The [medieval] bestiarists [those who named and attributed human characteristics to animals] deemed the hare’s sex to be ambiguous, and its mode of reproduction strange. They included the hare in a group of several beasts that they asserted had been declared unclean in the Mosaic law because of their alleged sexual deviance.
Epstein, Marc Michael
Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature
Penn State Press, 1997
p. 131
No comments:
Post a Comment