[45] In case the reader wishes to understand the philosophy of the gnat's trumpet, we insert the following passage from Cumberland's Trans. of the "Clouds" of Aristophanes.
Disciple. "'Twas put to Socrates, if he could say, when a goat
humm'd, whether the sound did issue from mouth or tail.
Streps. Aye; marry, what said he?
Disciple. He said your gnat doth blow his trumpet backwards
From a sonorous cavity within him,
Which being filled with breath, and forced along
The narrow pipe or rectum of his body,
Doth vent itself in a loud hum behind."
"Fallitur et multo custodis cura Lyæo;
Illa vel Hispano lecta sit una jugo.
Sunt quoque, quæ faciant altos medicamina somnos;
Victaque Lethæâ lumina nocte premant."
Ovid. Art. Am. iii. 645.
[47] ὡς δ' ἡ βελτίστη γαστήρ κατηνάγκασεν.
[48] The allusion is to Ulysses preparing to put out the eye of the Cyclops.
... "the gods infused
Heroic fortitude into our hearts."—Odyss. ix. 381.