Unhappy human kind, let this address itself to you. I hear nothing but the echoing murmur of trifling complaints. Whoever, in like case, believes himself the hated of the gods, let him consider Hecuba,[13] and he will render thanks for their clemency.
[13] Hecuba was the wife of Priam, King of Troy. When that city fell Hecuba was chosen by Ulysses as part of his share in the spoils. She was changed into a dog for avenging the death of her son whose eyes had been put out by the King of Thracia, and she finally ended her life by casting herself into the sea.
XXXIII
THE RABBITS
(Book X.—No. 15)
When I have noticed how man acts at times, and how, in a thousand ways, he comports himself just as the lower animals do, I have often said to myself that the lord of these lower orders has no fewer faults than his subjects.
Nature has allowed every living thing a drop or two from the fount at which the spirits of all creatures imbibe.
I will prove what I say.
If at the hour when night has scarcely passed and day hardly begun I climb into a tree, on the edge of some wood, and, like a new Jupiter from the heights of Olympus, I send a shot at some unsuspecting rabbit, then the whole colony of rabbits, who were enjoying their thyme-scented meal with open eyes and listening ears upon the heath, immediately scamper away. The report sends them all to seek refuge in their subterranean city.