The fly is not the smallest of winged creatures, at
least in comparison with gnats and midges and things
still tinier. On the contrary, she is as much larger
than they as she is smaller than the bee. She is not
provided with feathers like the birds,
 Lit. “like the rest (of the ὄρνεα),” which is illogical.
Perhaps ἀετοῖς should be written. 
so as to have
some for plumage all over her body, and others to fly
with, but like grasshoppers, locusts and bees, she has
membranous wings, as much thinner’ than theirs as
Indian stuffs are more delicate and softer than Greek.
Moreover, they have the colours of a peacock in
them, if you look at her sharply when she spreads
them and flies in the sun.

 

She does not fly like
bats with a steady, oar-like movement of the wings,
or like grasshoppers with a spring, or as wasps do,
with a whizzing rush, but easily directs her course to
any quarter of the air she will. She has also this
characteristic, that her flight is not silent but musical :
the sound is not shrill like that of gnats and midges,
nor deep-toned like that of bees, nor fierce and



 

threatening like that of wasps; it is much more
melodious, just as flutes are sweeter than trumpet
and cymbals.

 

As for her body, the head is very
delicately attached to the neck and so is easily
moved, not fixed like the head of a grasshopper.
The eyes are prominent, and have much the quality
of horn, The breast is solid, and the legs grow
right out of the waist, which is not at all pinched*
up, as in wasps. As in them, the abdomen is
armoured and resembles a corselet in having flat
zones and scales. She differs, however, from the
wasp and the bee, in that her weapon is not the
hinder-part, but the mouth, or rather the proboscis ;
for, like the elephant, she has a trunk with which
she forages, seizing things and holding them tenaciously, since it is like a tentacle at the end. A
tooth protrudes from it with which the fly inflicts
bites in order to drink the blood, for although she
drinks milk, she likes blood also. The bite causes no
great pain. Though she has six feet, she walks with
only four and uses the two in fwont for all the
purposes of hands. You can see her standing on
four legs, holding up something to eat in her hands
just as we human beings do.

 
The fly is not born in the form which I have described, but as a maggot from the dead bodies of men
or animals. Then, little by little, she puts out
legs, grows her wings, changes from a creeping
to a flying thing, is impregnated and becomes mother
to a little maggot which is to-morrow’s fly. Living


 

in the society of man, on the same. food and at the
same table, she eats everything except oil: to taste
this is death to her. Being the creature of a day—
for life is meted out to her in very scant measure—
she likes sunshine best and goes about her affairs in
it. At night she keeps quiet and does not fly or
sing, but hides away and is still.

 
I can also mention
her great intelligence in escaping her designing foe,
the spider. She watches for him lurking in ambush,
and is wary of him, turning aside from his attack,
so as not to be captured by being ensnared and
falling into the toils of the creature. Of her courage
and bravery it is not for me to speak, but for Homer,
the most mighty-mouthed of the poets ; for when he ,
seeks to praise the foremost of the heroes, (Iliad 17, 570, Menelaus), into whose heart Athena
"puts the boldness of the fly.” 
he does
not compare his bravery to a lion’s or a leopard’s or
a wild boar’s, but to the fearlessness of the fly and
the daring and insistency of her attack. He does
not say that she is reckless, but fearless :
 The distinction (unknown to Homer) is between thrasos
and tharsos. 
that even
if she is kept away she does not desist but is eager
to bite. So outspoken is he in his praise and fondness for the fly that he mentions her net merely
once or twice but often; in consequence, references
to her enhance the beauty of his poems. Now he
describes her swarming flight after milk ; the many hordes of clustering flies That dart about the sheepfolds in the spring, When pails are wet with milk. Iliad 2, 469 They swarmed about the body like the flies That in the fold buzz round the milky pails. Iliad 16, 641 now, when




 

Athena turns the arrow aside from Menelaus in order
that it may not strike a vital spot, he likens her to a
mother tending a sleeping child, and again introduces
the fly into the comparison. Iliad 4, 130. 
Moreover, he has adorned
them with fine epithets in calling them “clustering”
and their swarms “hordes.”

 Iliad 2, 469.