nor has he any other business, but in unhappy 

 jealousy keeps his tedious and eternal Wgil over his 

 brides : only at night he takes thought of food and 

 rests for as short a space as may be from the labour 

 of his ceaseless watch. But when the Thrushes are 

 in the travail of birth, then incontinently he rushes 

 fluttering around and visits now one wife, now 

 another, as if he were greatly anxious for the issue 

 of their travail. Even as a mother is distraught 

 with the burden of her heart when she trembles 

 for the sharp pain of her only daughter in travail 

 of her first child : for that is the great dread of 

 women : and on herself no less comes the wave of 

 the pangs of Eileithyia,<» and she roams everywhere 

 throughout the halls, praying and groaning in 

 suspense of heart, until she hears from within the 

 cry that delivers from pain : even so the Merle, 

 trembling for his wives, burns greatly in his heart. 

 Such a custom methinks of marriage I hear that the 

 Assyrians practise, who have their cities beyond the 

 Tigris stream and the inhabitants of Bactra, a nation 

 of archers. For them also several different vWves 

 deal vvith the marriage-bed and night about all share 

 the nuptial couch. And the goad of grievous jealousy 

 haunts them and by jealousy they perish, ever one 

 against another whetting bitter war. So true it is 

 that no more evil bane waxes among men than 

 jealousy, which causes much groaning and much 

 lamentation. Jealousy is the companion of shameless 

 madness and with madness it gladly consorts and 

 dances into grievous infatuation ; and the end 

 thereof is destruction. Jealousy too it is that leads 



« Goddess of Birth. 



419 



