Wild ass

“ The true asses are without stripes on the head, neck, and body, with the exception of a dark streak down the back from the mane to the tail, which is present in all members of the group, and in some cases a dark band across the shoulders and irregular markings on the legs.
In Africa the wild ass is only found in the desert regions of the northeastern portion of that continent. It is a fine animal, standing between thirteen and fourteen hands at the shoulder. ”

“ Or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?" By the wild ass pride is understood. Job xi. 12 , " For vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt;" whence the bands of the wild ass are the bands of pride. ”

“ From the union of the mare and the wild ass, when it has been domesticated, a mule is produced which is remarkably swift in running, and has extremely hard feet, and a thin body, while it has a spirit that is quite indomitable. The very best stallion of all, however, for this purpose, is one produced from a union of the wild ass and the female domesticated ass. The best wild asses are those of Phrygia and Lycaonia. Africa glories in the wild foals which she produces, as excelling all others in flavour ”

“ I.—ITS WILDNESS.
The colt of the wild ass is really the most untamable and intractable of animals. Even when captured very young it can scarcely ever be brought to bear a burden or draw a vehicle. Its wild nature is constantly breaking out, and like the asses which Saul the son of Kish went to seek, it is always in danger of going astray.
Love of freedom and hatred of restraint are its main characteristics, and Zophar the Naamathite reminded Job that something very similar is true of man. "Vain man is void of understanding, yea, man is born as a wild ass's colt" (Job xi. 12) . ”

“ The tame Ass is slow, plodding, dull, and lazy; the wild Ass is as swift as a race-horse and as wild as a Deer. The best mounted horsemen can seldom approach him, and it is generally necessary to send a rifle-ball after him, if he is wanted [213] very much. ”

“ Cases of fertile union are recorded between the horse and the quagga, the horse and the bonte-quagga or Burchell’s zebra, the horse and the onager and kiang or Asiatic wild asses, the common ass and the zebra, the ass and bonte-quagga, the ass and the onager, the onager and the zebra, and the onager and the bonte-quagga. ”

“ Asses, like horses, are found in a wild state, but in greater abundance. This animal is found wild in many islands of the Archipelago, and in the deserts of Libya and Numidia. They live in herds, each having a chief, and are extremely timid. The ass, so common now in England, was entirely lost in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. ”

“ Bares his long ass’s teeth, flattens his long ass’s ears, straightens his donkey neck,
And howls his pandemonium on the indignant air.
Yes, it’s a quandary.
Jesus rode on him, the first burden on the first beast of burden.
Love on a submissive ass.
So the tale began.
But the ass never forgets.
The horse, being nothing but a nag, will forget.
And men, being mostly geldings and knacker-boned hacks, have almost all forgot.
But the ass is a primal creature, and never forgets. ”

“ The ass, however, was by no means soothed by the meteor-like disappearance of the beasts of prey, and the gruesome dronings that, in spite of hard whacks, it indulged in for many minutes, betrayed the depth of its emotions and the cavernous nature of its interior organization. The ass, like the savage, has no perception of the picturesque. ”

“ To give my words more authority I will add Buffon’s testimony to my own.
“ ‘The ass,’ says the illustrious historian of animals, ‘is not a degenerate horse, as many imagine; it is neither a foreigner nor an intruder nor a bastard; like all animals it has its family, its species, and its rank. Although its nobility is less illustrious, it is quite as good, quite as ancient, as that of the horse. Briefly, the ass is an ass, nothing more, nothing less. ”

“ In these different conditions, who will wonder that while the horse has become a strong, graceful, and proud-spirited animal, the ass, on the other hand, remains bowed and bent, with a rough coarse hide, lanky limbs, a heavy head,—always drooping, as if under the weight of continual lassitude and unconquerable melancholy,—and long ungraceful ears, which give his physiognomy an air of ridicule. ”

“ We thank Heaven for both, the first as the valued crop of the mountains, the second as that of the plains. Let us not, then, despise the ass because it is inferior to the horse. It possesses the good qualities of its species, and cannot possess others. We fail to recognize that the ass would be our foremost, our finest, our best made, our most distinguished domestic animal if there were no horse in the world. ”

“ Notwithstanding the superiority this animal maintains over the ass, from the elegance of his figure, and beauty of colours, yet he appears to be somewhat of the same species, for almost all travellers have given it the name of striped ass, from being struck at the first sight with his having a greater resemblance to the ass than the horse ”

“ Then all the villagers came out with weapons in their hands; and blowing chanks, and beating drums, they went near the field and shouted. Terrified with the fear of death, the ass uttered a cry—the bray of an ass! ”

“ He inspected Jean with his lantern; but thanks to Christian’s solicitude, the animal was so well wrapped up in skins of various kinds, that it presented a most fantastic appearance.
“An ass? It can’t be! An ass could not live in this latitude. What you, in your brutal ignorance, call an ass, is nothing more than some kind of mule at the most! Come, let me see it;—take off those borrowed skins—”
“Hold, monsieur!” said Christian; “whether Stangstadius or not, you have tired me out. ”

“ No, William; it is a very sagacious one; but the character has been given to the animal more on account of its obstinacy and untractableness, than on any other account. It is usual to say, as stupid as an ass, or as stupid as a pig, or a goose. Now, these three animals are very much maligned, for they are all sagacious animals. But the fact is that, as regards the ass, we have only very sorry specimens of the animal in England; they are stunted and small, and, from want of corn and proper food, besides being very ill-treated, are slow and dull-looking animals. ”

“ It is also probable that the bones of asses are harder than those of other animals, since the ancients made their best-sounding flutes of them.
The ass in proportion to his size, can carry the greatest weight of any animal; and as it costs but little to feed him, and he scarcely requires any care, he is of great use in country business; he also serves to ride on, as all his paces are gentle, and he stumbles less than the [206] horse; he is frequently put to the plough in countries where the earth is light, and his dung is an excellent manure. ”

“ For instance, I think those authors are right who maintain that the ass has a prepotent power over the horse, so that both the mule and the hinny resemble more closely the ass than the horse; but that the prepotency runs more strongly in the male than in the female ass, so that the mule, which is an offspring of the male ass and mare, is more like an ass than is the hinny, which is the offspring of the female-ass and stallion. ”

“ The ancient Romans declared that "One ass rubs another," a lesson in mutual help. When a coward boasts what great things he will do, or a fool assumes the philosopher, "An ass in a lion's skin" is suggested—from the fable that an ass once decking himself in the skin of the lion, was so elated at the terror he created that he could not forbear braying his delight, a performance which entirely altered the whole complexion of things and the animal stood revealed, the mere ass that he really was. ”

“ In all countries, this sure-footed and faithful animal is adopted as an emblem of stupidity, from the patience with which it submits to punishment and endures privation. A pair of ass's ears is inflicted upon a child [Pg 117] in reproof of his duncehood; and through life we hear every blockhead of our acquaintance called an ass. ”

“ From the myth of the ass, as a musician and judge of music, is derived the Tuscan game of the ass, which is thus described by Signor Fanfani in his Vocabolario dell' Uso Tuscano, Firenze, 1863:—"Each member of the party chooses an animal whose voice or song he must imitate. The head player represents the ass, and is the king of the other animals. When the head player, sitting in the middle, calls one of the animals who encircle him, the dog, for instance, this animal must bark; when he calls the cock, it must cry chicchiricù; when he calls the ox, he who represents it must bellow, and so on. ”

“ In the Italian stories, [744] when the ass brays upon the mountain, a tail grows on the forehead of the step-mother's ugly daughter; the third crowing of the cock is the signal for the monster's death; the third braying or flatus of the ass announces the death of the fool. With the end of the night the ass disappears, and the fool also disappears or dies. The braying of the ass cannot mount up into heaven; after the ass has brayed, after the cloud has thundered, the ass comes down upon the earth, is dissolved into rain, is dispersed and dies ”

“ The ass, or young man—I cannot tell by which name I should term him—being many times repelled, and understanding their words that called him ass, considering that he could speak never a word and yet could understand everybody, he thought that he was bewitched by the woman at whose house he was. And therefore, when by no means he could get into the boat, but was driven to tarry and see her departure, being also beaten from place to place as an ass, he remembered the witch's [137] words, and the words of his own fellows that called him ass, and returned to the witch's house ”

“ The adulterer upon the ass, and the silly husband upon the ass, are punishments for phallic offences in, and in connection with, the person of that which represents the phallos: one is chastised for having wished, in this regard, to do too much, and the other for not having been able to do enough. On this account the condemned person was forced, in similar cases, to ride upon an ass with his face turned towards the animal's tail, another image which is yet more manifestly phallical ”

“ It was about this time that the bull-gnu appeared, tramping steadily towards them; a rugged, rough renegade of the wilderness; a ruffian kicked—or, rather, horned—out of some herd forever, and, for his sins, doomed always to face the risks of life alone, or in the companionship of other male outlaws of soured temper like himself—almost always male; the female wild seems guiltless of law-breaking, or is under a banner of protection if it is not. Such "rogues," as men call them, are not gentlemanly, as a rule. And, by the way, you know the gnu, of course, alias wildebeest? ”

“ If we read it as we would any similar piece, any other fable in which men and beasts speak to each other, we should say that there were some elements of the ludicrous [Pg 64] in the picture of the prophet rebuked by his ass. “And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand; and the ass turned aside out of the way and went into the field. And Balaam smote the ass to turn her into the way.” Just what any one would do to a “shying” animal, upon impulse. ”

“ I say Græco-Latin alone, because the myth of the ass among Slavonic and Germanic nations, where the ass is little, if at all, known, had no especial and independent development. In Slavonic countries, the part of the ass is generally sustained by Ivan the fool or Emilius the lazy one, as also by the bear or wolf, as in India it is often sustained by the monkey; [721] ass, bear, wolf, and monkey, as mythical animals, represent almost identical phenomena. ”

“ Adulterer, thief, murderer, coveter of your neighbor’s ass—
Photographer. Ladies and gentlemen, an ass!
Second Photographer. Where, where is an ass?
Photographer (calmed) . I thought I heard one.
Second Photographer. It is you who are an ass. I have become cross-eyed on account of your shouting: “An ass! An ass!”
Mary (wearily) . Papa, children, look! A policeman is coming.
(Excitement and noise. On one side a crowd pulling a policeman, on the other the hotel keeper; both keep crying: “Excuse me! Excuse me!”)
Tourist. Policeman, there he is, the fakir, the swindler. ”

“ After much argument the vixen loses patience, and upbraiding the ass for his want of enterprise describes in graphic language the attractions of certain pasture known to her; and the ass, his hopes getting the better of his discretion, follows, till they come within eye range of the tiger.
The tiger, being very hungry, cannot wait till the ass comes within reach; he rushes out prematurely and frightens the ass away. ”

“ In the same way, the henpecked husband who allowed himself to be beaten by his wife, used, in several villages of Piedmont, only a few years ago, to be led about ignominiously upon an ass: a husband who lets his wife impose upon him, and cannot subdue her, deserves to be chastised by means of an ass ”

“ The weaker the ass, the larger, the stronger, and the shorter-lived and more horse-like the mule. It is also a curious and instructive fact, that this animal is the toughest after it has passed the age of the horse: the inherited influence of the horse having been expended, the vitality and hardiness of the ass remain. ”

“ The ass is the most humorous of animals, and the most instructive, only, like woman, it keeps its humour to itself and will not utilise it for the sake of others. The horse knows what is expected and does it, as far as it can. The ass does the reverse, and glories in her perverseness. Yet both horse and ass are keenly accessable able to flattery, only the ass can exist where the horse cannot. Meat and drink are not with her a necessity ”