Joseph Louis Bevir

“ He has nothing interesting to tell us about bulls. One passage (Inf. xii. 22) is an adaptation of a simile of Virgil, with regard to the sacrificial bull that reels from the stroke it has received; the other (Par. xvi. 70) tells us that a blind bull falls more headlong than a blind lamb—which, though true, does not add much to our knowledge.
It is worth while to turn for a moment to Dante's reptiles before considering his birds. ”

“ Two passages in particular give one a perfect picture of the beast (Inf. 1. 49) : She-Wolf ("Chi ditute brame Sembiava carca nella sua sembianza") ; and again he speaks (Purg. xx. 10) of the limitless hunger of the "old she-Wolf, who more than all the beasts has prey" ("Per la sua fame senza fine cupa") . We have a sketch, too, of the Wild Boar (porco) , which modern Italian keeps for the domestic Pig, using cinghiale for the nobler animal. He tells us of its tusks, and describes the noise a Boar-hunt makes (Inf. xiii. 113) as beast and dogs come crashing through the branches. ”

“ This is all Dante has to say of hounds, and I will therefore turn to their quarry.
Of Wolves he often speaks; they are to him the symbol of avarice, either of the Florentines (Purg. xiv. 50) , or of the Popes (Par. ix. 132) ; nor could any animal better describe insatiate desire that derives no benefit from getting. ”

“ The greyhound was used for pursuing, but did not find game. For this purpose a kind of setter was used. He marked the Hare for the greyhound, and put up the birds for the Hawk. The Dog was called Bracco, whence the French Brague, and does not occur in the 'Comedy'; but Dante, in the "Convito," says every excellence in everything is to be desired, "Siccome nel bracco il bene oderare, nel veltro il bene correre."
He is speaking of a bigger breed of Dogs in Ugolino's dream (Inf. xxxiii.) ”

“ In this picture are to be found most of the recognized breeds of mediæval Italy. The commonest of them is Veltro, the greyhound—the Vertagus of Martial—that was trained to bring to his master the Hare unhurt. It is of them that Dante speaks where he tells of the pursuit of Lano and his friends through the wood of human trees (Inf. xiii. 126) . He says the Hell-hounds come on like greyhounds let out of a leash; and again (Inf. xxiii. 18) , more cruel than a Dog to a Hare, which it seizes in its teeth. ”

“ Of these the Gyrfalcon, a big bird, inhabits Northern Europe only, and does not seem to have been imported till later into Italy for sporting purposes; while the Peregrine is the Falcon of Dante that figures in many similes. The second class consisted of the short-winged, and were generally represented by the Goshawk (Falco gentilis) [1] and the Sparrow-Hawk (Sparvius) . [2] Dante knew both. ”

“ Perhaps under this heading we should include his allusion to the Bivero or Bevero (Inf. xvii. 22) .
Dante and Virgil have come to the margin of the eighth circle, whence they are to descend on the back of Geryon to the ninth. The monster, with a human head, paws, and a serpent's body, came up, and thrust on shore its head and bust; "but on to the border did not drag its back." The poet compared its position to that of a Beaver, "who among the guzzling Germans plants himself to wage his war" (upon the fish) . ”

“ Serpentelli e ceraste avean per crine."
As a whole they are more interesting as mentioning the snakes known to the ancients than for any other reason, for they come from Lucan's 'Pharsalia,' and are to be found in Pliny's Natural History; but some of them are probably Italian, for Virgil speaks (Geo. xi. 214) of "nigris exesa chelydris creta," which may have been Tropodonatus tessellatus and viperinus, both Italian snakes, that live almost exclusively in the water, and feed on fish. ”

“ He sketches for us the Stork standing up in its nest after feeding its young (Par. xix. 92) , or draws a picture of the little Stork trying to leave its nest (Purg. xxv. 10) . Then we have allusions to their flight, sometimes in a compact mass, sometimes in a long line (Par. xviii. 73) —
"Come augelli surti di riviera,
Quasi congratulando a lor pastura,
Fanno di si or tonda or lunga schiera";
or (Purg. xxiv. 64) , like the birds that winter on the Nile, sometimes make of themselves a compact array, sometimes fly in a long line. ”

“ Of other foreign beasts, he makes allusion to the Elephant and Whale, both in speaking of the giants that rise around the ninth circle in the "Inferno" (Inf. xxxi. 52) , where he makes the quaint remark that Nature did well to give up forming such creatures as the giants; and if she does not repent of Elephants and Whales, it is because they have not the intelligence to do harm; wherein Dante shows that he does not appreciate the intelligence of the Elephant, and perhaps, Mr. ”

“ Changed on a sudden—takes his crook again,
⁠And drives his flock to pasture in the folds."
Again, he gives us an accurate picture of them (Purg. iii. 79) , where they come out of the fold by ones and twos and threes; and others stand timid, turning their eyes and noses down to the earth; and whatever the foremost one does, so the others do, huddling close up to it if it stops, simple and quiet, and do not know any reason for what they do. An excellent simile to describe a crowd blindly following their leader, and one which he repeats in slightly altered form in the "Convito," 1. ”