Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/397

. COXCEZXIXG FRIENDSHIP. 303 why he is thus serviceable to him. For that the crocodile opens his jaws for the little wren is not to be attributed to friendship, when either creature is led by its own advantage. The crocodile loves to have his teeth cleansed, and therefore embraces the pleasure of having them picked; and the wren seeks her food, feeding upon the fragments of fish that stick in the other's teeth, and for the same reason a crow rides upon a sow's back. There is such a stubborn enmity between the anthus and segythus, that it is affirmed their blood will not mingle one with the other; just as it is related of other birds, that their feathers will consume away if they be mingled with those of the eagle.

A hawk is a deadly enemy to the dovekind, but the little bird the kestrel defends them, for a hawk is wonderfully afraid either to see or hear that bird. Nor are the pigeons ignorant of this; wheresoever the kestrel has her nest, they will never leave that place, relying upon their defenders. Who can give a reason why a kestrel should be so friendly to pigeons, or why a hawk should be so afraid of a kestrel ? And as a very little animal is sometimes a safeguard to a great beast, so, on the contrary, a very little one is often a destruction to a great one. There is a little fish in the form of a scorpion, and of the size of the fish quaquiner; he sometimes sticks his sting into the fin of tunnies, that often are bigger than a dolphin, and puts them to that torture that they sometimes leap into ships, and the same he does to the mullet. What should be the reason that a lion, that is terrible to all anim-als, should be struck with fear at hearing a cock crow ? Jo. That I may not be altogether scot-free in this entertainment, I will tell you what I saw with my own eyes in the house of that famous Englishman Sir Thomas More : He kept in his house a large monkey, who, that he might the sooner get well of a wound he had received, was suffered to go loose. At the end of the garden there were rabbits kept in hutches, and a weasel used to watch them very narrowly. The monkey sitting aloof off quietly, as though uncon- cerned, observed all his motions till he saw the rabbits were in no danger from him. But perceiving the weasel had lodsened a board in the back part of the hutch, and that now they were in danger to be attacked in the rear, and so be made a prey to their enemy, the ape runs, jumps up on the plank and put it into its former place with as much dexterity as any man could have done ; from whence it is plain that apes are great lovers of this animal. So the coneys, not knowing their own danger, that used to kiss their enemy through the grate, were preserved by the monkey. Apes are mightily delighted with all young whelps, and love to hug them and carry them about in their arms. Ep. But that good-natured monkey did really deserve to be. made amends for his kindness. Jo. And he was too. Ep. How ? Jo. He found there a piece of bread that had, I suppose, been thrown there by the children, which he took up and ate.

Ep. But it seems most admirable to me that this kind of sympathy and antipathy, as the Greeks call a natural affection of friendship and enmity, should be found even in things that have neither life nor sense. I omit to mention the ash tree, the very shadow of which a serpent cannot endure; so that how far soever it spreads, if you make a circle of fire of the same bigness, the serpent will sooner go iuto