WORKS.
31
Nor Jove, whose radiant eyes behold afar,
Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war.
Nor scathe nor famine on the righteous prey;
Feasts, strewn by earth, employ their easy day:
Rich are their mountain oaks: the topmost trees
With clustering acorns full, the trunks with hiving bees.
Burthen'd with fleece their panting flocks: the race
Of woman soft reflects the father's face:[1]
Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war.
Nor scathe nor famine on the righteous prey;
Feasts, strewn by earth, employ their easy day:
Rich are their mountain oaks: the topmost trees
With clustering acorns full, the trunks with hiving bees.
Burthen'd with fleece their panting flocks: the race
Of woman soft reflects the father's face:[1]
- ↑ Reflects the father’s face.] Montesquieu remarks: “The people mentioned by Pomponius Mela (the Garamantes) had no other way of discovering the father but by resemblance. Pater est quem nuptiæ demonstrant.” But this uncertain criterion was considered as infallible generally by the ancients.She whom no conjugal affections bind,
Still on a stranger bends her fickle mind:
But easy to discern the spurious race,
None in the child the father’s features trace.
Theocritus—Encomium of Ptolemy.Oh may a young Torquatus bending
From his mother’s breast to thee,
His tiny infant hands extending,
Laugh with half-open’d lips in childish ecstasy:
May he reflect the father in his face:
Known for a Mallius to the glancing eye
Of strangers unaware, who trace
In the boy’s forehead of paternal grace
A mother’s shining chastity.
Catullus—Epithalamium on Julia and Mallius.
