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Is it not because it is a creature that wonderfully delighteth in purity, cleanliness, and elegancy, and withal hath a marvellous quick sense of smelling? Because therefore such unclean dealings between man and woman are wont to leave behind much filthiness and impurity, the bees both sooner find them out and also conceive the greater hatred against them. Hereupon it is that in Theocritus the shepherd pleasantly sendeth Venus away unto Anchises to be well stung with bees for her adultery: Now to mount Ida, to Anchises go, Where mighty oaks and cypresses do grow; Where hives and trees with honey sweet abound, And both with humming noise of bees resound.Theoc. I. 105. And Pindar saith: Thou little creature, who honey-combs dost frame, and with thy sting hast pricked false impure Rhoecus for his lewd villanies.
XXXVII. WHY DO DOGS FOLLOW AFTER A STONE THAT IS THROWN AT THEM AND BITE IT, LETTING THE MAN ALONE WHO FLUNG IT?
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Is it because he can comprehend nothing by imagination nor call a thing to mind, which are gifts and virtues proper to man alone; and therefore, seeing he cannot discern the party that offered him injury, he supposeth that to be his enemy which seemeth in his eye to threaten him, and of it he goes about to be revenged? Or is it that he thinks the stone, while it runs along the ground, to be some wild beast, and according to his nature he intendeth to catch it first; but afterwards, when he seeth himself deceived and put besides his reckoning, he setteth upon the man? Or rather, doth he not hate the man and the stone both alike, but pursueth that only which is next unto him?
XXXVIII. WHY AT A CERTAIN TIME OF THE YEAR DO ALL SHE-WOLVES WHELP WITHIN THE COMPASS OF TWELVE DAYS?
