Note 202 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.
William Dansey translation
Ἐκ τοῦ εὐθέος διαγωνιζόμενοι. Many are the instances recorded in which the agency of the hound of chase was despised by “the light-footed sons of Chiron’s school.” The heroes and heroines of old were all-sufficient for the capture of the fleetest animals of the forest and plain. This was indeed coursing in good earnest, and is well illustrated by the simile of the text. In this way Diana furnished her chariot with deer, her πρωτάγριον, the swiftest beasts of draught—
Callimach. H. in Dian. vs. 105.
—— πίσυρας δ’ ἕλες ὦκα θέουσα, νόσφι κυνοδρομίης, ἵνα τοι θοὸν ἅρμα φέρωσι.
In this way, the son of Peleus arrested the attention of her sylvan ladyship and the goddess Pallas,
Lee’s Pindar. Nem. Od. iii.
when, if we credit tales believed of old, His speed subdued the bounding stag, his spoil— By hounds unaided and the treach’rous toil.
Justin. II. L. xxxvii. c. ii.
Mithridates, in later days, was wont, during his rustication, “feras cursu aut fugare, aut persequi, cum quibusdam etiam viribus congredi.” And in our own annals,Description of Britaine. Booke Thirde. c. 7. “King Henrye the fift,” says Holinshed, “thought it a mere scoffery to pursue any fallow deare wyth hounds or greyhounds, but supposed hym selfe alwayes to have done a sufficient acte, when he had tired them by his own travaile on foote, and so kylled them wyth hys handes, in the upshot of that exercise and ende of hys recreation.”