Hexameron 5.45–5.76

Fittingly, after the description of fish, our discourse has passed to those birds that are accustomed to the waters, because they too delight in the habit and gift of swimming. So there seems to be a first kinship of these birds with fish, since a certain common sharing in swimming seems to belong to both kinds. There is a second kinship of birds and fish in that the habit of flying is a form of swimming. For as the fish cuts the water by swimming, so the bird cuts the air by swift flight. And both kinds alike have a tail and the oarage of wings, so that fish lift themselves forward with a rein, as it were, and go further, and with the rudder of the tail either turn easily wherever they wish or direct their way straight ahead with a kind of rush. Birds too swim through the air in their flights as through waters, and stretch out their arms, as it were, and with the tail either raise themselves upward or plunge downward. So, since in some the same habit and form exist, the birth of both kinds came forth from the waters by divine command. For God said: “Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls after their kind, and birds flying along the firmament of heaven after their kind.” Not without reason, then, since both kinds are produced from the waters, the property of swimming belongs to both.

Indeed, while the slippery snake … serpents (for the name serpent was given because they cannot walk but creep), and dragons too, in the same way as most fish, are without feet, no kind of bird lacks the service of feet, because all get their food from the land. And so they are supported by the gift of feet, because they need such service to seek food. So some birds are armed with talons for seizing, like hawks and eagles, which practise the plunder of hunting; others use a fitting habit and service either for walking or for getting their food.

One name, “birds,” but different kinds: who could grasp them in memory or knowledge? There are, then, birds that eat flesh. So they have sharp talons, a curved and pointed beak, swift flight, since they live by seizing, so that they can easily catch the prey they pursue and quickly disembowel it with beak or talons. There are also birds that feed on seed they find, others on varied and chance food. There is also a difference in companionship, whose grace those lack that are bent on plunder. For because of their greed for preying, or because of the snares they lay, they do not agree even among themselves, and so they avoid company (for greed flees the partnership of many), and then a gathering of many would easily betray itself. For these birds, then, there is no companionship except that of the mated pair. This is the way of life of eagles and hawks; but on the contrary doves, cranes, starlings, ravens and crows, and thrushes too delight very much in fellowship.

Some kinds of birds are native, which always remain in their places; others are visitors, which go off to other regions and return when the winter is over. There are others that return in winter and travel away from us in summer, either because some betake themselves in wintertime to warmer places, or because many in turn spend the summer in these places, which they know to be pleasanter. Thrushes, for instance, come back at the end of autumn, at the border of winter, as if summer were over. Against them we contrive snares with inhospitable cruelty, and in various ways we strive now to deceive them with a treacherous perch, now to trick them with a whistle, now to catch them with nooses. The return of the stork raises the banner of spring. Cranes, because they seek the heights, often love to travel.

Some birds submit to the hand, become used to the table, and are soothed by touch; others are afraid. Some delight in the same dwellings as men, others love a secret life in the wilderness, making up for the difficulty of seeking their food by the love of freedom. Some only utter cries, others delight with a tuneful and sweet melody. Some by nature, others by training, utter the differences of various voices, so that you would think a man had spoken when a bird has spoken. How sweet the voice of the blackbird, how distinct that of the parrot! There are also some simple ones like doves, others cunning like partridges; the cock is boastful, the peacock showy. There are also differences of life and work in birds, so that some love to take counsel in common and, joining forces, look after a kind of commonwealth and live as under a king, while each of the others looks out for itself, refuses rule, and, if caught, wishes to escape an unworthy servitude.

Let us begin, then, with those that have given themselves to our use as a model. For in them there is a kind of natural polity and military service; in us it is forced and servile. How, with unbidden and voluntary practice, cranes keep anxious watch at night! You may see sentries posted, and while the others of their kind rest, some go round and scout, lest snares be attempted from any side, and with untiring vigour provide protection. Then, when the time of the watch is completed, the one that has done her duty settles herself to sleep, giving a cry first, so as to wake the sleeper to whom she is to hand over her turn of duty. And that one willingly takes up her lot, not, as is our habit, unwilling and lazier in giving up sleep, but shakes herself briskly from her bed, takes her turn, and repays the favour she received with equal care and duty. So there is no desertion, because the devotion is natural; so the guard is safe, because the will is free.

They keep this order in flying too, and by this arrangement lighten all their labour, taking turns in the duty of leading. For one goes before the others for a time appointed to it and runs ahead as it were before the standards; then it turns aside and yields the lot of leading the column to the one following. What is more beautiful than this, that both the labour and the honour are common to all, and power is not claimed by a few but passed on to all by a kind of voluntary lot?

This is the office of the ancient commonwealth and the image of a free city. So at the beginning men had begun to practise the polity received from nature after the example of the birds, so that labour was common, dignity common; each learned to share cares by turns, to divide obedience and command; no one was without a share of honour, no one exempt from labour. This was the most beautiful state of things, and no one grew insolent from perpetual power or was broken by long servitude, because promotion was granted without envy, by the order of service and the measure of time, and the lot that shared the guard seemed more tolerable. No one dared to oppress another with servitude, since he would have to bear in turn the disdain of the one who was to succeed to the honour; no labour was heavy, since the dignity to follow would relieve it. But after the lust of domination began to claim powers once gained and to be unwilling to lay aside those taken up; after military service began to be not a common right but a servitude; after there was no order in taking up power but ambition, the very performance of labour began to be borne more hardly, and what is not voluntary soon gives way to carelessness. How unwillingly men undertake the duties of watches, how grudgingly each one in camp, allotted his danger, stands guard over what is entrusted to him by royal command! A penalty for sloth is set; and yet often carelessness creeps in and the watches are not kept. For necessity, which imposes obedience on the unwilling, usually brings disgust; nothing is so easy that it is not hard when you do it unwillingly. So unceasing labour turns away affection, and continuous and long-lasting power breeds insolence. Which man would you find who would lay down command of his own accord and give up the insignia of his leadership and willingly become last instead of first? We, however, often strive not only for the first place but even for the middle, and claim the first couches at a banquet, and if it is once granted, we want it to be perpetual. So among cranes there is equanimity in labours and humility in power. They are reminded to perform their turns of watch; they are not reminded to give up power, because there the natural rest of sleep must be interrupted, here the grace of voluntary diligence is shown.

They say that storks set out in a gathered column if they think they must go anywhere, and many are carried together to places in the east and move all at once as at a military password. You would think an army was marching with its standards: so all keep the order of travelling, accompanying, and going before. Crows lead and direct them and escort them as with a kind of bodyguard, so much so that they are believed to bring help to them as they fight against hostile birds and to take up others' wars at their own risk. A sign of this is that none are found remaining in those places after any interval of time, and that, returning with wounds, they tell with a clear voice of blood and other signs that they have undergone the clash of heavy battles. Who, then, imposed on them a penalty for desertion, who prescribed fearful punishments for abandoning military service, that none tries to withdraw from the hospitable squadrons, but all eagerly perform the service and duty of escort?

Let men learn to keep the laws of hospitality and know from the birds what reverence is to be shown to guests and what services rendered, since crows do not usually refuse them even their own dangers. We shut our doors to those to whom birds give even their lives; those whom they escort in sharing danger, we keep from the hospitality of our roof; and those whose wars they take up, we often make war on. I lie if this was not the cause of punishment for the Sodomites, and if the madness of Egypt, while it tried to make war on a guest nation, did not pay the penalty of inhospitality by the shipwreck of a faithless people.

Consider how the kindness of this bird does not fall short of the devotion and prudence of rational beings, a kindness which no one of us could imitate even after the example. For when the father's limbs, through long old age, have been stripped of the covering of feathers and the oarage of wings, the offspring, standing round, cherish them with their own feathers and (what shall I say?) feed him with food brought by all, when they also repair the losses of nature, so that, lifting the old one on this side and that with the support of their wings, they train him to fly and call back to their former use the limbs of their devoted father, now unaccustomed. Which of us would not disdain to raise up a sick father? Who would put a weary old man on his shoulders, a thing held scarcely credible even in history? Who, though devoted, would not hand this service over to slaves? But for birds what is full of devotion is not heavy, what is paid as nature's debt is not burdensome. Birds do not refuse to feed a father, which many men have refused even when it was prescribed as a necessity under fear of penalties. Not a written but an inborn law binds birds; no precepts summon birds to this duty, but the offices of natural grace. Birds do not blush to carry the limbs of a revered old man. For it is the conveyance of devotion, which has become so widely known by frequent testimony that it receives the reward of a fitting recompense; for by the usage of the Romans it is called the dutiful bird, and what is said to have been granted scarcely to one emperor by decree of the senate these birds have earned in common. These birds, then, have decrees of the fathers as a token of their kindness; for dutiful sons ought first to be proclaimed by the judgment of fathers. They also have the votes of all; for the return of benefits is named antipelargōsis, since the stork is called pelargos. So the virtue took its name from them, since the repaying of gratitude is named by the word for stork.

We have an example of the devotion of bird offspring toward the honour of their parents; let us now take a great proof of a mother's diligence toward her children. The swallow is tiny in body but outstanding in devoted affection; though in need of everything, she builds nests more precious than gold, because she builds wisely; for a nest of wisdom is better than gold. For what is wiser than both to enjoy the wandering freedom of flying and to entrust her little ones and her house to the dwellings of men, where no one attacks her young? For this too is beautiful, that from their first birth she accustoms her chicks to the habit of human company and makes them safer from the snares of enemies. Then this is remarkable, with what grace she builds herself houses without any helper, as if skilled in the art. For she gathers straws in her beak and smears them with mud so as to glue them together. But since she cannot carry the mud with her feet, she dips the tips of her feathers in water, so that the dust easily sticks to them and becomes mud, with which she gradually gathers the straws or small twigs and makes them stick. With this kind of work she builds the structure of the whole nest, so that her first young move about inside their house as on the floor of a pavement without harm, and no one thrusts a foot through the chinks of the weaving, nor does cold creep in on the tender ones.

But this office of industry is common to many birds; that one, however, is unique, in which there is a remarkable care of devotion and a mark of prudent understanding and knowledge, and also a kind of skill in the art of medicine: if her chicks' eyes have been gouged out by blindness or pierced, she has a kind of healing by which their sight, its use cut off, can be restored. Let no one, then, complain of want because he has left his own house empty of money. The swallow is first, who, empty of money, abounds in industry; she builds and does not spend, raises a roof and takes nothing from her neighbour, nor is she driven by need and poverty to harm another, nor does she despair in the grave weakness of her children. But poverty affects us and the necessity of want troubles us, and need drives many to shameful deeds and impels them to crime; from love of gain too we turn our wit to frauds, adapt our affection, and in the gravest sufferings lay down our hope, and, broken in spirit, …, improvident and inert we lie down, when hope in the divine mercy is all the greater when human defences have failed.

Let men learn to love their children from the habit and devotion of crows, which follow their children with diligent company even in … and, anxious lest the tender ones fail, supply them with food and do not leave off the duties of nourishing for a very long time. But women of the human kind quickly wean even those they love, or, if they are richer, disdain to suckle them; the poorer ones cast away their little ones and expose them, and when discovered disown them. The rich themselves, too, lest their patrimony be divided among more, destroy their offspring in the womb, and with parricidal potions extinguish the pledges of their own belly in the very womb of birth, and life is taken away before it is given. Who taught children to be disinherited except man? Who devised such pitiless laws of fathers? Who made brothers unequal amid the brotherly partnership of nature? The sons of one rich man are cut off by different lots. One is flooded with the assignments of the whole paternal estate; another bewails the drained and poor portion of his father's rich inheritance. Did nature divide the merits of sons? The midwife … equally to all, so that they may have the substance of being born and living. Let her teach you not to distinguish by patrimony those whom you have made equal by the title of brotherhood. For to those to whom you gave in common that they were born, you ought not to begrudge that they have in common that to which nature appointed them.

Hawks are said to show a harsh unkindness toward their own young in that, when they notice them trying the first beginnings of flight, they throw them out of their nests and drive them out at once, and if they linger, push them with their feathers and hurl them down, beat them with their wings, and force them to dare what they fear, and afterward give them no gift of nourishment. Yet what wonder if those accustomed to seize disdain to feed? Let us consider that they were born for this, that fear may exercise even the birds in singing, lest they relax their cares at random, but foresee dangers to be avoided from the plunderers. Then, since the business of preying has grown into them by a kind of nature, they seem rather to train their chicks from tender age for prey than to disown them out of thrift in feeding. They beware lest they grow sluggish at a tender age, lest they be loosened by delights, lest they wither in idleness, lest they learn to wait for food rather than seek it, lest they lay aside the vigour of their nature. They stop the work of feeding so as to force them to dare the practice of seizing.

The eagle too is spoken of in much talk as disowning its young, not both but one of two chicks. Some have thought this happens from distaste for double feeding. But I do not think this should easily be believed, especially since Moses gave this bird such testimony of devotion to its young as to say: “As an eagle protects its nest and is confident over its young, it spread out its wings and took them and received them on its shoulders. The Lord alone led them.” How then does it spread out its wings if it kills one? So I think it becomes harsh not from stinginess in feeding but from weighing in judgment. For it is said always to test those it has begotten, lest the deformity of a degenerate offspring tarnish the kind of royal eminence of its race among all birds. So it is asserted that it exposes its chicks to the rays of the sun and holds the little ones suspended in mid-air in its talons. And if any … the gaze of its eyes, unflinching at the reflected light of the sun, with unharmed vigour of looking, it is approved, because it has shown the truth of its nature by the steadiness of a pure gaze; but one that has its eyes dazzled by the sun's ray is rejected as degenerate and unworthy of so great a parent, nor is it thought worthy of rearing that was unworthy of acceptance. So it condemns it not from harshness of nature but by the integrity of its judgment, and does not disown it as its own but refuses it as a stranger's.

Yet the kindness of a common bird excuses this … of the royal bird, as some report. For the bird whose name is fulica, called phēnē in Greek, joins that eaglet, whether taken up or disowned or not recognized, to its own brood, and mixing it with its own, feeds and nourishes it with the same duty of motherly care and equal supply of food as its own young. So the phēnē nourishes strangers' young, while we cast out our own with pitiless cruelty. The eagle, if it casts one out, does not cast it out 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 gift of a chaste offering. Indeed, when the Lord was circumcised, it was offered, because it is written in the law of the Lord that they should give as an offering a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. For this is the true sacrifice of Christ: chastity of body and grace of spirit. Chastity is referred to the turtledove, grace to the dove. For it is said that the turtledove, when she has been widowed by the loss of her mate, is weary of the marriage chamber and of the very name of marriage, since her first love deceived her by death, since he was both unfaithful to permanence and bitter to love, having produced more grief by death than sweetness by love. So she refuses to repeat the union, and does not dissolve the rights of modesty or the covenant with her deceased husband; for him alone she keeps her love, for him she keeps the name of wife. Learn, women, how great is the grace of widowhood, which is proclaimed even in birds.

Who then gave these laws to the turtledove? If I look for a man, I do not find one. For no man has dared, since not even Paul dared to prescribe laws for keeping widowhood. Indeed he says: “I want, then, the younger women to marry, bear children, be mistresses of households, give no occasion to the adversary”; and elsewhere: “It is good for them if they remain so; but if they do not contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.” Paul desires in women what persists in turtledoves. And elsewhere he urges the younger women to marry, because our women can hardly fulfil the chastity of turtledoves. So God poured this affection into turtledoves, gave them this virtue of continence, he who alone can prescribe what all may follow. The turtledove is not inflamed by the flower of youth, is not tempted by the allurement of opportunity; the turtledove does not know how to make void her first faith, because she knows how to keep the chastity promised to the lot of marriage.

We have spoken of the widowhood of birds, and that this virtue first arose from them; now let us speak of virginity, which is asserted to exist in several birds, so that it can be found even in vultures. For vultures are said not to indulge in intercourse or to be joined by any conjugal practice or the lot of nuptial union, and so to conceive without any seed of males and to beget without union; and the young born of them go on to great age in long life, so that the course of their life is drawn out up to a hundred years, and the end of a narrow lifespan does not easily overtake them.

What do those say who are accustomed to laugh at our mysteries when they hear that a virgin gave birth, and who judge the birth of an unmarried woman, whose modesty no intercourse with a man had violated, impossible? Is what is not denied to be possible in vultures thought impossible in the Mother of God? A bird gives birth without a male and no one refutes it; and because Mary, though betrothed, gave birth, they raise a question about her modesty. Do we not notice that the Lord sent ahead many examples from nature itself, by which to prove the fittingness of the incarnation he took up and to establish its truth?

Now come, let me set out which birds seem to look after a kind of commonwealth and to spend the time of this life under laws. Here it occurs that the practice of a commonwealth is that laws are common to all and are observed with common devotion; that all are held by one bond, so that it is not lawful for one what another understands is not lawful for himself, but what is lawful is lawful for all and what is not lawful is not lawful for all; that there is also a common reverence for the fathers, by whose counsel the commonwealth is governed, a common dwelling of the city for all, a common duty of conduct; it occurs that one counsel is prescribed for all.

These things are great, but how much more excellent are they in bees, which alone among all kinds of living creatures have offspring common to all, all dwell in one home, are enclosed within the threshold of one fatherland. Labour is common to all, food common, common to all the work, common the use and the fruit, common the flight (why say more?), common to all the generation; you may find the integrity of virginal body common to all too, since they neither mingle with one another in any intercourse nor are their bodies loosened in lust nor shaken by the pains of childbirth, and suddenly they send forth a huge swarm of children, gathering their offspring with their mouths from leaves and herbs.

They appoint a king for themselves, they create peoples themselves, and though placed under a king they are free. For they hold the prerogative of the king and the affection of faithful devotion, because they love him as appointed by themselves and honour him with so great a swarm. The king is not chosen by lot, because in a lot there is chance, not judgment, and often by the irrational chance of the lot the lowest is preferred to the better; nor is he marked out by the vulgar clamour of an unskilled multitude, which does not weigh the merits of virtue or search out the profits of public advantage, but sways in the uncertainty of fickleness; nor does he sit on the royal throne by privilege of succession and birth, since one ignorant of public life could not be prudent and learned. Add the flatteries and pleasures that, ingrained in tender years, usually weaken even a keen wit, and then the instructions of eunuchs, many of whom incline the king's mind more to their own gain than to public use. But among the bees the king is formed by the clear marks of nature, so as to excel in size of body and appearance, and then in what is chief in a king, gentleness of character. For though he has a sting, he does not use it to punish. For there are laws of nature, not written in letters but impressed on character, that those who hold the greatest power should be gentler in punishing. And those that have not obeyed the king's laws punish themselves by a penitent condemnation, so that they die of the wound of their own sting. The peoples of the Persians are said to keep this even today, so that they themselves carry out on themselves the sentence of their own death as the price of what they have done. So none, not the Persians, who have the severest laws over their subjects, not the Indians, not the peoples of the Sarmatians, observe their king with such reverence of devotion as the bees, so that none dare go out of their houses or go forth to any pasture unless the king has gone out first and claimed for himself the leadership of the flight.

Their going forth is through fragrant fields, where the gardens breathe with flowers, where a brook runs through the grass, where the pleasant banks are: there the play of eager youth, there exercise in the field, there relief from cares. The work itself is sweet. From flowers, from sweet herbs, the first foundations of the camp are laid. For what else is the honeycomb but a kind of camp? Indeed the drone is kept away from these stalls of bees. What square camp can have as much art and grace as the frames of the combs have, in which tiny round cells hold one another up? What architect taught them to build hexagonal cells with the undistinguished equality of their sides, to hang thin waxen walls between the houses, to pack the honey, and to swell their storehouses, woven with flowers, with a kind of nectar? You may see them all compete in their duty: some watch in seeking food, others keep anxious guard, others look out for coming rains and watch the gathering of clouds, others shape wax from flowers, others gather with their mouths the dew poured on flowers; none, however, lays snares for others' labours and seeks a living by plunder. And would that they did not fear the snares of plunderers! Yet they have their stings, and pour poison among the honey if they are provoked, and lay down their lives in the wound in the heat of vengeance. So the moisture of the dew is poured into the middle of the camp's valleys, and little by little, in the course of time, is thickened into honey, though it was liquid at the beginning, and by the union of the wax and the fragrance of flowers begins to breathe the sweetness of honey.

Rightly Scripture praises the bee as a good worker, saying: “Go to the bee and see how she is a worker, and how honourable a work she carries on, whose labour kings and common people use for their health; for she is desired by all and renowned.” Do you hear what the prophet says? He certainly sends you to follow the example of that little bee and to imitate its work. You see how laborious, how pleasing it is. Its fruit is desired and sought by all, and is not distinguished according to difference of persons, but with impartial grace is sweet with equal sweetness to kings and common people alike. Nor is it only for pleasure, but also for health. It sweetens the throat and heals wounds, and pours medicine into inner ulcers too. So, though the bee is weak in strength, it is strong in the vigour of wisdom and the love of virtue.

Indeed they defend their king with the utmost protection and think it beautiful to die for him. While the king is safe they do not know how to change their purpose; when he is lost they abandon their faithfulness to their work, and themselves tear apart the honey, because he who held the leadership of their duty has been killed.

So, while other birds scarcely produce one brood a year, bees produce two and outweigh the rest by double fruitfulness.

Let us now consider what it means when he says: “Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls, and birds flying above the earth after their kind and along the firmament of heaven.” Why he said “above the earth” is certain, because they get their food from the earth; but how “along the firmament of heaven,” when eagles fly beyond the other birds and yet they themselves are not along the firmament of heaven? But since what we call caelum in Latin is called ouranos in Greek, and ouranos is from horasthai, that is, from seeing, because the air is transparent and purer for seeing, he spoke of the kinds of living creatures flying in the air. Nor let it trouble you that he says “along the firmament of heaven.” He did not put “firmament” here in its proper sense, but loosely, because in comparison with that ethereal body even this air, which we can grasp with our eyes, takes the place of a firmament, as being thick and denser.

Now, since we have said what the birds are, what nature or grace they have, and that only a few things out of many (for there is no time to describe them all, since they are similar and of the same …), let us nevertheless consider what difference the birds themselves have among them. For we find the crow's feet separated and divided as with distinct toes, the feet of the raven and of chickens also formed otherwise by nature, and those of birds that eat flesh hooked, as it were, and ready for prey. More elegant are those that have the use and habit of swimming: they have broad feet, with the toes joined and linked together by a kind of membrane. In this the admirable reason of nature lies open, that the former are supported by a fitting use for flying or seizing food, and the latter have suitable aids for swimming, so that they can float better on the waters and master the streams of the waters with their feet, broadened by the extension of that membrane, as with oars.

It is obvious too why the swan has a longer neck: since it is somewhat sluggish in body and cannot easily penetrate the lower parts of the waters, it stretches out its neck for prey, so that the neck, going ahead of the rest of the body as it were, may seize the food it has found and dig it out of the depth. Add this, that a sweeter and more tuneful melody is articulated through a long neck, and by longer exercise rings out far purer.

How sweet, too, is the song in the tiny throat of the cicadas, by whose songs the groves are split in midsummer, because they are more tuneful in the midday heat: the purer the air they draw in with their breath at that time, the clearer their songs resound. Nor do the bees themselves sing something unpleasant; for they have a pleasing sweetness in that hoarse murmur of their voice, which we seem first to have imitated, more slowly, in the broken sound of trumpets, a din than which nothing is thought more fitting for rousing spirits to vigour. And this grace too remains to them, that many are reported to have no lung or function and use of breathing at all, but to feed on airy breath. Indeed, if anyone pours oil over them, they are quickly killed, because with their pores blocked they cannot draw in that airy breath; and at once, if anyone pours vinegar on them, they recover immediately, because the force of the vinegar is said to open quickly by its moisture those pores which are blocked by the congealing of the oil.