281But if a man's whole brood has suddenly failed him, and he has no stock from which to renew a new line, it is time to reveal the memorable discovery of the Arcadian master, and in what way the corrupted blood of slaughtered bullocks has often before now produced bees. 285I shall unfold the whole tale more deeply, tracing it back from its first origin. 287For where the fortunate people of Pellaean Canopus dwell beside the Nile, which spreads in a flood over the land, and ride around their own fields in painted boats, and where the neighbourhood of quivered Persia presses close, the whole region rests its sure salvation on this art.
295First a small place, narrowed for this very purpose, is chosen; 296this they enclose with the tiles of a narrow roof and confining walls, and add four windows facing the four winds, with slanting light. 299Then a bullock is sought, already curving his horns on a two-year-old brow; 300his two nostrils and the breath of his mouth are stopped up, for all his struggling, and when he has been beaten to death, his flesh is pounded and broken up within the unbroken hide. 303So they leave him lying in the closed room, and put beneath his ribs broken branches, thyme and fresh cassia. 305This is done when the West Winds first stir the waves, before the meadows blush with new colours, before the chattering swallow hangs her nest from the rafters.
308Meanwhile the moisture, warmed in the tender bones, seethes, and creatures wonderful to see, at first without feet, soon whirring with wings too, swarm together and take more and more to the thin air, until they burst out like rain poured from summer clouds, or like arrows from the twanging string when the light-armed Parthians open the first battle.