Part 71

Solinus and Pliny, while they admit the religious adoration of Diana by the natives of Crete, deny to the soil many of the common beasts of chase. “Ager Creticus,” says the former naturalist, “sylvestrium caprarum copiosus est, cervo eget. Lupos, vulpes, aliaque quadrupedum noxia nusquam educat.”

This canine name is not found in any other Cynegeticon. From the construction put on the passage by Wernsdorf, it appears that he would derive the Metagon from a Spartan and Cretan cross: but how, let me ask, could the huntsman breed a mute inductor, whose essential attribute was closeness, “ne voce lacesseret hostem,” from the union of two such latrant races?—A litter, so bred in Actæon’s pack, was any thing but mute, “Labros, et Agriodos, et acutæ vocis Hylactor,” as above cited. Wase’s interpretation of the passage is more correct—see his version, vs. 211. where the lines of Gratius are differently rendered than in the chapter on the geography of the poem, p. 38.

Claudian bestows the title Molossian on the entire pack, to designate, it may be, their ferocity:

Sic mons Aonius rubuit, cum Penthea ferrent Mænades; aut subito mutatum Actæona cornu Traderet insanis Latonia visa Molossis.

The stag Actæon in the stream had spied The naked huntress, and, for seeing, died: His hounds, unknowing of his change, pursue The chase, and their mistaken master slew!

The loud latrancy of the tribe escaped not the notice of the bard of Avon, who has cleverly appropriated much of the borrowed shape and κλαγγὴ of a modern pack (Sir Thomas Lucy’s, perhaps, or other Warwickshire squire’s) to our classic breed of the olden time:

I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear Such gallant chiding; for besides the groves, The skies, the fountains, every region near Seem’d all one mutual cry: I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

With Angelio’s description of the Cretan hounds, the more striking features of which are drawn from passages already cited, I close their portraiture.

Est eadem facies, et eidem proxima formæ Corpora: membrorum sed non æquantia molem Dictæis, animus tamen, et constantia pugnax, Quandoquidem serus litem si fortè diremit Vesper, et obtentis umbrantur rura tenebris; Nusquam abeunt, nusquam vestigia pressa relinquunt, Verùm hærent vigiles, &c.

The dog, which sits at the foot of the noble statue of Meleager, is, probably, a representation of the animal which assisted the hero of Calydon in his attack of the wild boar—(“infestæ famulus, vindexque Dianæ”)—that had laid waste the domain of his father Œneus. (See F. Perrier, Tab. 51. and 52. ex Ædibus Pichiniis, and Montfaucon Antiq. Expliq. Tom. I.) He is apparently a boar-hound, and perhaps of the type of Etolia or Calydon—the names being indifferently applied to the same dog, from Calydon, (the rocky Calydon of the Homeric catalogue, Iliad +ii.+ 640.) the capital of the state, over which the sons of Œneus once reigned.

Such a sire was most likely to correct the “vanæ linguæ vitium” of the Calydonian breed; and from such parentage may have been deduced the Glympicus of the son of Astylus. No dam could cross more appropriately with a Molossian sire, contributing, on her part, the important qualities of speed, sagacity, and unwearying ardour of pursuit; and receiving, from the male side, courage, strength, and closeness of mouth. The cited lines of Gratius, carefully perused in connexion with those which follow in the text, will, I think, warrant the parentage assigned to the hound in question; and such a view will materially assist the general understanding of a somewhat obscure part of the Cynegeticon.

Without such auxiliaries all the hunter’s toil will be fruitless, says Bargæus:

Ni tecum canis acer eat, qui naribus auras Ducat odoratas, et nusquam impressa ferarum Insistat cupidè vestigia: nec tamen ullos Latratus, vocesque hilari de pectore mittat, Cum latebræ non longè absunt, fidique recessus.

See the mode of breaking-in the limier, chien de traict, in J. Savary’s rare work, Venationis Cervinæ Leges, L. +ii.+ sub initio.

The Ascrean Poet’s hunting-picture on the shield of Hercules is rather a chase at speed, than trailing after leporine game;

τοὶ δ’ ὠκύποδας λαγὸς ᾕρευν ἄνδρες θηρευταὶ, καὶ καρχαρόδοντε κύνε προ ἱέμενοι μαπέειν, οἱ δ’ ἱέμενοι ὑπαλύξαι.

“Umber is here,” says Wase, “the Bracco of Italy; and as their dog is timorous, so their bore is not very courageous. Whence the poet,—Thuscus aper generosior Umbro.”

A close-mouthed hound, probably, with much of the pugnacious disposition of our first class, added to his sagacity. Many of the limehound tribe, at least those used in trailing after fierce prey, must have had a strong dash of the same daring spirit—not so, however, the uncrossed Umbrian and Gelonian.

“The hunting used by the ancients was much like that way which is at present taken with the Raindeare which is seldome hunted at force, or with hounds, but onely drawne after with a blood-hound, and forestall’d with nets and engines. So did they with all beasts; and therefore a dog is never commended by them for opening before hee hath by signes discover’d where the beast lyeth in his layre, as by their drawing stiffe our harbourers are brought to give right judgment. Therefore I doe not finde that they were curious in the musique of their hounds, or in a composition of their kennell and pack, either for deepenesse or lowdnesse, or sweetnesse of cry like to us,” &c.

The Canis ductor, or lime-hound of the middle ages, the ἐμβιβαστὴς and μηνυτὴς of ancient glossaries, “qui odorisequâ nare spelæa ferarum, et diverticula deprehendit,” was strongly allied to, if not identical with, the Sleut-hound of Scotland, the blood-hound, lyme-dog, or limer (from the lyam or leash with which he was led) of authors, employed in the pursuit of animals of chase, and the discovery of murders and ambuscades. See the Glossaries of Spelman and Ducange, in voce.

Skinner defines the Limmer “Hybris, i. e. canis vilior ex cane sagace venatico cum Molosso copulato prognatus,”—and such probably was the parent stock of this much-famed dog. The Lorarius of Caius must have been a more nimble animal than the Sleut-hound—“propter velocitatem et gravius feram urget, et citiùs capit.” The Lymer is fully treated of in De Langley’s curious manuscript intitled =Mayster of Game=, c. +xx.+ et seqq. Much also will be found relative to him in the Book of St. Alban’s, Fouilloux, Turberville, and Blome: and he is particularly described by the Latin poet of Caen, under the title of “Canis armillaris.”

The following portrait by the poet of Barga is worthy of exhibition:

Ille quidem multâ virtute insignis, et usu Venandi, saltum si quando ingressus apertum est, Evinctus loro dominum trahit. Atque ubi signa Invenit, aut auras acer persentit odoras, Pergit iter, rostrum et pressâ vix tollit ab herbâ, Huc illuc volvens oculos, et singula solers Scrutatur: donec subter virgulta latentem Conspexit leporem, et constrata cubilia fronde. Tum vero gressum caudâ blanditus, et ore Accelerat, montemque omnem latratibus implet.

He is the “Prævius it loro catulus devinctus” of Vanière’s Prædium Rusticum, L. +xvi.+ Great, however, as was his celebrity in the sporting field of the classic and middle ages, and even till a century and a half ago,—

syrchand to and fra, To hunt the harte, the bare, the da, the ra,—

the Limier, in a state of pure blood, is considered almost extinct.

Hound is sometimes applied to all dogs, as if Minshew’s and Junius’s derivation of the term were correct—à κυνίδιον dim. à κύων: but in England the term most commonly signifies a hunting-dog, to which sense the A. S. huntian, hent-an, to pursue, to search after, affords a more probable root.

The etymology of the term Petronius is not of easy solution. By critics it has been fancifully derived from the firmness, strength, and hardness of the feet of this variety of dog; in consequence of which he was enabled to run over rough and rocky ground without injury—κύων εὔπους. Gesner mentions a tributary stream of the Tiber called Petronia, “quòd per petras fluat.” Spelman, in his Glossary, gives Petrunculus as a synonym of Petronius, citing the above passage of Gratius; and under Acceptor, explains Petrunculus in a marginal note by “a brachet.” The Spanish use Perro, says Wase, as their common appellation of a dog.