Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum
Stagna sonat: similis medios Juturna per hostes
Fertur equis, rapidoque volans obit omnia curru.[87]
Though it seems odd to compare to a swallow the fierce female warrior careering in her chariot, it should be noted that Juturna’s object is not to fight, but by constant rapidity of movement to keep Turnus and Aeneas from meeting each other. This simile is, I think, the most perfect passage about the Swallow that I have ever met with in poetry.
The hirundo of the Romans had of course a generic sense, and included all the different species of Martin and Swallow. When Virgil writes (Georg. iv. 107) of the chattering hirundo which hangs its nest from the beams, he clearly means the House-martin; for the Swallow places his upon the rafters, while the Martin does exactly what Virgil describes. Both Aristotle and Pliny distinguish three or more species of these birds,—the Swallow, Sand-martin, Swift, and possibly the Crag-martin; and their habits seem to have been the same as at the present day.
I shall not trouble my readers with any of Virgil’s passages[88] about the Hawks and Eagles, in all of which he follows Homer more or less closely. Nor need we pause to dwell on the single passage in which he has mentioned the Nightingale; for, beautiful as it is, it is not only based on Homer, but is inferior in truth to Homer’s lines. The older poet sings truthfully of the Nightingale “sitting in the thick foliage of the trees,” and “pouring a many-toned music with many a varied turn;” but Virgil has neither of these touches. Still his lines have a beauty of their own:—
Qualis populea moerens philomela sub umbra
Amissos queritur foetus, quos durus arator
Observans nido implumes detraxit; at illa
Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen