“Cum sese è pastu referunt, et longa canoros
Dant per colla modos: sonat amnis et Asia longè
Pulsa palus.”
i.e.—“When they return from feeding, and through their long necks give forth melodious measures; the river resounds and the Asian marsh from far.”
“Piscosóve amne Padusæ
Dant sonitum rauci per stagna loquacia cycni.”[[119]]
i.e.—“Or on the fish-abounding river Po the hoarse swans give forth a sound through the murmuring pools.”
Horace, Carm. iv. 2. 25, names Pindar Dircæum cycnum,—“the Dircæan swan;” and Carm. ii. 20. 10, likens himself to an album alitem,—“a white-winged creature;” which a few lines further on he terms a canorus ales,—“a melodious bird,”—and speaks of his apotheosis to immortal fame.[[120]]
Anacreon is called by Antipater of Sidon, Anthol. Græc. Carm. 76, κύκνος Τηϊος,—“the Teïan swan.”
Poets, too, after death, were fancifully supposed to assume the form of swans. It was believed also that swans foresaw their own death, and previously sang their own elegy. Thus in Ovid, Metam. xiv. 430,—