Flies : " The Hosts of Achor" 2 1 5 



At the outset, however, it should not be forgotten as I 

 have carefully proved in a previous page that, poetically, 

 insect, vermin, and reptile are interchangeable terms. Thus 

 despicable humanity in general ; or specific classes of un- 

 popular persons and unpopular callings ; or individuals held 

 in contempt are each and all described indifferently as 

 insect, vermin, reptile. But the first of these terms is used 

 to denote the " winged " variety of the obnoxious. Not as 

 an invariable rule, of course, for poets do not hesitate to 

 speak of both vermin and reptiles as " by the light air up- 

 borne." Still, as a broad distinction, insects mean in poetry 

 winged insects, and still more specifically "flies." And 

 though among these occasionally the butterfly, moth, dragon- 

 fly, beetle, and other creatures are spoken of as flies, that 

 word may be accepted as individualising those household 

 insects, the domestic musca^ and the bluebottle. Vanities 

 and the transient and fleeting phases of human life are, of 

 course, symbolised under the ephemerids " the swarm that 

 in the noontide beam are born." The May-fly, fire-fly, 

 horse-fly, and so forth, are each used for their special purpose. 

 But in the first place, and the majority of places, the fly of 

 poetry is the common object of our window panes, the 

 imagines Diavoli et hereticorum of Luther in fact, the 

 house-flies. 



So far by way of premise. Now the poet's vermin and 

 reptiles are, we have seen, " engendered" by the sun's heat 

 out of mud and slime. In this origin "insects" therefore 

 share. " Sire of insects, mighty Sol ! " says Pryor, apostro- 

 phising flies. It is "the rank fly," "corruption's insect," 

 Pope's 



' ' Morning insects that in muck begun 

 Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun." 



From such an origin, of course, only the vile can emanate 

 and such as have a natural sympathy with corruption. So 

 in metaphor the fly represents, more frequently than any 



