De sollertia animalium

The loves of some animals are wild and furious, while others have a refinement which is not far from

human and an intercourse conducted with much grace. Such was the elephant which at Alexandria played the rival to Aristophanes[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. i. 38 (Cf. vii. 43); Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 13.) the grammarian. They were, in fact, in love with the same flower-girl; nor was the elephant’s love the less manifest: as he passed by the market, he always brought her fruit and stood beside her for a long time and would insert his trunk, like a hand,[*](Cf. Mair on Oppian, Cyn. ii. 524 for additional authorities.) within her garments and gently caress her fair breasts.

The serpent that fell in love with an Aetolian woman[*](Told somewhat differently, and of a Jewish woman, in Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 17.) used to visit her at night and slip under some part of her body next the skin and coil about her without doing her any harm at all, either intentional or accidental; but always at daybreak it was decent enough to glide away. And this it did constantly until the kinsmen of the woman removed her to a house at some distance. The serpent did not come to her for three or four nights; but all the time, we may suppose, it was going about in search of her and missing its goal. At last, when it had somehow found her with difficulty, it embraced her, not with that former gentleness it had used, but rather more roughly, its coils binding her hands to her body, and with the end of its tail it lashed the calves of her legs, displaying a light and tender anger that had in it more indulgence than punishment.

As for the goose in Aegium that loved a boy and the ram that set his heart on Glauce[*](Also a goose in Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 51. Both stories are in Aelian, De Natura Animal. v. 29 (cf. i. 6; viii. 11); for Glauce see also Gow’s note on Theocritus, iv. 31.) the harp-player,

since these are famous tales and I rather imagine you have had enough of such to spoil your appetite for more,[*](More in Aelian, De Natura Animal. xii. 37; al. ) I omit them.