Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/494

At puer Ascanius mediis in vallibus acri
Gaudet equo, jamque hos cursu, jam præterit illos,
Spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia votis
Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem.

Æn. iv. 151-159.

So Ovid (Epist. iv. 41, 42):

 In nemus ire libet, pressisque in retia cervis,
Hortari celeres per juga summa canes;

and (Epist. v. 19, 20):

 Retia sæpe comes maculis distincta tetendi,
Sæpe citos egi per juga longa canes.

The younger Pliny describes himself on one occasion sitting beside the nets, while the hunters were pursuing the boars and driving them into the snare (Epist. i. 6). In Euripides (Bacc. 821-832) we find the following beautiful description of a fawn, which has been driven into the space inclosed by the nets, but has leaped over them and escaped:—

(Greek characters) [Greek: hôs nebros chloerais
empaizousa leimakos hê-
donais, hênik' an phoberon phygê
thêram' ezô phylakas
euplektôn hyper arkyôn], &c.

Here a Bacchanal, tossing her head into the air with gambols and dancing, is said to be "like a fawn sporting in the green delights of a meadow, when she has escaped the fearful chase by leaping over the well-platted nets so as to be out of the inclosure, whilst the shouting hunter has been urging his dogs to run still more swiftly: by great efforts and with the rapidity of the winds she bounds over a plain beside a river, pleased with solitudes remote from man, and hides herself in the thickets of an umbrageous forest." If hollows or valleys were inclosed^[1], the nets were no doubt

1. Nec, velit insidiis altassi claudere valles,
   Dum placeas, humeri retia ferre negent.—Tibullus, i. 4. 49, 50.
   
   
   It was the duty of the attendants (J. Pollux, v. 4. 27-31) in most cases to carry the nets on their shoulders, agreeably to the representation in the Plate X. Pliny, l. c.
   Cassibus impositos venor.—Propert. iv. 2. 32.
   . . . alius raras
   Cervice gravi portare plagas.—Sen. Hippol. i. l. 44.