Plutarch's Natural Questions (34-36)

Let us likewise bestir our feet,

As fast as Western winds do fleet.

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Is it not because this wind is wont to blow when the sky is very well cleansed, and the air is exceeding clear and without all clouds?—for the thickness and impurity of the air doth not a little impeach and interrupt the course of the winds. Or is it rather because the sun, striking through a cold wind with his beams, is the cause that it passeth the faster away?—for whatsoever of cold is drawn in by the force of the winds, when the same is overcome by heat, as it were its enemy, we must think, is driven and set forward further and with greater celerity.

Is it not because it is a creature that wonderfully delighteth in purity, cleanliness, and elegancy, and withal hath a marvellous quick sense of smelling? Because therefore such unclean dealings between man and woman are wont to leave behind much filthiness and impurity, the bees both sooner find them out and also conceive the greater hatred against them. Hereupon it is that in Theocritus the shepherd pleasantly sendeth Venus away unto Anchises to be well stung with bees for her adultery:

Now to mount Ida, to Anchises go,

Where mighty oaks and cypresses do grow;

Where hives and trees with honey sweet abound,

And both with humming noise of bees resound.

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