404 PEOSE HALIETTTICS. 



few seconds before renewing the attack, to hold some 

 such Homeric taunts as the following: 'Say, crafty 

 cuttle, of whom are you afraid ? or do you hope, by thus 

 lying close, to take me off my guard ? we'll see how long 

 you care to personate a stone, and whether this rock shall 

 afford an asylum against my teeth.' Then making a 

 last onslaught, she seizes the body, and begins to swallow 

 it quick; the cuttle's arms, we are told, never relinquish 

 their hold, but are seen stiU clinging to the rock even 

 when the mangled body has disappeared down the mu- 

 rsena's throat ; ' so (for Oppian dearly loves a simile) in 

 a captured town given up to the license of war, where 

 women and children are dragged into a cruel captivity, 

 some bloodstained soldier seizes an infant wrapt round 

 its mother's neck; but the more he tries to detach, the 

 tighter only it clings to her breast ; thus does the wretch- 

 ed cuttle clutch convulsively the rocky asylum as long 

 as he has one arm left to clasp it.' 



But, however destructive the mursena may be to the 

 cuttle, by a just retribution she herself falls a prey to the 

 crab : here, again, Oppian is graphic in describing the 

 encounter, and sets forth the misfortunes of the late suc- 

 cessful Amazon with as much gusto as he recorded her 

 triumphs. He pictures the roving crab piratically search- 

 iag for and discovering the muraena's lair, then raising 

 his two ponderous claws on high, and emitting a lusty 

 war-note, he seeks, nor seeks in vain, to provoke his in- 

 veterate foe to deadly battle ; and as some martial leader, 

 cased in trusty mail, proud of many achievements in 

 arms, and confident of success, stalks forth in the van of 

 his troops brandishing a weighty lance, while he calls for 

 a champion from the opposing ranks, and rejoices to see 

 one step forth at the challenge, so the crab, having by 

 this act of defiance provoked the mursena to single com- 

 bat, exults to see her rush suddenly out of ambush, and 

 with ireful aspect, fixed head, and her whole body stiff 



