And many breeds of creatures in those days Must have died out, being powerless to beget And perpetuate their kind. For those which now You see breathing the breath of life, ’tis craft, Or courage, or else speed, that from its origin Must have protected and preserved each race. Moreover many by their usefulness Commended to us, continue to exist Favoured by our protection. The fierce breed Of lions first, and the other savage beasts, Their courage has preserved, foxes their craft, Stags their swift flight. But the light-slumbering hearts Of faithful dogs, and the whole family Born from the seed of burden-bearing beasts, Also the woolly flocks and horned herds, All these by man’s protection are preserved. For their desire has always been to shun Wild beasts and to live peaceably, supplied Without toil of their own with food in plenty, Which to reward their services we give them. But those whom Nature has not thus endowed With power either to live by their own means Or else to render us such useful service That in return we allow their race to feed And dwell in safety beneath our guardianship, All these, ’tis plain, would lie exposed a prey To others, trammelled in their own fatal bonds, Till Nature had extinguished that whole kind. But Centaurs there have never been, nor yet Ever can things exist of twofold nature And double body moulded into one From limbs of alien kind, whose faculties And functions cannot be on either side Sufficiently alike. That this is so, The dullest intellect may be thus convinced. Consider first that a horse after three years Is in his flower of vigour, but a boy By no means so: for often in sleep even then Will he seek milk still from his mother’s breasts Afterwards, when the horse’s lusty strength Fails him in old age, and his limbs grow languid As life ebbs, then first for a boy begins The flowering time of youth, and clothes his cheeks With soft down. Do not then believe that ever From man’s and burden-bearing horse’s seed Centaurs can be compounded and have being; Nor yet Scyllas with half-fish bodies girdled With raging dogs, and other suchlike things, Whose limbs we see discordant with themselves, Since neither do they reach their flower together, Nor acquire bodily strength, nor in old age Lose it at the same time: dissimilar In each the love that burns them, and their modes Of life incongruous: nor do the same things give Their bodies pleasure. Thus we may often see Bearded goats thrive on hemlock, which for man Is virulent poison. Since moreover flame Is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bodies Of lions no less than every other kind Of flesh and blood on earth, how could it be That one, yet with a triple body, in front A lion, behind a serpent, in the midst