Part 67

To Père Montfaucon we are indebted for a few copies from the antique of the larger varieties of nets for hunting, δίκτυα, retia; see his plates of stag-hunting: but we have no representations of other predatory instruments in the latter work. Wase confounds the laquei curraces with the dentatæ pedicæ, where he describes the former as “a round hoop of yeughen wood made of boughs, which stood bent by force, in fashion of a coronet, and all stuck with iron nayles, and wooden pins,” &c. Peradventure, they may have been set together, the gins in a shallow pit beneath the nooses, more superficially placed on the ground. See Xenoph. de Venat. c. +ix.+ Polluc. Onom. L. +v.+ c. +iv.+

It is remarkable that this inventive genius is noticed by no other writer; high as his character stands with the Faliscian,

haud illo quisquam se justior egit, Aut fuit in terris Divôm observantior alter:

unless indeed he be the sly coadjutor of Alebion, who with a thief cleped Dercylus (of a different caste seemingly from the Gratian hero) despoiled Hercules of his bovine booty during its transit through Iberia. See Natal. Comes, Mytholog. L. +vii.+ Perhaps we may with Wernsdorf consider him the first writer on the science and mechanism of the chase, rather than the actual inventor of its multifarious furniture: or if we cannot thus dispose of his claim to manual dexterity, may we not identify him with Aristæus, the Arcadian nephew of Diana,

ὃν καλέουσιν ἀγρέα καὶ νόμιον,

a sort of legendary Sir Tristrem in ancient matters of venery, and rural economy.

The decay of archery in England is feelingly deplored by Sir Thomas Elyot, because “in shotyng is a double utilitee:” it is “the feate, wherby Englyshmen have been moste dradde and had in estimation with outwarde princes, as wel enemyes as alies,” &c.; and secondly in “kyllynge of deere, wylde foule, and other game, there is both profyte and pleasure above any other artyllery.”

Superior expertness in the chase—“To bend the bow, and aim unerring darts,”—was always attributed to the personal instructions of Diana; so was Scamandrius taught, though his skill availed him nothing before the fatal lance of Menelaus:

ἐσθλὸν θηρητῆρα· δίδαξε γὰρ Ἄρτεμις αὐτὴ βάλλειν ἄγρια πάντα, τά τε τρέφει οὔρεσιν ὕλη. ἀλλ’ οὔ οἱ τότε γε χραῖσμ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα, οὐδὲ ἑκηβολίαι, ᾗσιν τὸ πρίν γ’ ἐκέκαστο.

The λαγωβόλον of Theocritus Idyll. +iv.+ 49. +vii.+ 128. epigr. +ii.+ 3. (ξύλον, ᾧ διαφεύγοντες οἱ λαγωοὶ βάλλονται,) seems to be the type of Bargæus’s weapon—the lagobolion of Natalis Comes. De Venat. L. +i.+

Additional evidence of the attendance of servants being usual at hunting expeditions, is afforded by the tale of Cephalus,

Venatum in silvis juveniliter ire solebam; Nec mecum famulos, nec equos, nec naribus acres Ire canes, nec lina sequi nodosa sinebam. Tutus eram jaculo, &c.

The hunting of the ancient Hebrews appears not to have differed materially from that of the Pagan world. “Canaan,” observes Wase, “was hemmed in with deserts: there was the great Lebanon, and there was Mizpeh, and Tabor, and other mountains which abounded with game; and in the royall age, I beleeve, hunting itself was much frequented; for though the sacred history do not ex professo take care to deliver us any thing concerning those lighter recreations, yet the frequent representations made by it throughout the writters of that age, do give some probability that it was a frequent object among them, and taken from the common use. David’s persecutions are sometimes likened to fowling, oftentimes to hunting: his enemies dig a pit for him, they set a snare to catch his feet. No authors of human learning, whose works yet survive, make so much mention of grins as the Psalmes have made: his enemies bend their bow, and make their arrows ready upon the string, to shoot at the righteous. This was Esau’s artillery. So that according to that age, limiting was so instituted; for our author, speaking of these two, intimates that they were courses of an elder date, for Ginns saith he,

Nam fuit et laqueis aliquis curracibus usus: Cervino jussêre magis, &c.

He saith likewise for bows and arrows,

Magnum opus et celeres quondam fecêre sagittæ.

David’s enemies hide a net for him. ‘The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the way side; they have set grins for me.’ Neither was it unknown to the Jewish huntsmen the way of driving beasts, by an immission of fear, which is the formido et pinnatum,” &c. The biblical scholar will remember the memorable passage of the book of Job, “the steps of his strength shall be straitened, (Gr. hunted,) and his own counsel shall cast him down. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare. The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him (the entangling cord or noose holdeth him fast). The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way. Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.” In the prophet Isaiah almost all the methods of capture given in the Classic Cynegetica contribute their metaphorical signification. “Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare.” See also Jeremiah c. +xlviii.+ and Ezekiel c. +xix.+ the παγίδες θανάτου of the lxx. version of proverbs +xxi.+ 1. may be compared to the “mortis laquei” of Horace, L. +iii.+ od. +xxiv.+ vs. 8. and to the “leti plagæ” of Statius Silv. V. +i.+ vs. 155.

It is a curious fact, that in the Hebrew text of the Scriptures there is no allusion whatever to hunting with dogs. Nimrod is called in the Greek version γίγας κυνηγὸς, Genesis +x.+ 9., and Esau ἄνθρωπος εἰδὼς κυνηγεῖν, genesis +xxv.+ 27.; but in the Hebrew, there is no reference to the employment of the dog. The canis lumbis tenuibus, quo ad venationem utuntur venatores, introduced by commentators, Proverbs +xxx.+ 31., I believe to be a fanciful rabbinical creation. See a note on the subject in the prefatory matter to my translation of Arrian.

The exceptions to this geographical nomenclature are only four, viz. the Vertragus, otherwise called the Celtic or Gallic hound; the Metagon, a lime-hound; the Agassæus; and Petronius: the origin of which two latter names is uncertain. The sub-varieties of the Cretan, mentioned by Arrian and Julius Pollux, may also constitute exceptions to the general rule; but these, with the Menelaides and Harmodii, Castorii and Alopecides, must be considered as merging in the more general titles of Crete and Lacedæmon: and so likewise the porter and pastoral dogs, and others deriving their names from their vocations, in the topical appellatives of their respective countries.

ἡ δ’ ὑποκυσσαμένη, τέκετο κρατερόφρονα τέκνα. Ὄρθρον μὲν πρῶτον κύνα γείνατο Γηρυονῆϊ· δεύτερον αὖτις ἔτικτεν ἀμήχανον, οὔτι φατειὸν, Κέρβερον ὠμηστὴν, ἀΐδεω κύνα χαλκεόφωνον, πεντήκοντα κάρηνον, ἀναιδέα τε, κρατερόν τε.

With the aid of the poet I shall hereafter venture an opinion on the breed of some of the pack of the stag-like huntsman—the most celebrated of the trio—slain by command of Dian: ἐπεὶ ἔμαθε ὀφθεῖσα ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀκταίωνος, φοβηθεῖσα μὴ ὁ νεανίσκος ἐξαγορεύσῃ τὸ αἶσχος αὐτῆς, ἐπαφῆκεν αὐτῷ τοὺς κύνας. See J. Sarisber. Policrat. L. +i.+ c. +iv.+ for the moral of this tale.

The μελιταῖα κυνίδια were so called, “quia ad fœminarum delicias ex Melito insulâ advehebantur:”—the “smalle ladyes popees that here awaye the flees” of Juliana Berners—“Instruments of folly to play and dally withal, in trifling away the treasure of time, to wythdrawe theyr mindes from more commendable exercises, and to content theyr corrupt concupiscences wyth vaine disport, a silly poore shift to shun theyr irkesome ydlenesse.”

A passage which Wase supposes to allude to the canis Gallicus of Arrian; whose impetuosity of course, and entire want of scent, his peculiar characteristics, resemble the heedless, rash, and head-strong ardour of the Gallic character in general, (Ælian. V. H. L. +xii.+ c. 23.) and particularly of the Gallic soldiers of Lucan’s Pharsalia:

quos ille timorum Maximus haud urget lethi metus; inde ruendi In ferrum mens prona viris, animæque capaces Mortis: et ignavum redituræ parcere vitæ.

But an allusion to the war-dogs of Celtica, the “diversi Celtæ” of vs. 156. of the Cynegeticon, seems equally tenable. At the same time, it is not impossible but that both passages may refer to greyhounds, under the names of Galli and Celtæ.

In the muster-roll of Actæon’s pack by Gratius’s contemporary, amidst various sorts of hounds culled from various countries, the same characteristic distinctions predominate: we have a

trux cum Lælape Theron, Et pedibus Pterelas, et naribus utilis Agre.

The same threefold division runs through many of the modern semi-classical Cynegetica—being founded, as of course it is, in the essential qualities of the canine race: