ÆACIDÆ _moriens percussu cuspidis Hector Qui toties hosteis vicerat ante suos; Comprimere haud potuit vocem, insultantibus illis, Dum curru & pedibus nectere vincla parant. Distrahite vt libitum est: sic cassi luce leonis Conuellunt barbam vel timidi lepores_. Thus rendered by Whitney (p. 127), with the same device,— _Cùm laruis non luctandum._ [Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._] “When Hectors force, throughe mortall wounde did faile, And life beganne, to dreadefull deathe to yeelde: The Greekes moste gladde, his dyinge corpes assaile, Who late did flee before him in the fielde: Which when he sawe, quothe hee nowe worke your spite, For so, the hares the Lion dead doe byte. Looke here vpon, you that doe wounde the dead, With slaunders vile, and speeches of defame: Or bookes procure, and libelles to be spread, When they bee gone, for to deface theire name: Who while they liu’de, did feare you with theire lookes, And for theire skill, you might not beare their bookes.” Reusner’s lines, which have considerable beauty, may thus be rendered,— “Since man is mortal, the dead it becomes us Neither by word nor reproachful writing to mock at. Theseus, mindful of mortal destiny, the bones of his friends Both laves, and stores up in the tomb, and covers with earth. ’Tis the mark of a weak mind, to wage war with phantoms, And after death to good men insult to offer. So when overcome by the strength of Achilles The scullions of the camp struck Hector with darts. So whelps bite the lion laid prostrate by death; So his weapon any one bloods in the boar that is slain. Better ’tis, ye gods, well to speak, of those deserving well; And wickedness great indeed, to violate sacred tombs.” The device itself, in these three authors, is a representation of Hares biting a dead Lion; and in this we find an origin for the words used in _King John_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 134, vol. iv. p. 17), to reprove the Archduke of Austria. Austria demands of Philip Faulconbridge, “What the devil art thou?” and Philip replies,— “One that will play the devil, sir, with you, An a’ may catch your hide and you alone: You are the hare of whom the proverb goes, Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard.” Immediately references follow to other fables, or to their pictorial representations,— “I’ll smoke your skin-coat, an I catch you right:” in allusion to the fable of the fox or the ass hunting in a lion’s skin. Again (l. 141),— “_Blanch._ O, well did he become that lion’s robe That did disrobe the lion of that robe. _Bast._ It lies as sightly on the back of him As great Alcides’ shows upon an ass:”