ΝΕ. ἰοὺ, ἰού· καὶ ταῦτά γ’ ἄλλα θάλπεται ῥάκη, βαρείας του νοσηλείας πλέα. So in Homer, Hector dragged on the ground, his face foul with dust, his hair matted with blood, Squalentem barbam et concretos sanguine crines, (as Virgil expresses it[163]) is a disgusting object, but all the more terrible and touching. Who can recall the punishment of Marsyas, in Ovid, without a feeling of disgust?[164] Clamanti cutis est summos direpta per artus: Nec quidquam, nisi vulnus erat; cruor undique manat: Detectique patent nervi: trepidæque sine ulla Pelle micant venæ: salientia viscera possis, Et perlucentes numerare in pectore fibras. But the loathsome details are here appropriate. They make the terrible horrible, which in fiction is far from displeasing to us; since, even in nature, where our compassion is enlisted, things horrible are not wholly devoid of charm. I do not wish to multiply examples, but this one thing I must further observe. There is one form of the horrible, the road to which lies almost exclusively through the disgusting, and that is the horror of famine. Even in ordinary life we can convey no idea of extreme hunger save by enumerating all the innutritious, unwholesome, and particularly disgusting things with which the stomach would fain appease its cravings. Since imitation can excite nothing of the feeling of actual hunger, it has recourse to another disagreeable sensation which, in cases of extreme hunger, is felt to be a lesser evil. We may thus infer how intense that other suffering must be which makes the present discomfort in comparison of small account. Ovid says of the Oread whom Ceres sent to meet Famine,[165]— Hanc (Famem) procul ut vidit.... ... refert mandata deæ; paulumque morata Quanquam aberat longe, quanquam modo venerat illuc, Visa tamen sensisse famem.... This is an unnatural exaggeration. The sight of a hungry person, even of Hunger herself, has no such power of contagion. Compassion and horror and loathing may be aroused, but not hunger. Ovid has not been sparing of this element of the horrible in the picture of Famine; while both he and Callimachus,[166] in their description of Erisichthon’s starvation, have laid chief emphasis upon the loathsome traits. After Erisichthon has devoured every thing, not sparing even the sacrificial cow, which his mother had been fattening for Vesta, Callimachus makes him fall on horses and cats, and beg in the streets for crumbs and filthy refuse from other men’s tables. Καὶ τὰν βῶν ἔφαγεν, τὰν Ἑστίᾳ ἔτρεφε μάτηρ, Καὶ τὸν ἀεθλοφόρον καὶ τὸν πολεμήιον ἵππον, Καὶ τὰν αἴλουρον, τὰν ἔτρεμε θηρία μικκά— Καὶ τόχ’ ὁ τῶ βασιλῆος ἐνὶ τριόδοισι καθῆστο αἰτίζων ἀκόλως τε καὶ ἔκβολα λύματα δαιτός.