Note 8 — Chapter II · THE ODYNERI

Latin antiquity called the Hoopoe Upupa; Greek antiquity named it Ἔποψ. But Pliny turned the ἔ into ou and must have pronounced the word Oupoupa, as the cry imitated by the name teaches me to do. Rarely have I received a lesson in Latin pronunciation better authenticated than yours,8 you beautiful bird, who provide a diversion for my long hours of weariness. Faithful to your idiom, you say “Oopoopoo!” as you said in the days of Aristotle and Pliny, as you said when your note sounded for the first time. But our own idioms, our primitive idioms, what has become of them? The scholar cannot even recover their traces. Man alters; animals do not change.