[2] Observe to what extent there exists in animals conformity to nature in regard to their marriages. In the first place, they do not wait for laws against celibacy or late wedlock, as did the citizens of Lycurgus
1
and Solon,
2
nor fear loss of civil rights because of childlessness, nor pursue the honours of the
ius trium liberorum ,
3
as many Romans do when they marry and beget children, not that they may have heirs, but that they may inherit. In the next place, the male does not consort with the female during all seasons, for the end and aim is not pleasure, but procreation and the begetting of offspring; therefore it is in the season of spring, which has procreative breezes
4
and a temperature suitable to intercourse,
5
that the female, rendered submissive and desirable, comes to consort with the male, exulting, as she does, in the pleasing odour of her flesh and the peculiar adornment
6
of her body, and filled with dew and clean grass
7
; but when she perceives that she is pregnant and sated, she modestly retires and takes thought for the birth and safety of her offspring. But it is impossible to recount the procedure in a manner worthy of the subject, except to say that each of the pair is as one in their affection for their offspring, in their forethought, their endurance, and their self-control. Further, though we call the bee wise and believe that it
Makes the yellow honey its care,
8
flattering the saccharine quality of its sweetness which tickles our palates, yet we overlook the wisdom and artifice of the other creatures which is manifested in the bearing and the nurture of offspring. As, for example, the king-fisher
9
after conception makes her nest by gathering the thorns of the sea-needle and interweaving and joining them together, and makes it round and oblong in form, like a fisherman’s creel; and, packing the thorns closely together with the most exact jointure and density, submits it to the dashing of the waves so that, being gradually beaten upon and riveted together, the hard-packed surface may become water-proof; and it does become hard to divide with iron or stone. And what is more wonderful, the mouth of the nest is so exactly fitted to the size and measure of the king-fisher that no other creature, either larger or smaller, may enter, and, so they say, that it will not admit even the most minute drops of sea-water.
10
And in Homer
15
the lion -
does he look like a beast that has any notion of making terms with the hunters for his children’s lives? For, in general, the love of animals for their children makes the timid bold, the lazy energetic, the voracious sparing; like the bird in Homer
16
which brings to her nestlings
for she feeds her young at the cost of her own hunger, and, though she has laid hold of food for her belly, she withholds it and presses it tightly with her beak, lest she gulp it down unawares; or
acquiring, as it were, a second courage in her fear for her young.
Whom hunters meet leading his young within
A wood; he glares with valour and draws down
His eye-lids till they hide his eyes -
Whatever morsels she can catch, though she
Fares ill herself,
As a bitch bestrides her tender pups, and barks
At one she does not know, and longs to fight,
17
And partridges,
18
when, accompanied by their young, they are being pursued, allow the fledglings to fly ahead and attempt to escape, and contrive to fix the hunter’s attention on themselves by wheeling close and, when they are almost captured, fly off and away, then again remain at rest and place themselves within the reach of the hunter’s hope, until, by so exposing themselves to danger for their nestlings’ safety, they have led on the hunters to a considerable distance.
And we have before our eyes every day the manner in which hens
19
care for their brood, drooping their wings for some to creep under, and receiving with joyous and affectionate clucks others that mount upon their backs or run up to them from every direction; and though they flee from dogs and snakes if they are frightened only for themselves, if their fright is for their children, they stand their ground and fight it out beyond their strength.
Are we, then, to believe that Nature has implanted these emotions in these creatures because she is solicitous for the offspring of hens and dogs and bears, and not, rather, because she is striving to make us ashamed and to wound us, when we reflect that these instances are examples to those of us who would follow the lead of Nature, but to those who are callous, as rebukes for their insensibility, by citing which they
20
disparage human nature as being the only kind that has no disinterested affection and that does not know how to love without prospect of gain? In our theatres, indeed, people applaud the verse of the poet who said,
21
What man will love his fellow-man for pay?
And yet, according to Epicurus,
22
it is for pay that a father loves his son, a mother her child, children their parents; but if beasts could come to understand speech and someone should bring together to a common theatre horses and cows and dogs and birds and should revise this speech and say,
Dogs do not love their pups, nor horses their colts, nor birds their nestlings, for pay, but gratuitously and naturally, it would be recognized by the emotions of them all that this was well and truly spoken. For it is shameful - great Heaven! - that the begetting and the pains of travail and the nurture of beas ts should be
Nature and
a free gift, but that those of men should be loans and wages and caution-money, all given on condition of a return!
23
De Amore Prolis. Plutarch. William Clark Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1939.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.