23.1. 1. Of Men and Animals with respect to the Multiplication of their
Species.
Delight of human kind,
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and gods above; Parent of Rome, propitious
Queen of Love;
For when the rising spring adorns the mead, And a new scene of
nature stands display'd; When teeming buds, and cheerful greens appear,
And western gales unlock the lazy year; The joyous birds thy welcome
first express, Whose native songs thy genial fire confess: Then savage
beasts bound o'er their slighted food, Struck with thy darts, and tempt
the raging flood: All nature is thy gift, earth, air, and sea; Of all
that breathes the various progeny, Stung with delight, is goaded on by
thee. O'er barren mountains, o'er the flow'ry plain, The leafy forest,
and the liquid main, Extends thy uncontroll'd and boundless reign.
Thro' all the living regions thou dost move, And scatter'st where thou
go'st the kindly seeds of love.
The females of brutes have an almost constant fecundity. But in the
human species, the manner of thinking, the character, the passions, the
humour, the caprice, the idea of preserving beauty, the pain of
child-bearing, and the fatigue of a too numerous family, obstruct
propagation in a thousand different ways.
Footnotes
