Note 272 — Chapter XII · THE ESQUILINE.
Reading edition
This pagan benediction of the animals is represented in a bas-relief in the Vatican (Museo Pio-Clementino, 157). A peasant bearing two ducks as his offering, brings his cow to be blessed by a priest at the door of a chapel, and the priest delaying to come forth, a calf drinks up the holy water. Ovid describes how he took part in the feast of Pales, and sprinkled the cattle with a laurel bough. (Fasti, iv. 728.)