e in some veneration; and though it be granted that
the hog is an ugly and filthy creature, yet it is not quite so vile nor
naturally stupid as a beetle, griffin, crocodile, or cat, most of which
are worshipped as the most sacred things by some priests amongst the
Egyptians. But the reason why the hog is had in so much honor and
veneration amongst them is, because as the report goes, that creature
breaking up the earth with its snout showed the way to tillage, and
taught them how to use the ploughshare, which instrument for that very
reason, as some say, was called HYNIS from [Greek omitted], A SWINE.
Now the Egyptians inhabiting a country situated low and whose soil is
naturally soft, have no need of the plough; but after the river Nile
hath retired from the grounds it overflowed, they presently let in all
their hogs into the fields, and they with their feet and snout break up
the ground, and cover the sown seed. Nor ought this to seem strange
to anyone, that there are in the world those that abstain from swine's
flesh on such an account as this; when it is evident that in barbarous
nations there are other animals had in greater honor and veneration for
lesser reasons, if not altogether ridiculous. For the field-mouse only
for its blindness was worshipped as a god among the Egyptians, because
they were of an opinion that darkness was before light and that the
latter had its birth from mice about the fifth generation at the new
moon; and moreover that the liver of this creature diminishes in the
wane of the moon. But they consecrate the lion to the sun, because the
lioness alone, of all clawed four-footed beasts, brings forth her young
with their eyesight; for they sleep in a moment, and when they are
asleep their eyes sparkle. Besides, they place gaping lions' heads for
the spouts of their fountains, because Nilus overflows the Egyptian
fields when the sign is Leo: they give it out that their bird ibis, as
soon as hatched, weighs two drachms, which are of the same weight with
the heart of a newborn infant; and that its legs being spread with the
bill an exact equilateral triangle. And yet who can find fault with
the Egyptians for these trifles, when it is left upon record that the
Pythagoreans worshipped a white cock, and of sea creatures abstained
especially from mullet and urtic. The Magi that descended from Zoroaster
adored the land hedgehog above other creatures but had a deadly spite
against water-rats, and thought