This subject undergoes every possible variety of treatment and is endlessly repeated--rudely scratched on funeral slabs, elaborately sculptured on sarcophagi, moulded on lamps and vases, graven on seals and rings, traced in gold on glass, and painted in fresco, generally in the most prominent and honourable position, in the vaulting of the chambers and tympana of the _arcosolia_.[389] The Good Shepherd is generally represented as a youthful beardless figure in a short Roman tunic and buskins, bearing tenderly the lost sheep which he has found and laid upon his shoulders with rejoicing. This is evidently not a personal image, but an allegorical representation of the “Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep.” He is generally surrounded, as in Fig. 47, by a group of fleecy followers, whose action and attitude indicate the disposition of soul and manner of hearing the word. Some are listening earnestly; others are more intent on cropping the herbage at their feet, the types of those occupied with the cares and pleasures and riches of this world. A truant ram is turning heedlessly away, as if refusing to listen; and often a gentle ewe nestles fondly at the shepherd’s feet or tenderly caresses his hand. An early Christian writer, contemporary with this primitive art, furnishes an interpretation of these pictures. He compares the poor of this world to sheep in a barren desert; finding no allurements here below, they seek after those things which are above. The rich, on the contrary, are like sheep in a pleasant pasture, with heads and hearts always intent on the things of earth. Frequently a shower of rain, or of water from a rock--the emblem of the dews of grace or the waters of salvation--falls, abundantly on the listening sheep, scantily on those 245 that are feeding, not at all on the one that is turning away. [Illustration: Fig. 47.--The Good Shepherd.] Sometimes the sheep appears to nestle with an expression of human tenderness and love on the shepherd’s shoulders; in other examples it is more or less firmly held with one or both hands, as if to prevent its escape. In a few instances the fold is seen in the background, which seems to complete the allegory. Frequently the shepherd carries a staff or crook in his hand, on which he sometimes leans, as if weary beneath his burden. He is sometimes even represented sitting on a mound, as if overcome with fatigue, thus recalling the pathetic words of the _Dies Iræ_: Quærens me sedisti lassus.