Praeterea scio hunc esse, in quem potissimum Iuppiter se convertit, cum exportavit per mare e Phoenice amans Europam; hunc esse, qui filios Neptuni a Menalippa servarit, ne in stabulo infantes grex boum obtereret; denique ex hoc putrefacto nasci dulcissimas apes, mellis matres, a quo eas Graeci bugenes appellant; et hunc Plautium locutum esse Latine quam Hirrium praetorem renuntiatum Romam in senatum scriptum habemus.
I know, further, that it was this animal into which Jupiter chose to change himself when he carried his beloved Europa over the sea from Phoenicia; that it was this animal which saved the sons of Neptune by Menalippa from being trampled in the stall, when they were infants, by a herd of cattle; further, that it is from the putrefied body of this animal that there spring the sweetest bees, those honey-mothers from which the Greeks therefore call bees the ox-sprung (); and we have the official record that the praetor reported to the Senate at Rome that it was this animal which said, in Latin, Plautius rather than Hirrius.
final_alignments\Varro_Agriculture_Book2.json