Note 381 — CANES VENATICI. Class II.
William Dansey translation
The loud latrancy of the tribe escaped not the notice of the bard of Avon, who has cleverly appropriated much of the borrowed shape and κλαγγὴ of a modern pack (Sir Thomas Lucy’s, perhaps, or other Warwickshire squire’s) to our classic breed of the olden time:
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act iv.
I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear Such gallant chiding; for besides the groves, The skies, the fountains, every region near Seem’d all one mutual cry: I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
With Angelio’s description of the Cretan hounds, the more striking features of which are drawn from passages already cited, I close their portraiture.
P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. L. v.
Est eadem facies, et eidem proxima formæ Corpora: membrorum sed non æquantia molem Dictæis, animus tamen, et constantia pugnax, Quandoquidem serus litem si fortè diremit Vesper, et obtentis umbrantur rura tenebris; Nusquam abeunt, nusquam vestigia pressa relinquunt, Verùm hærent vigiles, &c.