Agrippa's Occult Philosophy by Cornelius Agrippa

Author:Cornelius Agrippa
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486119823
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

There are also some birds that presage with their mouth and singing, as the crow, pie, and daw, whence Virgil:

——This did foreshow

Oft from the hollow holm that ominous Crow.

Now, the birds that portend future things by their flying are, viz., buzzards, the bone-breakers, vultures, eagles, cranes, swans, and the like, for they are to be considered in their flying, whether they fly slowly or swiftly; whether to the right hand or to the left; how many fly together. Upon this account, if cranes fly apace, they signify a tempest; and, when slowly, fair weather. When two eagles fly together, they are said to portend evil, because two is a number of confusion. In like manner thou shalt enquire into the reason of the rest, as this is shown by number. Moreover, it belongs to an artist to observe a similitude in these conjectures, as in Virgil, Venus, dissembling, teacheth her son, Æneas, in these verses:

——All this is not for naught,

Else me in vain my parents Augury taught;

Lo! twice six Swans in a glad company

Jove’s bird pursued through the etherial Sky

In Heaven’s broad tracks; now earth in a long train

They seem to take, or taken, to disdain;

As they return with sounding wings they sport,

And Heaven surrounding in a long consort.

Just so, I say, thy friends and fleet have gained

The port, or with full sails the Bay obtained.

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