Part 49

Per juga, per silvas, dumosaque saxa vagatur Nuda genu, vestem ritu succincta Dianæ; Hortaturque canes, &c.

Incipiam captare feras, et reddere pinu Cornua, et audaces ipse monere canes.

Nemesian approaches nearer to the text, in his probable allusion to the same variety of sound;

Necnon consuetæ norint hortamina vocis, Seu cursus revocent, jubeant seu tendere cursus.

But Arrian means more than is expressed in either of these passages: by ὀνομαστὶ ἐπιλέγειν we are to understand speaking to, and cheering the hounds by name; as in the following chapter—εὖγε ὦ Κιῤῥὰ, εὖγε ὦ Βόννα, καλῶς γε ὦ Ὁρμὴ—

ὁ ἀγὼν λαγωῷ καὶ κυνί—accurately and beautifully described in the Ovidian simile;

Ut canis in vacuo leporem cum Gallicus arvo Vidit; et hic prædam pedibus petit, ille salutem: Alter inhæsuro similis, jam jamque tenere Sperat, et extento stringit vestigia rostro; Alter in ambiguo est, an sit deprensus, et ipsis Morsibus eripitur; tangentiaque ora relinquit.

and in the fable of Cephalus and Procris, the Teumesian fox being substituted for the hare;

Tollor eò capioque novi spectacula cursûs: Quà modo deprendi, modo se subducere ab ipso Vulnere visa fera est: nec limite callida recto, In spatiumque fugit; sed decipit ora sequentis, Et redit in gyrum, ne sit suus impetus hosti. Imminet hic sequiturque parem: similisque tenenti Non tenet, et vacuos exercet in aëra morsus.

When reading these and other splendid fables of this poet, and his similes illustrative of terror and rapidity of flight, and eagerness of pursuit, in the parties represented, it strikes us as probable that he was a practical courser, “Apollinis et Dianæ utriusque sectator,” and derived his imagery from experience in the field. To the tales of “Cephalus and his greyhound Lælaps,” and of “Daphne in Laurum” with its cited accompaniment, we may add much of the poetical ornament of Arethusa’s plaintive and terrified flight from the lustful Alpheus,

Sic ego currebam; sic me ferus ille premebat, ... &c.

in which the classic courser will discover many allusions to his favourite sport:

Nec me velocior ille, Sed tolerare diu cursus ego viribus impar Non poteram: longi patiens erat ille laboris. Per tamen et campos, per opertos arbore montes, Saxa quoque et rupes, et quà via nulla, cucurri. Sol erat à tergo: vidi præcedere longam Ante pedes umbram: nisi si timor illa videbat. Sed certè sonituque pedum terrebar; et ingens Crinales vittas afflabat anhelitus oris.

And when the affrighted nymph is rescued by the interposition of a cloud from her pursuer’s grasp, and hears the cry “Io Arethusa, Io Arethusa,” the poet compares her to a hare in a brake under similar terror,

Lepori, qui vepre latens hostilia cernit Ora canum, nullosque audet dare corpore motus:

as if the chase of this little animal had supplied him with the outline of his picture.

Ὁ μὲν ἐξελίξας τὸν δρόμον &c. So Ælian, δρόμον δὲ ἕνα καὶ ἰθὺν οὐ θεῖ, δεῦρο δὲ καὶ ἐκεῖσε παρακλίνει, καὶ ἐξελίττει τῇ καὶ τῇ, ἐκπλήττων τοὺς κύνας καὶ ἀπατῶν.

Apollonius Rhodius has well expressed the κύνες δεδαημένοι ἄγρης straining after the game with open jaws;

τυτθὸν δὲ τιταινόμενοι μετόπισθεν ἄκρῃς ἐν γενύεσσι μάτην ἀράβησαν ὀδόντας.

and Virgil in the simile of the “vividus Umber;” copying, probably, the poet of the Argonauts,

Hæret hians, jam jamque tenet, similisque tenenti Increpuit malis, morsuque elusus inani est.

The hare under pursuit has a peculiar sensibility of sounds behind her. To this excellence she owes her preservation from the danger of her pursuers. By this faculty she often outstrips the fleetest brace of greyhounds, attentive to the noise of every stretch, and sound of every pant:

Præcipitat suspensa fugam; jam jamque teneri Credit, et elusos audit concurrere morsus.

“It is a gallant sport,” says Turberville, “to see how the hare will turne and wind to save herselfe out of the dogges mouth. So that sometimes even when you thinke that your greyhound doth (as it were) gape to take her, she will turne and cast them a good way behind her: and so saveth herselfe by turning, wrenching, and winding, until she reach some covert and so save her life.” And a far greater than this translator of Fouilloux has remarked: “We see in beasts, that those that are weakest in the course, are yet nimblest in the turne; as it is betwixt the greyhound and the hare.”

Scarce inferior to his poetical predecessor of Venusium, the classic Darcius slips his swift-footed Pterelas after the started hare, in a sketch which places the course before the reader’s eyes:

Ocyus insequitur Pterelas, cursuque citato Intervalla facit lati decrescere campi. Jam propior propiorque micat, jam captat hianti Summa pedum rostro, jam terga fugacia stringit. Ille pavet, flexoque obliquat tramite cursus, Et dubiâ trepidans formidine, jamque teneri Se putat, et rursùm tangentis ab ore recedit, Fataque momento sibi prorogat, æmula donec Rostra levis mergat miserando in corpore victor, Fulmineus victor, gemino cui tramite lumbos Spina subit graciles, et castigata coercet Ilia substrictus venter, stant crura volantem Præteritura notum, longo internodia ductu Pes gerit, in cœlum tolluntur acumine bino Auriculæ, flexoque in lævia tergora gyro Erectæ redeunt falcata volumina caudæ.

Mr. Gay’s “Rural Sports,” Canto 2nd, afford the only poetical description of a hare-course in the English language, with which I am acquainted, in addition to that already cited from the Polyolbion of Michael Drayton:

Yet if for sylvan spurts thy bosom glow, Let thy fleet greyhound urge his flying foe. With what delight the rapid course I view! How does my eye the circling race pursue! He snaps deceitful air with empty jaws, The subtle hare darts swift beneath his paws: She flies, he stretches: now with nimble bound Eager he presses on, but overshoots his ground: She turns, he winds, and soon regains the way, Then tears with gory mouth the screaming prey.