Here then let us confess, with Boileau, that ambiguity has been the parent of most of our ridiculous follies. Add to this the power of magic, which has been acknowledged as indisputable in all nations, and you will no longer be astonished at anything.
One word more on asses. It is said that in Mesopotamia they are warlike and that Mervan, the twenty-first caliph, was surnamed "the Ass" for his valor.
The patriarch Photius relates, in the extract from the Life of Isidorus, that Ammonius had an ass which had a great taste for poetry, and would leave his manger to go and hear verses. The fable of Midas is better than the tale of Photius.
Machiavelli's ass is but little known. The dictionaries which speak of it say that it was a production of his youth; it would seem, however, that he was of mature age; for he speaks in it of the misfortunes which he had formerly and for a long time experienced. The work is a satire on his contemporaries. The author sees a number of Florentines, of whom one is changed into a cat, another into a dragon, a third into a dog that bays the moon, a fourth into a fox who does not suffer himself to be caught; each character is drawn under the name of an animal. The factions of the house of Medicis and their enemies are doubtless figured therein; and the key to this comic apocalypse would admit us to the secrets of Pope Leo and the troubles of Florence. This poem is full of morality and philosophy. It ends with the very rational reflections of a large hog, which addresses man in nearly the following terms:
Ye naked bipeds, without beaks or claws. Hairless, and featherless, and tender-hided, Weeping ye come into the world--because Ye feel your evil destiny decided; Nature has given you industrious paws; You, like the parrots, are with speech provided; But have ye honest hearts?--Alas! alas! In this we swine your bipedships surpass!
Man is far worse than we--more fierce, more wild-- Coward or madman, sinning every minute; By frenzy and by fear in turn beguiled, He dreads the grave, yet plunges headlong in it; If pigs fall out, they soon are reconciled; Their quarrel's ended ere they well begin it. If crime with manhood always must combine, Good Lord! let me forever be a swine.