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In the amours of many animals there is much variety.
[p. 188]
Some are furious and mad; others observe a kind
of human decency, and tricking of themselves to set off
their beauty, not without a courtly kind of conversation.
Such was the amour of the elephant at Alexandria, that
rivalled Aristophanes the grammarian. For they were
both in love with a girl that sold garlands; nor was the
elephant's courtship less conspicuous than the other's.
For as he passed through the fruit-market, he always
brought her apples, and stayed with her for some time, and
thrusting his proboscis within her waistcoat, instead of
a hand, took great delight in gently feeling her breasts.
No less remarkable was the serpent in love with the
Aetolian woman. He came to her in the night, and getting
under her garments to her very skin, embraced her naked
body; and never either willingly or unwillingly did he do
her any harm, but always about break of day departed;
which the kindred of the woman observing to be the common custom of the animal, removed her a great way off.
After that, the serpent came not again for three or four
days together, being all the while, as it seemed, wandering
about in search of her. But at length, having with much
ado found her out, he did not approach her with that mildness as he was wont to do, but after a rougher manner;
with his folds having first bound her hands to her body,
with the end of his tail he lashed the calves of her legs;
expressing thereby a gentle and loving anger, which had
more in it of indulgent expostulation than punishment.
I say nothing of a goose in Egypt in love with a boy,
nor of the ram in love with Glauce who played on the
harp; for the stories are in all people's mouths. And besides, I am apt to think you are satiated with examples of
this nature.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 5.
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