Let then our winged discourse return to us, which had almost slipped from our eyes and, after the manner of the eagle seeking the heights, had veiled its weight in the clouds, had it not been that, as we lifted our eyes washed by water up from the gulf to heaven, beholding the empty air carried by the flights of birds, we judged that it must be recalled to the necessity of the pen. You shall be the judges, you who are fowlers of the word, whether it has flown out fruitlessly or has profitably fallen back into your nets. Nor do I fear lest weariness should creep upon us in pursuing the things of flight, which did not creep upon us in searching out the depths; or lest any of us should fall asleep in the disputation, when he can be roused by the songs of the birds.
But assuredly he who has kept watch among the dumb fishes, I do not doubt, cannot feel sleep among the tuneful birds, since he is provoked to wakefulness by such grace. Nor indeed should it be thought of small account, because it could have been passed over, since it is the third part among the living creatures of creation. For it is not doubtful that there are three kinds of living creatures: the earthly, the winged, the aquatic. In short, thus it is written: Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls after their kind, and fowl flying above the earth beneath the firmament of heaven after their kind. Let us be recalled to the higher matters, like forgetful travellers who, when they have inconsiderately passed something by, returning into their own footsteps, take up the great labour of retracing the journey on account of their carelessness.
Yet there is also a good traveller, who may make up for the loss of his backtracking by the compendious speed of the rest of his journey, as I judge I must do, especially since the discourse is about birds, which are wont to dazzle the eyes of men by their more hurried flight. For what is fitting in lingering over those things in which swiftness has been wont to please? Let then our discourse, wandering and unaccustomed in such a kind of writing, resound and re-echo among the tuneful birds. But whence to me the songs of the swan, which delight even under the heavy terror of impending death? Whence to me those natural strains of the singing, with which even the sounding marshes give forth songs most sweet in their pleasantness? Whence to me the voices of the parrot and the sweetness of the blackbirds?
Would that the nightingale might sing this, which rouses the sleeper from slumber; for that bird is wont to mark the turning of the rising day and to bring fuller gladness at dawn. Yet if their sweetness is wanting, there are the moaning turtle-doves and the hoarse pigeons, then too the crow with full voice calls for rain. Hence, in a rustic discourse such as we are able, let us pursue the knowledge which we country folk have been taught. And since we have spoken of the aquatic creeping things, it is a hard thing for our discourse suddenly to ascend to the birds of heaven. And therefore let us first speak of those birds which dwell about the waters of the sea and the rivers, together with which we are able to emerge. Let us therefore begin our discourse from the halcyon.
It is a sea-bird, which is wont to bring forth its young upon the shores, in such a way that it lays its eggs in the sands at about the middle of winter. For it has that season assigned for the cherishing of its brood, when the sea rises up most of all and dashes against the shores more violently. So much the more might the grace of this bird shine forth by the solemn festival of a sudden calm. For when the sea has been billowy, once the eggs are laid it suddenly grows mild, and all the squalls of the winds fall, and the gusts of the breezes are at rest, and the sea stands calm to the winds, until the halcyon cherishes her eggs. Now seven days are given to the brooding, on the completion of which she hatches her chicks and accomplishes the bringing-forth. Immediately she adds seven other days, in which to rear her young, until they begin to grow up.
Nor should you wonder at so brief a time of nurturing, since the completion of the brood is of so few days. But this little bird has such great grace divinely granted, that mariners observe these fourteen days of presumed serenity, which they also call the Halcyon Days, in which they dread no movements of stormy tempest. Are you not of more value than the sparrows? says the Lord.
If therefore, by the contemplation of so small a bird, both the rising sea and a sudden tranquillity poured upon all the elements amid the heavy squalls of winter and the rough blasts of the winds wipes away the clouds of heaven and composes the waves, how much, O man, ought you to presume, you who recognize that you were made in the image of God, if only you imitate the faith of that little bird by the zeal of devotion? She, seeing the tempests rise up and the winds rage amid the savagery of winter, is not called back nor turned away, but is driven on. In short, she sets her eggs upon the shore, where the receding wave receives them while the sand is still wet, nor does she dread the rising waves, which she sees murmur and glide up.
And lest you think that she seems to have contempt for her eggs, immediately, as soon as she has laid the eggs, she builds a nest and cherishes her young with her own body, nor does she fear for her own safety from the washing of the shore, but secure in the grace of God she commits herself to the winds and the waves. This is a small thing. She adds as many other days for the nurturing, nor does she fear that the tranquillity of the faithless sea will be interrupted for so many days, and she tests her own word, now established by the solemn law of nature. She does not hide her tender young in any lurking-places or under roofs, nor does she shut them up in caverns, but commits them to the bare and appointed ground, which defends them not from cold by any roof, but by a divine warmth, by which she reckons them safer, the more she despises all other things.
Which of us would not cover his little ones with garments, hide them under roofs, who would not shut them up within the enclosures of bedchambers, who would not so diligently block up the windows on every side, lest any breeze, even lightly, could penetrate? Deservedly, those whom we so anxiously clothe and cherish, we strip of the covering of heavenly mercy; whereas those whom she casts forth naked, the divine warmth clothes. Nor will I pass you by, you cormorants, to whom the name (mergus, diver) has clung from your constancy in diving. How, ever diving, you gather the signs of the breezes, and foreseeing the coming tempest you swiftly fly back from the open sea, and with a clamour withdraw to the safety of the shores!
How too, you coots — which delight in the deep of the sea — fleeing the commotion of the sea that you have foreknown, you sport in the shallows! The heron itself, which is wont to cling to the marshes, dreading the rains, flies above the clouds, so that it cannot feel the storms of the clouds. Let us consider the various birds of the sea, how, with the motion of the winds threatening, they betake themselves to safer pools, sweeter for them at that time, and in the hidden recess of the lands seek out for themselves the food they know. But who would not marvel at the nocturnal watches of the geese, which attest even their vigils by the constancy of their cry? In fact, by this very means they once saved the Roman Capitol from the Gallic foe. Deservedly, Rome, you owe it to them that you reign.
Your gods were sleeping, and the geese were keeping watch. Therefore in those days you sacrifice to a goose, and not frequently; for your gods yield to the geese, by whom they know they were defended, lest they themselves too should be captured by the enemy. But beautifully, after the description of the fishes, the discourse has passed on to those birds which are accustomed to the waters, because they too in like manner delight in the practice and the office of swimming. Hence the first kinship seems to belong to these birds with the fishes, since a certain common fellowship of swimming seems to belong to both kinds. A second kinship too belongs to the birds and the fishes, in that the manner of flying is a likeness of swimming. For just as the fish cleaves the water by swimming, so the bird cuts the air by its swift flight.
And to each kind alike there is at hand the rudder of the tail and the oarage of the wings, so that fishes may raise themselves forward as by a bridle and advance to what lies further on, and by the steering of the tail too may either turn themselves easily wherever they wish, or direct their course straight ahead by a certain impulse. Birds too, by their flights, swim as it were in the air as in waters, and extend, as it were, certain arms, and by the tail raise themselves to the higher regions or plunge to the lower. Hence, since in some respects there is the same practice and likeness, therefore from the waters the origin of each kind proceeded by divine command. For God said: Let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls after their kind, and fowl flying beneath the firmament of heaven after their kind.
Not undeservedly, therefore, since each kind is produced from the waters, the property of swimming belongs to both. Indeed, although the slippery snake also crushes as it presses upon serpents — for the name was given to the serpent for this reason, that they cannot walk but creep —, and dragons too in like manner are for the most part, like fishes, without feet, yet no kind of birds lacks the office of feet, because the sustenance of all is from the lands. And therefore they are supported by the use of feet, because they need such a service for seeking food. And so some winged creatures are armed with talons for seizing, like hawks and eagles, which exercise the plunder of hunting; others use a suitable practice and service either for walking or for procuring food for themselves.
But there is one name of birds, yet diverse kinds, which who could comprehend either by memory or by knowledge? There are accordingly birds that live by flesh undivided. Therefore these have rough talons, a curved and sharp beak, a swift flight, since they live by seizing, that they may be able easily to grasp the prey they pursue, and quickly to disembowel it with either beak or talons. There are also birds that feed on seed they have found, others on diverse and chance food. There is also a diversity of pairings, of whose grace those are deprived which intend upon plunder.
For on account of their greediness for plundering, or on account of their snares, not even among themselves do they agree, and therefore they shun the pairing of their own kind — for greed flees the fellowship of many —, and again, the conjunction of many would easily betray itself. To these birds, therefore, there is nothing of fellowship except the bond of wedlock. So this is the manner of life for eagles and hawks; but on the contrary the doves, cranes, starlings, ravens and crows, and even the thrushes, take great delight in association. Other kinds of birds too are native, which remain always in their places; others are migratory, which travel to other regions and, winter being ended, return. There are others.
Which in winter return, and in summer travel away from us, whether because some betake themselves in winter-time to warmer places, or because very many in turn pass the summer in those places which they have known to be more pleasant. The thrushes, in short, at the end of autumn, on the threshold of winter, as though the summer were spent, betake themselves back. For these we contrive snares with inhospitable cruelty, and strive by various means now to deceive them by a treacherous perch, now to beguile them by whistling, now to catch them by snares. The return of the stork lifts up the banner of spring. Cranes, because they seek the heights, love often to travel abroad. Some birds submit themselves to the hand and grow accustomed to the table and are soothed by touch; others are afraid.
Some delight in the same dwellings as men, others love a secluded life in the deserts, which compensate for the difficulty of seeking their food by the love of liberty. Some merely terrify with their voices, others delight with tuneful and sweet modulation. Some by nature, others by training, utter the distinctions of diverse voices, so that you would think a man had spoken, when a bird has spoken. How sweet is the voice of the blackbirds, how distinct the voice of the parrot! There are also others, simple like the doves, others cunning like the partridges; the cock is more boastful, the peacock more splendid.
There are also among birds diversities of life and of works, so that some love to take counsel in common and, with their forces joined, to manage as it were a certain commonwealth and to live as though under a king; others provide each one for himself, refuse rule, and, if they be captured, would rather depart from an unworthy servitude. Let us therefore begin from those which have given themselves to our use by imitation. For in those there is a certain natural polity and soldiery, in us a forced and servile one. With what unbidden and voluntary practice do the cranes maintain an anxious guard in the night! You may discern the watchmen posted, and, while the rest of the company of their kind sleep, some go around and reconnoitre, lest snares be attempted from any quarter, and they do not fail to bring vigilant protection by their own strength.
Afterward, when the time of the watches has been fulfilled, having discharged its office it composes itself to sleep, sending forth beforehand a clang, that it may rouse the sleeper to whom it is to hand over the turn of duty. And that other willingly takes up its lot, nor, after our manner, unwillingly and more sluggish, renounces sleep, but briskly is shaken from its bed, performs its turn, and renders the grace it has received with equal care and office. Therefore there is no desertion, because the devotion is natural; therefore the guard is safe, because the will is free. This order too they keep even in flying, and by this moderation they lighten all their labour, that by turns they may discharge the leadership by the counsel of office.
For one goes before the rest at the time appointed for itself and runs ahead, as it were before the standards; then it turns aside and yields to the one following the lot of leading the column. What is more beautiful than this — that both labour and honour should be common to all, and that power should not be arrogated to a few, but be transcribed by a certain voluntary lot to all? This is the office of the ancient commonwealth and the image of a free city. Thus from the beginning men had begun to exercise the polity received from nature after the example of the birds, so that the labour might be common, the dignity common, that by turns each might learn to share the cares, the obediences and the commands, that no one should be without a portion of honour, none exempt from labour.
This was the most beautiful state of affairs, and no one grew insolent through perpetual power, nor was anyone broken by long-lasting servitude, because the promotion was conferred without envy by the order of office and the moderation of time, and that arrangement seemed more tolerable which shared the lot of the guard. No one dared to oppress another with servitude, since the mutual irksomeness was to be undergone in honour of him who would succeed in his turn; hence the labour was not grievous, which a following dignity would relieve.
But after the lust of domination began to claim the powers once seized and to be unwilling to lay down those it had taken up, after the soldiery began to be not a common right but a servitude, after there came to be not an order for taking up power but an eagerness for it, then even the very discharge of labour began to be borne more harshly, and what is not voluntary quickly gives place to carelessness. How unwillingly do men undergo the duties of the watches, how grudgingly does each man, having drawn the lot of danger in the camp, keep watch over what is entrusted to him to guard by the royal command! A penalty for slackness is proposed: and yet for the most part carelessness creeps in, the watches are not kept. For necessity, which imposes obedience on the unwilling, for the most part brings on weariness;
for nothing is so easy but that it has difficulty, when you do it unwillingly. Therefore both continual labour turns away affection, and continuous and long-lasting power begets insolence. Whom of men would you find who would of his own accord lay down command and yield the insignia of his leadership, and willingly become last in rank from being first? But we contend often not only about the first place, but even about the middle, and we claim the first couches at the banquet, and, if once it has been conferred, we wish it to be perpetual. Therefore among the cranes there is equanimity in labours, humility in powers.
They are admonished to keep their turns at watch, but they are not admonished to withdraw from their post; for there the natural rest of sleep must be interrupted, while here a willing diligence must be offered out of grace. Storks, they say, set out in a gathered column when they think they must travel somewhere, and in most places about the East they journey together and are all moved alike, as though by a military password. You would think an army marches with its own standards: thus do they all keep the order of travelling, escorting, and going before. Crows lead them and direct them, and accompany them as a kind of bodyguard, so that they are believed to bring certain aids to the combatants against hostile birds and to take up the wars of others at their own peril.
The proof of this is that none of them are found to remain in those places after any interval of time, and that, returning with wounds, they declare by a certain plain voice of blood and by other signs that they have undergone the struggle of grave combats. Who, then, prescribed for them the penalty of desertion? Who laid down the dreadful punishments for abandoned warfare, so that not a single one tries to withdraw itself from the hospitable troops, but all in rivalry fulfil the duty and office of escort? Let men learn to keep the laws of hospitality, and let them learn from the birds what reverence is owed to guests, what services should be rendered—services which the crows are not wont to refuse even at their own peril.
Against these, then, we close our doors—to those to whom birds give even their own lives; and those whom the birds escort in fellowship of peril, we bar from the shelter of our roof; and against those whose wars the birds take up, we ourselves frequently make war. I am a liar, if this was not the cause of the Sodomites' punishment, or of the Egyptian frenzy—for, while attempting to make war upon a guest-people, that faithless multitude paid the penalties of its inhospitality by shipwreck. How greatly the clemency of this bird surpasses the piety and prudence even of rational beings ought to be considered—a clemency which not one of us, even after the example, could imitate.
For when the father has laid aside his limbs, stripped through the long span of old age of the covering of feathers and of the oarage of wings, the surrounding offspring warm him with their own plumage and—what shall I say?—feed him with gathered food, while they even repair the losses of his nature, so that, supporting the old one on this side and that with the prop of their wings, they exercise him for flight and recall to their former use the now disused members of their devoted father. Which of us would not be wearied to relieve a sick father? Let him lay the weary old man upon his own shoulders—a thing scarcely held credible in our own case. Who, that he might be dutiful, would not entrust this service to little slaves? But to the birds it is not burdensome that which is full of piety, nor heavy that debt of nature which is being paid.
The birds do not refuse to feed their father—a thing which very many men have refused even under prescribed obligation and the terror of penalties. The birds are bound not by a written law but by a law that is born in them; the birds are summoned to this office by no precepts, but by the duties of natural grace. The birds do not blush to bear the limbs of their reverend old one. For it is a carrying of piety, which by frequent testimony has so spread abroad that it has earned the reward of a fitting recompense; for in Roman usage it is called the dutiful bird, and what is said to have been granted scarcely to one emperor by decree of the senate, this these birds have merited in common. These birds, then, have decrees of the fathers to mark their own clemency; for it was fitting that dutiful sons should first be proclaimed by the judgment of the fathers.
They have also the suffrages of all; for the repayment of benefits is called antipelargosis (ἀντιπελάργωσις), since pelargos (πέλαργος) is the word for 'stork.' Thus virtue has received its name from these birds, since the requital of thanks is named with the word for 'stork.' We have, from the bird-offspring's care for their parents, an example of piety: let us now receive a great proof of maternal diligence toward children. The swallow, small in body but sublime in its remarkably devoted affection—which, though needy of all things, builds nests more precious than gold, because it builds wisely; for the nest of wisdom is better than gold. For what is wiser than that it should both enjoy the roving freedom of flight and entrust its little ones and its dwelling to the homes of men, where no one may assail its brood?
For this too is beautiful, that from their very first hatching it accustoms its chicks to the practice of human society and renders them safer from the snares of enemies. And then this is admirable, with what grace it constructs for itself a house, without any helper, as though skilled in the craft. For it gathers little straws with its mouth and smears them with mud, that it may glue them together. But because it cannot carry mud with its feet, it dips the tips of its wings in water, so that dust may easily cling to them and become mire, by which little by little it gathers together for itself the straws or tiny twigs and makes them cohere.
By this means it constructs the whole framework of the nest, so that, as on the floor of a pavement, its young may move about within their dwelling without stumbling, and no one may thrust a foot through the chinks of the weaving, nor the cold creep in upon the tender ones. But this work of industry is nearly common to many birds; that other thing, however, is singular, in which there is illustrious care of piety and the mark of a prudent understanding and of knowledge, and indeed a certain skill in the medical art: for if any of its chicks have been blinded by their eyes being pierced, or stung, it has a certain kind of healing by which their sight, its use being lost, can be restored. Let no one, then, complain of poverty because he has left his own house empty of money.
First is the swallow, which, void of money, abounds in industry; it builds and spends nothing, it raises a roof and takes nothing from a neighbor, nor is it compelled by want and poverty to harm another, nor does it despair amid the grievous weakness of its children. But we are both afflicted by poverty and harried by the necessity of need, and want drives most men into disgrace, impels them into crime; out of greed for gain too we turn our wit to frauds, we adapt our disposition, and amid the gravest sufferings we lay aside hope, and broken in spirit we lie prostrate before anyone, improvident and idle—whereas we ought to hope all the more in the divine compassion at the very time when human aids have failed.
Let men learn to love their children from the practice and piety of crows, which even in the variety of their offspring accompany them with diligent attendance, and, anxious lest the tender ones perchance fail, supply food and do not forsake the duties of nurturing for a long stretch of time. But women of a barking sort quickly wean even those whom they love, or, if they are wealthier, disdain to nurse them: poorer women cast out their little ones and expose them and disown them when found. The rich themselves too, lest their patrimony be divided among many, have their offspring taken away in the womb and, with parricidal potions, extinguish the pledges of their own womb in the very generative belly, and life is taken away before it is handed over. Who, save man, has taught that children should be disowned? Who devised such cruel rights of fathers?
Who, amid the brotherly fellowships of nature, has made brothers unequal? The sons of one rich man are cut off by diverse lot. One is flooded with the assignments of the whole paternal estate; another bewails the exhausted and needy portion of his father's opulent inheritance. Has nature divided the deserts of the children? The midwife brings it about equally for all that they may have the substance for being born and for living. Let nature herself teach you not to distinguish by patrimony those whom you have made equal by the title of brotherhood. For to those to whom you have given to be in common the fact that they are born, you ought not to grudge that they should have in common that estate into which they have been set by nature.
Hawks are said to display a harsh severity toward their own brood, in that, when they observe them attempting the first beginnings of flight, they cast them out of their nests and continually expel them, and, if they linger, drive them off with their wings and hurl them down, beat them with their pinions, and compel them to dare what they tremble at, nor do they afterward render to them any gift of nourishment. Yet what wonder is it, if those accustomed to plunder disdain to nourish? Let us consider that they were begotten for this, that even the birds might be schooled by fear into singing, lest they everywhere relax their cares, but might look out for dangers to be avoided from predators. Then, since by a certain nature the office of plundering has grown ingrained in them, they seem rather to be training their chicks from tenderness for the prey than to be disowning them to spare the costs of feeding.
They take care lest the chicks grow sluggish in tender age, lest they be unstrung by delights, lest they wither in idleness, lest they learn to await food rather than to seek it, lest they lay aside the vigor of their nature by occasion. They break off the efforts of nourishing, that they may compel them to dare the practice of plundering. The eagle too is much spoken of, in that it disowns its brood—yet not both, but one of two chicks. Some have thought this is done out of a loathing of doubling the food. But I do not think it readily to be believed, especially since Moses gave so great a testimony of piety toward its chicks to this bird, as to say: 'As an eagle protects its nest and broods over its young: it spreads out its wings and took them up and bore them upon its shoulders.'
'The Lord alone led them.' How then does it spread out its wings, if it kills one of them? Whence I think that it becomes harsh not from a greed of nourishing, but from a testing of judgment. For it is always said to test those it has begotten, lest the deformity of a degenerate offspring should discolor that royal eminence of its kind among all the birds. And so it is asserted that it exposes its chicks to the rays of the sun and holds the little ones suspended by its talon in mid-air. And if any, when the sun's light is reflected back, keeps the keen edge of its eyes undaunted with unshaken vigor of gazing, it is approved, because by the constancy of its untroubled gaze it has demonstrated the truth of its nature in its genuineness.
But the one which, having its eyes dazzled by the ray of the sun, is, as it were, degenerate and unworthy of so great a parent, is cast off, nor is it deemed worthy of rearing which was unworthy of acceptance. It condemns it, then, not by the bitterness of nature, but by the integrity of judgment, nor does it disown it as its own, but rejects it as alien. Yet this one, as is reported to some, the clemency of a plebeian bird excuses. For there is a bird whose name is 'coot,' which in Greek is called phēnē (φήνη), which takes up that eaglet—whether disowned, or not acknowledged—and joins it with its own offspring, and, mingling it with its own, feeds and nurtures it with the same office of maternal diligence and with an equal furnishing of nourishment as its own brood. Therefore the phēnē nourishes the offspring of others;
but we, with unfeeling cruelty, cast away our own. The eagle, if it casts off, does not cast off as its own, but does not recognize it as degenerate; we, what is worse, disown those whom we recognize as our own. But let us come to the turtledove, which the law of God chose as the offering of a chaste victim. Accordingly, when the Lord was circumcised, it was offered, because it is written in the law of the Lord that they should give a sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. For this is the true sacrifice of Christ: bodily chastity and spiritual grace. Chastity is referred to the turtledove, grace to the dove.