Birds resort unto their like,
And truth will return to them that practise it (E. 279).
The eye that mocketh at a father,
And despiseth an aged mother,
The ravens of the brook shall pick it out,
And the young eagles shall eat it (Pr. 3017).
The beasts may be divided into the wild creatures untamed by man, and the domestic animals. Some of the latter are to be seen wandering most naturally through this picture of the wise farmer:
Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks,
And look well to thy herds;
For riches endure not for ever,
Nor wealth to all generations.
When the hay is carried and the tender grass springeth,
When the grass of the mountains is gathered,
Then the lambs will supply thee with clothing
And the goats yield the price of a field,
And give milk enough for thy household,
Enough for the maintenance of thy maidens (Pr. 2723-27).
For the horse see Pr. 263, E. 308 and 336; of the dog, whom we shall meet again in the next chapter, there is a famous saying in Eccles. 94, Better a living dog than a dead lion.
Among the wild animals, the lion (Pr. 3030) and the bear enjoy the most fearsome reputation according to the proverbs—The king’s wrath is as the roaring of the lion (Pr. 1912)—As a roaring lion and a ranging bear, so is a wicked ruler over a poor people (Pr. 2815). But there are worse things than either—Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man rather than a fool in his folly (Pr. 1712)—I will rather dwell with a lion and a dragon than keep house with a wicked woman (E. 2516). The references to conies, locusts, and lizards in Pr. 3026f may be remembered (see p. 47). Wine, said the Wise, goeth down smoothly, but (was there gout, or worse, in those days?) at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder (Pr. 2332), and the serpent’s elusive track across the rock is mentioned in Pr. 3019. Perhaps these references to snakes should have been placed at the head of a paragraph on creeping things. However that may be, one of the creeping things, being “exceeding wise” (Pr. 3024), received an immortality in Proverbs:
Go to the ant, thou sluggard,
Consider her ways and be wise ... (Pr. 66).
Cannot one see a Sage in some leisure hour, bending down to watch the busy energetic little creature hurrying about its toil? And then—“Aha!” said he, “behold a proper scourge for lazy bones”!
The one reference to fishes makes one wonder whether the days of yore, like our own times, had their sea-serpent season. Says Ben Sirach,
They that sail on the sea tell of the danger thereof,
And when we hear it with our ears we marvel.
Therein be also those strange and wondrous works,
Variety of all that hath life, the race of sea-monsters (E. 4324, 25).