Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 2) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/269

Book 15. Wild Beasts their Maws with their slain Brethren fill; And yet not all, for some refuse to kill; Sheep, Goats, and Oxen, and the nobler Steed, On Browz, and Corn, and flow'ry Meadows, feed. Bears, Tygers, Wolves, the Lyon's angry Brood, Whom Heav'n endu'd with Principles of Blood, He wisely sundred from the rest, to yell In Forests, and in lonely Caves to dwell; Where stronger Beasts oppress the Weak by Might, And all in Prey, and purple Feasts delight. O impious Use! to Nature's Laws oppos'd, Where Bowels are in other Bowels clos'd: Where, fatten'd by their Fellow's Fat, they thrive; Maintain'd by Murder, and by Death they live. 'Tis then for nought, that Mother Earth provides The Stores of all she shows, and all she hides, If Men with fleshy Morsels must be fed, And chaw with bloody Teeth the breathing Bread: What else is this, but to devour our Guests, And barb'rously renew Cyclopean Feasts! We, by destroying Life, our Life sustain; And gorge th' ungodly Maw with Meats obscene. Not so the Golden Age, who fed on Fruit, Nor durst with bloody Meals their Mouths pollute. Then Birds in airy Space might safely move, And tim'rous Hares on Heaths securely rove: Nor needed Fish the guileful Hooks to fear, For all was peaceful; and that Peace sincere. Whoever was the Wretch, (and curs'd be he) That envy'd first our Food's Simplicity, Th' Essay of bloody Feasts on Brutes began, And after forg'd the Sword to murder Man. Had he the sharpen'd Steel alone employ'd On Beasts of Prey, that other Beasts destroy'd Or Man invaded with their Fangs, and Paws, This had been justify'd by Nature's Laws, And