Amor filiorum.

Love of one’s children

Ante diem vernam boreali cana palumbes
Frigore nidificat, praecoqua & ova fovet:
Mollius & pulli ut iaceant, sibi vellicat alas,
Queis nuda hiberno deficit ipsa gelu.[1]
Ecquid Colchi pudet, vel te Progne improba? mortem
Cùm volucris propriae prolis amore subit?[2]

Before the day of spring, the wood-pigeon, all white with winter snow, builds her nest and cherishes her premature eggs. To make her chicks lie more softly, she plucks her own wing-feathers, and stripped of them, she herself perishes from the wintry frost. Woman of Colchis, do you feel any shame? Or you, heartless Procne? - when a bird submits to death out of love for her own off-spring.

PRoposito avicularum exemplo, in quibus natura
duce summus amor, curáque deprehenditur erga
suos foetus, arguitur matrum quarundam immanium
barbara & plusquam ferina crudelitas, quae suis vi-
tam adimant, edoctae ab ave palumbe quo affectu
in eos esse debeant. Petitum id è Graeco Antipatri.