And these [are] the children of Zibeon; both Ajah, and Anah: this [was that] Anah that found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father.
Ver. 24. That found the mules.] By breeding different kinds together, contrary to Leviticus 19:19. Neither did the world, till then, want any perfect kind of creature; for the mule and the ass differ not, but only in degree. The Greeks call mules half-asses. a See here, saith one, b the busy curiosity of some men's natures, given to new and strange inventions. So he that taught a parrot in Rome to repeat the Creed, every article in order, and by itself, distinctly. c Another, that painted the whole story of our Savour's passion, both for persons and things, upon the nails of his own fingers. Had not he little to do, that learned to write a fair hand with his feet? Heidfeld saith he saw it with wonderment. And he d as little, that enclosed Homer's Iliads written in a nut? which Cicero tells us he saw with his eyes. These were laborious toys, quae nec ignoranti nocent, nec scientem iuvant, as Seneca saith e of sophistry. Hard they are to come by; but of no use or worth: like an olive, or date stone; hard to crack the one, or cleave the other: but nothing, or nothing worth aught, when cracked or cloven, within either, f This same foolish wittiness Alexander wittily scoffed, when he gave a fellow only a bushel of peas, for his pains of throwing, every time, a pea upon a needle's point, standing a pretty way off.
a Hμιονους .
b Bp. Babington.
c Fuit olim psittacus Romae aureis centum comparatus, &c. - C. Rhodig., lib. ii. cap. 32.
d Maiolus, in Canic., coloq. 23.
e Sphinx Phil., p. 785.
f Plin., lib. vii. cap. 12.