Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/316

294 herself, no nor the very sea (as men say) nor the least thing in the world can get into it. And will you see, moreover, what kindness and natural affection the sea-weesils or sea-dogs do shew unto their little ones? They breed their young whelps or kitlings alive within their bellies, and when they list, let them forth and suffer them to run abroad for relief and to get their food, and afterwards receive them into their bodies again, enclosing them whiles they be asleep themselves, cherishing them couched in their bowels and womb. The she-bear, a most fell, savage and cruel beast, bringeth forth her young whelps without form or fashion, unknit and unjointed, having no distinct limbs or members to be seen; howbeit with her tongue, as it were with a tool and instrument for the purpose, she keepeth such a licking of them, she formeth and fashioneth those membranes wherein they were lapped in her womb, in such sort that she seemeth not only to have brought forth her young, but also to have wrought them afterwards workman-like to their shape and proportion. As for that lion which Homer describeth in this wise: think you not by this description that he resembleth one who is bent to capitulate and stand upon terms of composition with the hunters for to save the life of his httle ones? To speak in a word, this tender love and affection of beasts toward their young maketh them that otherwise be timorous, hardy and bold; those that be slow and idle by nature, laborious and painful; and such as of themselves are greedy and ravenous, to be spare and temperate in their feeding, like as the bird whereof the same Homer speaketh:

For content she is even with her own hunger to nourish her little ones, and the same food or bait that she hath for them, being so near as it is unto her own craw and gesier, she holdeth close and fast in her bill, for fear lest she might swallow it down the throat ere she were aware: