To man the earth seems altogether
No more a mother, but a step-dame rather.
Du Bartas: Divine Weekes and Workes, first week, third day.
[717:3] He is born naked, and falls a whining at the first.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sect. 2, mem. 3, subsect. 10.
And when I was born I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature; and the first voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do.—The Wisdom of Solomon, vii. 3.
It was the custom among the ancients to place the new-born child upon the ground immediately after its birth.
[718:1] This term of forty days is mentioned by Aristotle in his Natural History, as also by some modern physiologists.