Obstarique animae, misera de sede volenti Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide. Up from the stream with sluggish flaps, MERULA. Kóoovços. Blackbird. Turdus merula. American literary parallels: Grackle, redwing, blackbird, robin. Ben King: De Blackbird fetched de Spring. Ben King: The Blackbird and the Thrush. A playful reference to the alarm-song of the blackbird: Sed facitodum merula per vorsus quod cantat [tu] colas: The text adopted is that of Lindsay. For a discussion of the passage vid. Cl. Rev. 1891, p. 323; Id., 1892, p. 124 and p. 227. Lindsay thus translates: "But see that you follow what the blackbird sings in its stave, see that they come 'food or no food,' as if they were marching to Sutrium." Verbal interpretations of the songs of birds by children and country folk are fairly common. Lindsay quotes 'a little bit of bread and no cheese,' as applied to the song of the yellow-hammer by English children. And the blackbird sang, 'She is sorry, sorry, sorry, Loquacious black-birds in the sunny brake The red-wing flutes his o-ka-lee.-EMERSON. Just come the blackbirds chatt'rin' in tall trees.-LOWELL. Within my limits, lone and still The blackbird pipes in artless trill.-WARTON. The blackbirds jangle in the tops Of hoary, antlered sycamores.—HOWELLS. Blackbirds are singing Clear hylas ringing.-CHANNING (Stedman). The flock of blackbirds chattering in council overhead. -CROSBY (Stedman). Then, like a congress of blackbirds, held In ancient tree-tops in October eves.-BAYARD TAYLOR. No blackbird bates his jargoning For passing Cavalry.-EMILY DICKINSON. The frolic of the blackbirds.-WHITTIER. Even the blackbirds in yon leafless tree Wheezing and squeaking in discordant glee.-LAMPMAN. In English gardens, green and bright and full of fruity I heard the blackbird with delight repeat his merry measure. The sudden blackbirds bluster on the boughs.-Matthews. A 'blackbirder' with eyes aloft falls into a pit and calls for aid: Hic, dum sublimis versus ructatur et errat, Many years ago, one election day, when he and other boys or young men were out gunning to see how many birds they could kill, Jonathan Hildreth, who lived near by, saw one of these birds (Scarlet Tanager) on the top of a tree before him in the woods, but did not see a ditch that crossed his course between him and it. As he raised his gun, he exclaimed, 'Fire never redder!' and, taking a step or two forward, with his eyes fixed on the bird, fell headlong into the ditch; and so the name became a byword among his fellows.-THOREAU, op. cit., p. 328. Blackbirds form part of a banquet: Deinde secuti Mazonomo pueri magno discerpta ferentes The blackbird's song: Et merulus modulans tam pulchris zinzitat odis, These words of appreciation are remarkably modern in tone. Cf. Tennyson, The Blackbird. The blackbird like the lark did not get its full meed of honor among the ancients. As with the lark, there was lacking a great metamorphosis myth to fix and hold the bird in popular fancy. Cf. the onomatopoetic verb zinzitare with Plaut., Cas. 524, Cum cibo cum quiqui. They may reflect the same notes, though more likely the Plautine words are taken from the bird's winter notes. Cf. Plin. X, 28, hieme balbutit. The blackbird from a neighboring thorn With music brims the cup of morn.-TIMROD. Like the merle's note when its ecstatic heart And the blackbird left the piping of His amorous airy glee.-ALICE CARY. Or blackbirds' note, the harbinger of love.-FRENEAU. To my ear the blackbird is the most satisfying of English birds.-CHAPMAN, An American's Impression of English Birds. Scrib. 39, 715. Italy. MILVUS. 'Ixtivos, Kite. Falco milvus, also M. ictinus and M. ater, both being migrants in American parallels: Swallow-tailed kite, falcon. Stoddard (Stedman): The Falcon. A kite threatened with a law suit for theft: Pulmentum pridem eripuit ei milvos; Ut sibi liceret milvom vadarier. -PLAUT., Aul. 316. A picture of a kite hovering greedily in circling flight over the entrails of a sacrifice: glide. Ut volucris visis rapidissima milvus extis, -Ov., Met. II, 716. Cf. Vivit edax vultur ducensque per aera gyros Another English name for the kite is glead or gled-cognate with The clocking hen her chirping chickins leads With wings and beak defends them from the gleads. Has any Whitret's direfu' jaws, Or greedy Gled's fell squeezing claws, Made thy wee lord a feast?-ALEXANDER WILSON. Save when the falcon, poised on wheeling wings. Yonder bird, Which floats, as if at rest, -BAYARD TAYLOR. In those blue tracts above the thunder.-TIMROD. Don't the buzzards ooze around up thare jest like they've allus done?-RILEY. Er a hawk-away up there, 'Pearantly froze in the air.-RILEY. And the shadder o' the buzzard as he goes 'a-lazein' by. -RILEY. Distances were proverbially measured by the flight of the kite: Dic, passer, cui tot montes, tot praedia servas Nostin' Vettidi praedia? Cuius? Dives arat Curibus quantum non milvus errat. -PER. IV, 25. South as far As ever eagle cleaved his way.-MILLER. I know a falcon swift and peerless.-Lowell. The kite mounts to the very stars: Hinc prope summa rapax milvus ad astra volat. Cf. Petr. 37, Qua milvi volant. He followed his high heart -MART. IX, 54. To swim on sunshine.-LOWELL. A procurer likened to a kite and as such feared: Tene sis me arte, mea voluptas; male ego metuo milvos. -PLAUT., Poen. 1292. The heartless falcon, poised for flight.-LATHROP (Sladen). The greed of cooks and kites is on a par: An tu invenire postulas quemquam coquom Nisi milvinis aut aquilinis ungulis? -PLAUT., Pseud. 851. Cf. Petr. 49. Mulier, quae mulier! milvinum genus. The kite's hunger was proverbial: Madida quae mi adposita in mensam milvinam suggerant. Cf. 'Hungry as a wolf.' 'Wolfsbären.' 'Bovλuía.' |