Part 27

[Sidenote: Senecæ Hippolyt. Prol. vs. 73.]

Tua si gratus numina cultor Tulit in saltus; retia vinctas Tenuere feras; nulli laqueum Rupêre pedes; fertur plaustro Præda gementi: tum rostra canes Sanguine multo rubicunda gerunt; Repetitque casas rustica longo Turba triumpho.

[Sidenote: c. +xxxiii.+]

Καὶ γὰρ καὶ οἱ κύνες βλάπτονται, κ. τ. λ. All that Arrian here anticipates as a consequence of neglect of the rural deities, Savary of Caen, in bitterness of heart, invokes on the ill-fated heads of the brethren of the leash; whom he designates as enamoured of the savage pugnacity of the bull-dog greyhound—with which alone, the wolf-greyhound of his country, this poet was acquainted. Great as may have been his love of the harrier’s chase, and great his admiration of its followers, whom he calls Dian’s legitimate worshippers, I cannot conceive him conversant with the genuine pastime of his Celtic ancestry, nor with the κύων τῇ ἀληθείᾳ γενναῖος of Arrian, when he wrote the following virulent anathema:

[Sidenote: Album Dianæ Leporicidæ. L. +v.+]

Talia legitimos non infortunia tangant Cultores, Diana, tuos: inhonora Laconis Sed quoscunque juvat feritas truculenta Molossi, Sola quibus cædes, si qua est in cæde voluptas, Illorum paribus turbentur gaudia causis. Mulcta suppliciis cor insatiabile prædæ. Plecte viros, extingue canes, rabiemque ferocem Instilla, dominus catulis odiosus et ipsis, Exæquet falsum veris Actæona pœnis. Et qui participes (pigeat licet ista precari) Disrumpantur equi, domini plectantur in illis!

[Sidenote: Ælian. de Naturâ Animal. L. +xi.+ c. 9.]

Ælian tells us there is a temple of Diana in an isle of the Red Sea called Icarus, abounding with goats, roe-deer, and hares, which a sportsman may catch, if the goddess be duly petitioned; but if not, he is not only unsuccessful in his sport, but punished for the transgression—ἐὰν δὲ μὴ αἰτήσῃ, οὔτε αἱρεῖ, καὶ δίδωσι δίκας, ἃς ἄλλοι λεγούσιν.

Ὅμηρος ἐν τῇ ποιήσει. Arrian alludes to the contest for the prize of archery, at the games celebrated by Achilles on the occasion of the funeral of his friend Patroclus. I give Pope’s translation of the passage:

[Sidenote: Iliad B. +xxiii.+ vs. 1020.]

To the tall top a milk-white dove they tie, The trembling mark at which their arrows fly. “Whose weapon strikes yon fluttering bird, shall bear These two-edged axes, terrible in war; The single he, whose shaft divides the cord.” He said: experienced Merion took the word; And skilful Teucer: in the helm they threw Their lots inscribed, and forth the latter flew. Swift from the string the sounding arrow flies; But flies unblest! No grateful sacrifice, No firstling lambs, unheedful! didst thou vow To Phœbus, patron of the shaft and bow. For this, thy well-aim’d arrow, turn’d aside, Err’d from the dove, yet cut the cord that tied: Adown the mainmast fell the parted string, And the free bird to heav’n displays her wing: Seas, shores, and skies with loud applause resound, And Merion eager meditates the wound: He takes the bow, directs the shaft above, And following with his eye the soaring dove, Implores the god to speed it through the skies, With vows of firstling lambs, and grateful sacrifice. The dove, in airy circles as she wheels Amid the clouds, the piercing arrow feels: Quite through and through the point its passage found, And at his feet fell bloody to the ground.

Ἐπειδὴ μὴ ἐπηύξατο τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι. The God of Archers and Archery.

The poet and the courser would both teach us the same lesson—that without addressing supplication to heaven, we cannot succeed in our undertakings. Merion does not conquer because he is the better archer, but because he is the better man.

Τοὺς ἐκγόνους δὲ τῶν ἐπὶ Θήβας σὺν Πολυνείκῃ. The Homeric line cited by Arrian from the speech of Sthenelus, in the fourth book of the Iliad, alludes to the victors of the second Theban war, wherein the sons of the seven captains subdued the city, before which their fathers had perished:

[Sidenote: Pope’s Iliad. B. +iv.+ 460.]

With fewer troops we storm’d the Theban wall, And happier saw the sev’n-fold city fall. In impious acts the guilty fathers died; The sons subdued, for heav’n was on their side.

Capaneus, the sire of Sthenelus, was thunder-struck, while blaspheming Jupiter—

[Sidenote: Statii Thebaid. L. +x.+ 927.]

Talia dicentem toto Jove fulmen adactum Corripuit.

Πολυδάμαντι οὐκ ἐῶντι. From Pope’s translation I extract a part of the speech of Polydamas, with the omen referred to:

[Sidenote: B. +xii.+ 253.]

Seek not this day the Grecian ships to gain; For sure to warn us Jove his omen sent, And thus my mind explains its clear event: The victor eagle whose sinister flight Retards our host, and fills our hearts with fright, Dismiss’d his conquest in the middle skies, Allow’d to seize, but not retain the prize, &c.

Pope’s version of Hector’s reply to this speech of Polydamas, is one of the most splendid specimens of his talent to be found in the poem—as the whole incident is perhaps the finest of Flaxman’s beautiful illustrations of the immortal bard.

[Sidenote: Pyth. +ii.+ vs. 161. and 173.]

[Sidenote: Act. Apost. c. +ix.+]

Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν ἀπειθεῖν τῷ θείῳ. Homer himself draws many similar inferences in the progress of his interesting tales both of the Iliad and the Odyssey—χαλεπόν τοι ἐρισθενέος Κρονίωνος—παισὶν ἐριζέμεναι—and again, θεόθεν δ’ οὐκ ἐστ’ ἀλέασθαι: and Pindar abounds with like injunctions of humble submission to the divine will—χρὴ δὲ πρὸς—θεὸν οὐκ ἐρίζειν, κ. τ. λ.—ποτὶ κέντρον δέ τοι—λακτιζέμεν, τελέθει—ὀλισθηρὸς οἶμος. See also vs. 89. ejusd. Carm. The reader cannot but recollect the memorable counterpart to these words, (with reverence be they cited!) in the Apostolic history of the conversion of St. Paul—σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν.

How beautiful the metaphor that runs through the following lines of the poet of Cilicia!

[Sidenote: Oppian. Hal. L. +ii.+ 12.]

ἀλλ’ αἰεὶ μάκαρες πανυπέρτατοι ἡνία πάντη κλίνουσ’, ᾗ κ’ ἐθέλωσιν ὁ δ’ ἕσπεται, ὅς κε σαόφρων, πρὶν χαλεπῇ μάστιγι καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλων ἐλάηται.

See the sensible remarks of Xenophon on the words ΣΥΝ ΘΕΩ ΠΡΑΤΤΕΙΝ, at the conclusion of his treatise De Offic. Magistr. Equit. c. +ix.+

[Sidenote: De Legibus.]

Ἄρχεσθαί τε ἀπὸ θεῶν. “A Diis immortalibus,” says Cicero, “sunt nobis agendi capienda primordia:” and Julius Pollux, to whom I have frequently referred in the early part of these annotations, concludes his address to Commodus, at the commencement of his Onomasticon, with the same sentiment—ποιήσομαι δὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν, ἀφ’ ὧν μάλιστα προσήκει τοὺς εὐσεβεῖς, ἀπὸ τῶν θεῶν.

[Sidenote: De Expeditione Alexandri L. +vi.+ c. +xxviii.+]

Χαριστήρια θύειν εὖ πράξαντα. So in his Anabasis, Arrian writes, θύσαι Ἀλέξανδρον ἐν Καρμανίᾳ χαριστήρια τῆς κατ’ Ἰνδῶν νίκης, κ. τ. λ. These free-will offerings may be considered in the light of grateful acknowledgments to the gods for blessings received. They were paid by soldiers after victory, by husbandmen after harvest, and by sportsmen after success in the field.

[Sidenote: Æneid. L. +vi.+ 244.]

Σπένδειν. Wine was generally used in these libations, but not always; for there were νηφάλια ἱερὰ—sober sacrifices, wherein no wine was poured forth. Generally, however, wine was employed, as we learn from Virgil’s “frontique invergit vina sacerdos.”

[Sidenote: Schol. ad Aristoph. Thesm. Act. +i.+]

Εὐφημεῖν—“favere linguâ, bona verba dicere.” This expression does not seem to mean that the persons present at a sacrifice were to observe profound silence, but rather to abstain only from words of evil omen. Mr. Cowper has preserved its sense correctly in his translation of εὐφημῆσαι, Iliad +ix.+ 171. “That every tongue abstain from speech—Portentous.” Ogilby, Dacier, and Pope, all mistake the signification of εὐφημεῖν. “Præcones clamantes,” says Festus, “populum sacrificiis favere jubebant. Favere est bona fari.” But Bourdin ad Aristoph. Thesmophor. εὐφημεῖν σημαίνει σιγᾷν καὶ σιωπᾷν δι’ εὐφημίας.

Στεφανοῦν. The sacrificial victims were adorned with garlands and crowns on their horns and necks. The altars were decorated with sacred herbs, and the priests themselves wore crowns upon their heads, composed of the leaves of the tree sacred to the deity to whom they paid their devotions. See Tertullian de Idololatriâ.

[Sidenote: Arrian. de Exped. Alex. L. +iv.+ c. +xi.+]

Ὑμνεῖν. Hunting-carols, it may be, were chanted to Dian and her sylvan train, by the Celts and other sportsmen of old. It was customary to sing hymns in honour of the Gods, and dance around the altar of sacrifice, on occasion of celebrating the more important religious rites; when the songs, in general, commemorated the exploits of the worshipped, enumerated their virtues, and the benefits conferred upon the worshippers, expressing, at the same time, a wish for their continuance. Ὕμνοι μὲν ἐς τοὺς θεοὺς ποιοῦνται, ἔπαινοι δὲ ἐς ἀνθρώπους, says Callisthenes, in his splendid speech on the line of distinction to be drawn between divine and human honours.

[Sidenote: Lexicon Antiq. Roman.]

Ἀπαρχὰς τῶν ἁλισκομένων ἀνατιθέναι. The ἀπαρχαὶ, or first-fruits of animal sacrifices, were small pieces of flesh cut from every part of the beast, and offered to the gods, (see Homer, passim): but hunters, according to Pitiscus, dedicated to the Goddess of the Chase the head, horns, feet, skin, &c. of the slaughtered game; to which custom Nisus alludes in his invocation to Diana:

[Sidenote: Æneid. L. +ix.+ 406.]

Si qua tuis unquam pro me pater Hyrtacus aris Doma tulit, si qua ipse meis venatibus auxi, Suspendive tholo, aut sacra ad fastigia fixi: Hunc sine me, &c.

Ὁ τῇ νίκῃ πολέμου ἀκροθίνια. Before the spoils of victory were distributed among the warriors, they considered themselves obliged to make an offering out of them to the Gods, to whose assistance they were indebted for them all. Those separated to this use were termed, according to the author of the Archæologia Græca, ἀκροθίνια, because taken ἀπ’ ἄκρου τοῦ θινὸς, from the top of the heap.

[Sidenote: De Nugis Curialium L. +i.+ c. +iv.+]

To Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, and his Origin of the Chase, reference is elsewhere given. Identical with his view of its rise, progress, and demerit, is that of Joannes Sarisberiensis, in his Policraticus, De Venaticâ et autoribus et speciebus ejus, et exercitio licito et illicito. “Et primi quidem Thebani,” says John, (who wrote in the reign of our second Henry, and from whom later authors have purloined the oft-repeated reprobation,) “si fidem sequamur historiæ, eam communicandam omnibus statuerunt. Et ex quo suspecta sit omnibus gens fœda parricidiis, ipcestibus detestanda, insignis fraude, nota perjuriis, hujus artificii, vel potiùs maleficii, in primis præcepta congessit, quæ postmodum ad gentem mollem imbellemque, levem et impudicam (Phrygios loquor) transmitteret,” &c.

[Sidenote: Hor. Sat. L. +i.+ S. +iii.+ vs. 101.]

Armis from armi not arma. Wase’s version is wrong. The term is more commonly applied to the shoulder or arm of animals than man: but the sense of the passage requires the interpretation I have put upon it, and is farther illustrated by the “unguibus et pugnis” of Horace, and “meræ vires” of Ovid:

[Sidenote: Ovid. Art. Am. L. +ii.+]

Tum genus humanum solis errabat in agris; Hisque meræ vires, et rude corpus erat.

Politian elegantly exemplifies the Faliscian’s meaning in his Silva, entitled Nutricia;

[Sidenote: Carmina V. Illustr. Poet. p. 159.]

Sed longum tamen obscuris immersa tenebris Gens rudis, atque inculta virûm, sine more, sine ullâ Lege propagabant ævum, passimque ferino Degebant homines ritu, visque insita cordi Mole obsessa gravi, nondùm ullos prompserat usus, Nil animo, duris agitabant cuncta lacertis.

For Perseus’s title to this post of honour Oppian is my only voucher; but his words are decisive:

[Sidenote: Cyneg. L. +ii.+ vs. 8.]

ἐν μερόπεσσι δὲ πρῶτος ὁ Γοργόνος αὐχέν’ ἀμέρσας, Ζηνὸς χρυσείοιο πάϊς κλυτὸς εὕρατο Περσεύς.

[Sidenote: J. Sarisberiensis de N. C. L. +i.+ c. +iv.+]

Will the reader admit the explanation of the Policraticus as to the fabulous connexion of these hybrids with the chase: “nempe qui his studiis aut desidiis insistunt, semiferi sunt, et abjectâ potiore humanitatis parte, ratione morum prodigiis conformantur?” and again, “Venatores omnes adhuc institutionem redolent Centaurorum. Rarò invenitur quisquam eorum modestus aut gravis,” &c.

[Sidenote: The Times.]

“The light-footed Greek of Chiron’s school,” as Churchill calls him.

[Sidenote: Pind. Nem. Carm. L. +iii.+ 85.]

τὸν ἐθάμβεεν Ἄρτε- μίς τε καὶ θρασεῖ’ Ἀθάνα, Κτείνοντ’ ἐλάφους ἄνευ κυ- νῶν δολίων θ’ ἑρκέων ποσσὶ γὰρ κράτεσκεν.

[Sidenote: Plin. Paneg. Trajan. Dict. 81.]

Nec mediocre pacis decus habebatur submota campis irruptio ferarum, et obsidione quâdam liberatus agrestium labor.

According to Manilius the power of fashioning implements of hunting, breeding dogs of good pedigrees, breaking them in, &c. is derived from sidereal influence at our nativities:

[Sidenote: Manilii Astronomicon. L. +v.+]

At Procyon oriens, quum jam vicesima Cancri Septimaque ex undis pars sese emergit in astra, Venatus non ille quidem, verum arma creatis Venandi tribuit: catulos nutrire sagaces, Et genus à proavis, mores numerare per artes, Retiaque, et validâ venabula cuspide fixa, Lentaque contextis formare hastilia nodis, Et quodcumque solet venandi poscere cura In proprios fabricare dabit venalia quæstus.

[Sidenote: c. +iii.+ fol. 21.]

[Sidenote: c. +iv.+ fol. 25.]

We have the authority of the most ancient record of British field spoils, called =Mayster of Game=, (a curious manuscript in the British Museum,) for the general use of much of the classic furniture of the chase in France and England five centuries ago. Let the reader compare the following with the Greek and Latin Cynegetica: “Of the Hare, and the methods of taking her. Men slee hares with greyhoundes and with rennynghoundes by strengthe, as in Engelond; but ellis where thei slee hem with smale pocketes and wt prsuetes and wt smale nettis, with hare pipes and with long nettis and with smale cordes that men casten where thei mak here brekyng of the smale twygges whan thei goon to hure pasture,” &c.—“Of the Herte. Men taken hem with houndis, with greyhoundis, with nettis, and with cordes, and with other harnays; with puttes and with shott, and with other gynnes, and with strengthe, as y shal say here after,” &c. Almost all the instruments of this royal armoury, the fruits of De Langley’s extensive experience at home and abroad, and as such recorded in his hunting manual, have their counterparts in the works of Xenophon, Gratius, Oppian, and Nemesian.

[Sidenote: Certaine Illustrations, &c. p. 24.]

“We are not sensible of Gratius’s great care in the choice and ordering of speares,” in the language of his illustrator, “nor of his provision in showing to set engines, and dig pits, which men prize in those countries where beares and lyons, with such ravenous beasts, do abound. We seem to have a different end in our hunting, which hath introduced a different stile of hunting,” &c.

The arts of war and hunting advanced passibus æquis; both at first equally rude, and destitute of ingenuity of contrivance in their respective instruments of assault:

[Sidenote: Hor. Sat. L. +i.+ Sat. +iii.+ 101.]

Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus, atque ità porrò Pugnabant armis quæ post fabricaverat usus.

Before the age of Homer, the bow and arrow, “the artillery of ancient heroes,” the ἔγχος or δόρυ, spear or pike, ξίφος the sword, and κορύνη the club, constituted the entire armoury of the warriors and hunters of semi-barbarous Greece. See Iliad +xi.+ and +xvii.+ Odyss. +ix.+ and +xix.+ How scanty was the furniture of Hercules in his attack of the Nemean lion!

[Sidenote: Theocriti Idyll. L. +xxv.+ 206.]

αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ κέρας ὑγρὸν ἑλὼν, κοίλην τε φαρέτραν, Ἰῶν ἐμπλείην, νεόμην ἑτέρῃφι τε βάκτρον εὐπαγὲς, αὐτόφλοιον, ἐπηρεφέος κοτίνοιο, εὔμετρον.

[Sidenote: Sir T. Elyot’s. The Governour. B. +i.+ c. +xviii.+]

The Persian hunting of Cyrus, as described in the Cyropædia, (L. +i.+ c. +v.+), presents us with warlike weapons alone. “Than tooke every man” (I quote from The Governour) “with hym his bowe and quiver with arowes, his sword or hach of steele, a little tergat, and two dartes.”

“The formido,” Wase admonishes the reader of his Preface to Gratius, “may be in some measure retriv’d by looking into the Sicilian hunting, where it continues in use at this day. When the nobles or gentry are inform’d which way a herd of dear passeth, giving notice to one another, they make a meeting. Every one brings with him a cross-bow or long-bow, and a bundle of staves. These staves have an iron spike at the bottom, and their head is boared with a cord drawn through all of them. Their length is about four foot. Being thus provided, they come to the herd, and there casting themselves about into a large ring, they surround the deer, and then every one of them receives a peculiar stand, and there unbinding his fagot, ties the end of his cord to the other who is set in the next station; then to support it, sticks into the ground each staffe about the distance of ten foot one from another. Then they take out feathers which they bring with them dyed in crimson for this very purpose, and fastned upon a thrid which they tie to the cord, so that with the least breath of wind they are whirl’d round about. Those which keep the severall stands, withdraw, and hide themselves in the next covert. After this the chiefe ranger enters within the line, taking with him only some hounds, which draw after the herd, and coming near with their cry, rouse it. Upon which, the deer fly till they come towards the line, where they turn off to the left, and still gazing upon the shining and shaking feathers, wander about it as if they were kept in with a wall or pale. The chief ranger pursues, and calling to every one by name, as he passeth by their stand, cries to them that they should shoot the first, third, or sixth, as he shall please; and if any of them miss or single out any other then that which was assigned by the ranger, it is counted a disgrace to him: by which means, as they pass by the severall stations, the whole herd is kill’d by diverse hands.... These stakes are of the same use with those ancones mention’d in Gratius, but it might seem that they are farther improv’d.”—“These things,” continues the translator of the Faliscian, “may be of use to have been premitted;” and with the same view they are here introduced by the author of this Appendix.

The staves of the Sicilians are the ancones of Gratius—the στάλικες and σχάλιδες of the Greek hunters.

[Sidenote: Agamemnon vs. 1386.]

The complete and helpless entanglement of the victim of the tunnel-net is admirably described by Seneca, in the simile of The Agamemnon, where Cassandra likens the son of Atreus, ensnared in a cassi-form vest (so happily called by Æschylus πημονὴν ἀρκύστατον) by the “semivir” Thyestes and the adulteress queen-consort, to a boar inextricably enveloped in these toils:

[Sidenote: Senecæ Agamem. Act. +v.+ 886.]

At ille ut altis hispidus sylvis aper, Cum casse vinctus, tentat egressus tamen, Arctatque motu vincla, et incassùm furit, Cupit fluentes undique et cæcos sinus Disjicere, et hostem quærit implicitus suum.

See the definitions of Pollux in my notes to the first Chapter of Arrian’s Cynegeticus—ἄρκυες, δίκτυα, ἐνόδια.

[Sidenote: Certaine Illustrations of the Cynegeticall Poem of Gratius. p. 68.]

“In Poland, when the king hunts,” observes Wase, “his servants are wont to surround a wood, though to the space of a mile or better in compasse, with toiles, which are pitched upon firme stakes: this being done, the whole town, all sexes and ages, promiscuously rush into the inclosure, and with their loud shouts rear all the beasts within that wood, which making forth, are intercepted in the nets. There small and great beasts are together intangled, after the same manner as when amongst us we draw a net over a pond, and after beating it all over with poles, we bring out not only pike and carp, but lesser fry: so they enclose at once, dear, and bores, and roe-bucks, and hares: for so they order their nets, that the space of those meshes which are twisted with greater cords, for the entangling of greater beasts—that space, I say, is made up with smaller whip-cord, for the catching lesser prey.” See Xenophon de Venatione, c. +vi.+, and pausanias in bœoticis, c. +xxi.+ The latter author relates that the Celtic hunters surrounded plains and mountain-thickets with their toils, so as to be certain of catching all the animals within the circumference thereof.

[Sidenote: De Bell. Judaic. L. +vii.+ c. 27.]

Such were the σειραὶ of the Parthians, applied to the purposes of human warfare: for it is evident from Josephus’s account of Tiridates’s narrow escape from the Alan σειραφόρος—(βρόχον γὰρ αὐτῷ τὶς πόῤῥωθεν περιβαλὼν ἔμελλεν ἐπισπάσειν, εἰ μὴ τῷ ξίφει θᾶττον ἐκεῖνος τὸν τόνον κόψας, ἔφθη διαφυγεῖν,)—that the instrument employed against the king was of the nature of a laqueus. And a farther illustration of the use of the noose-rope in war we find in the lines of Valerius Flaccus,

[Sidenote: Argonaut. L. +vi.+ 133.]

Doctus et Auchates patulo vaga vincula gyro Spargere, et extremas laqueis adducere turmas.

Some idea of the curraces laquei, and hunting nets duly set, may be formed from the engravings of Strada and Galle (1578.); or those of the Venationes Ferarum &c. of Collært, Mallery, Theodore and Cornelius Galle of later date. The spirited woodcuts of John Adam Lonicer, of Francfort, attached to the Venatus et Aucupium of Sigismund Feyerabendi (1582), are amusing, but far less illustrative than the former.