Folio 59v - the duck, continued. De pavone; Of the peacock
were detected when they ascended the Capitol.
Each species of bird is born twice; for first the eggs are produced, then they are given form and life by the warmth of the mother's body. They are called eggs, ova, because inside they are full of fluid. Anything that has fluid on the outside is umidum, 'wet'; anything with fluid on the inside is called vividum, 'life containing'.
Some people think that the word ovum is of Greek origin. For the Greeks call eggs oa, losing the v.
Some eggs are conceived by useless wind; nothing can be hatched from them, however, unless they have been conceived through intercourse with a male bird and penetrated by the spirit carried in his seed.
Such is the quality of eggs, they say, that wood soaked in them will not burn, nor clothing, in turn, catch fire. In addition, eggs mixed with chalk, it is said, will glue pieces of glass together.
Of the peacock
The peacock gets its name, pavo, from the sound of its cry. Its flesh is so hard that it hardly decays and it cannot easily be cooked. A certain poet said of it: 'You are lost in admiration, whenever it spreads its jewelled wings; can you consign it, hard-hearted woman, to the unfeeling cook?' (Martial, Epigrams, xiii, 70)
'Solomon's fleet went to Tharsis once every three years and brought from there gold and silver, elephants' teeth and apes, and peacocks' (see 2 Chronicles, 10: 21).
Tharsis we take to mean the search for joy. There is the joy of this world and the joy of the world to come. The joy of this life is limited. But the joy of the life to come is wholly unlimited. Pain and sadness each follow the joy of this life. But neither pain nor sadness follows the life to come. Joy in this world consists of being elevated by honours, enjoying to the full and for the moment things which are transitory, enjoying a wide circle of relations
