Men have received many lessons from dumb beasts and learned many things of value, as for example: from storks the enema, from dogs vomiting and gratitude, from cranes watchfulness, from ants thrift, from elephants chastity, and loyalty from the horse.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Friday, December 28, 2007
Lessons Taught By Animals
Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter XII (tr. Walter Starkie):