THE EDUCATION OF THE HORSE. 371 
as it better conveys the meaning of the poet:—“ If thy inclina¬ 
tion,^ says he, “ is to war and martial troops, or with thy wheels 
to skim along the brink of Pisa’s Alphaean streams, and drive 
the flying chariot in Jupiter’s grove, the first task of the horse 
must be to view the fierceness and the arms of warriors, to be 
patient of the trumpet, and to bear the rumbling of the wheels 
in their career, and in his stable to hear the rattling bridles ; 
then more and more to rejoice in the soothing applauses of his 
master, and to love the sound of patting his neck. And these 
let him hear as soon as weaned from the udder of his dam, and 
now and then yield his mouth to soft headstalls, when weak and 
yet trembling, and yet inexperienced from his years. But three 
full years elapsed, when his fourth summer has arrived , let him 
forthwith begin to wheel the ring, and with regular steps to 
prance; and let him bend the pliant joints of his legs alternately, 
and seem to labour. Then let him dare the winds in swiftness, 
and through the open plains flying, as loosened from the reins, 
scarcely print his steps on the surface of the sand. As when 
boisterous Boreas hath rushed from the Hyperborean regions, 
and drives along the Scythian storms and dry clouds ; then the 
high fields of corn and waving plains tremble with the first 
gentle gusts, the tops of the woods rustle, and the lengthened 
waves press towards the shore: he flies, sweeping in his career 
at once the fields, at once the seas. 
“ Such a courser will either run in furious heat around the 
goals and spacious bounds of the Elean plain*, and drive the 
flakes of bloody foam from his mouth, or will better bear the 
Belgic chariots on his pliant neck. Then at last, when they are 
broken, let their ample bodies grow with fattening mash; for 
if full fed before they are broken, they will swell their mettle 
high, and, when seized, refuse to bear the limber whip, and to 
obey the hard bits.” 
We may expect to be excused for this translation, even by the 
most fastidious; for who can help being charmed with the 
agreeable manner in which the poet lays down his precepts, the 
justness of his sentiments, and the inexpressible beauty of his 
descriptions ? 
He strongly inculcates a doctrine which we particularly re¬ 
commend,—that the education should be pursued in the same 
degree as the strength of the body increases; not rigorously en¬ 
forced at the beginning, but rather adapted to the gradual path 
* Elei cumpi, i. c. the plains about Olympia, in the regions of Elis; by 
which name the whole country between Achaia, Messenia, and Arcadia, 
was culled. 
