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"Solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo Saepe queri, et longas in fletum ducere voces." In our own times we find that the village maid cannot return home from seeing her dying swain, without a doleful salutation from the owl: "Thus homeward as she hopeless went, The churchyard path along, The blast grew cold, the dark owl scream'd Her lover's funeral song."
"Solaque, culminibus ferali carmine bubo. Saepe queri et longas in fletum ducere voces," writes Virgil. Pliny, in describing this bird, says, "bubo funebris et maxime abominatus"; whilst Chaucer writes: "The owl eke that of death the bode ybringeth." In the Arundel family a white owl is said to be a sure indication of death.
Profan. Fifty years afterwards, Jerome represents the decline of Paganism, in language which conveys the same idea of its approaching extinction: "Solitudinem patitur et in urbe gentilitas. Dii quondam nationum, cum bubonibus et noctuis, in solis culminibus remanserunt." "But now," says he, "the passion and resurrection of Christ are celebrated in the discourses and writings of all nations.
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