Metamorphoses

“The silkworms, too, that are wont to cover the leaves with their white threads, a thing observable by husbandmen, change their forms into that of the deadly moth. Mud contains seed that generate green frogs; and it produces them deprived of feet; soon it gives them legs adapted for swimming; and that the same may be fitted for long leaps, the length of the hinder ones exceeds that of the fore legs. And it is not a cub which the bear produces at the moment of birth, but a mass of flesh hardly alive. By licking, the mother forms it into limbs, and brings it into a shape, such as she herself has. Do you not see, that the offspring of the honey bees, which the hexagonal cell conceals, are produced without limbs, and that they assume both feet and wings only after a time. Unless he knew it was the case, could any one suppose it possible that the bird of Juno, which carries stars on its tail, and the eagle , the armour-bearer of Jove, and the doves of Cytherea, and all the race of birds, are produced from the middle portion of an egg? There are some who believe that human marrow changes into a serpent, when the spine has putrefied in the enclosed sepulchre.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 15

Book 15, Line 24ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-15-24