NOTES. 135 



" From the influence of a vile and unbecoming 

 custom, you deform and mutilate your horses, you 

 sht their nostrils, tie their ears together, and by so 

 doing make them deaf ; besides this you cut ofif their 

 tails ; and when you enjoy them uninjured and perfect, 

 you chose rather to maim and blemish them, so as to 

 make them odious and disgustful objects to all who 

 see them. Numbers of you likewise are accustomed 

 to eat your horses, — a practice of which no Christians 

 in the East were ever guilty. This also you are 

 hereby admonished to renounce entirely." 



This canon was number nineteen among those 

 passed at the Council of Calcuith, held in 787 or 

 785 A. D. It may be found in Spelman's Councils 

 of England, I, p. 293. 



30. (Page 32.) Aristotle, Aelian, Plutarch, and 

 Pliny all repeat this strange story. Sophocles 

 evidently knew it ; I translate from a fragment 

 (598) of his 'a>o" : — 



For my lost locks I mourn, like some young mare 



That rustic drivers catch and hale away 



To where their rude hands in the stables reap 



The golden harvest clean from off her neck. 



They drag her to the mead ; in its clear streams 



Mirrored the semblance of her form she sees, 



Her mane with that foul cropping shorn away. 



Oh, then e'en pitiless might pity her, 



Cowering with shame and like to some mad thing. 



Mourning and weeping for the mane that 's gone. 



On the mane in general, see p. 9 1 ff. 



