The Hare in flight
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The reason for the hare to be in flight is that it is an item of prey for many animals and also subject to hunting by humans. There are three fables of ancient Greek origin that refer to hare chasing, each of which also exemplifies a popular idiom or proverb.
Three poems from the Greek Anthology refer to an otherwise unrecorded fable in which a hare on the run from hunting dogs leaps into the sea, only to be seized there by a 'sea-dog', a Mediterranean shark.[1] The first two poems are by Germanicus Caesar, the second of which ends poignantly,
- Beasts of water and land rage against me alike.
- Hares, may the air be your recourse; yet I fear
- You too, O Heaven, have a dog among your stars!
In the course of his first poem, Germanicus refers directly to the Greek equivalent of the proverbial idiom that was to develop into the modern-day 'Out of the frying pan into the fire'.
The subject of the hare's fate was subsequently taken up in Latin by Ausonius in a four-line epigram reliant upon the Greek poems.[2] The situation also figured in Gilles Corrozet's Hecatomographie (1540). This was an Emblem book in which the story's significance was widened to the uncertainty of life in general under the title "Peril and danger on all sides" (see illustration).