Vespertiliones
Vespertiliones by Evan Smith I go sometimes for a summer’s evening walk when the world is cooling a bit and the bats flutter out for a twilit breakfast. A poem about a bat came to me the other day, and I started wondering what Augustine might have said about them. Following my surprise at finding just one mention was a disappointment that he only introduces them by way of demonstrating something else. We will never know what wonder Augustine might have felt at bats, yet I find the passage worth sharing all the same, for it shows well some differences in the meanings of a few common nouns and verbs . Et fecit Deus cetos magnos, et omnem animam animalium repentium, quae eiecerunt aquae secundum genus eorum, et omne volatile pennatum secundum genus suum…Et omne volatile pennatum. Cur additum est pennatum? An potest esse volatile quod pennas non habeat? sed si potest, numquid hoc genus fecit Deus, quandoquidem non invenitur ubi sit factum? an omnino potest quid...