Chapter 39

  Have you knowledge of the rock-goats? or do you see the roes giving birth to their young?  

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  Is the number of their months fixed by you? or is the time when they give birth ordered by you?  

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  They are bent down, they give birth to their young, they let loose the fruit of their body.  

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  Their young ones are strong, living in the open country; they go out and do not come back again.  

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  Who has let the ass of the fields go free? or made loose the bands of the loud-voiced beast?  

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  To whom I have given the waste land for a heritage, and the salt land as a living-place.  

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  He makes sport of the noise of the town; the voice of the driver does not come to his ears;  

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  He goes looking for his grass-lands in the mountains, searching out every green thing.  

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  Will the ox of the mountains be your servant? or is his night's resting-place by your food-store?  

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  Will he be pulling your plough with cords, turning up the valleys after you?  

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  Will you put your faith in him, because his strength is great? will you give the fruit of your work into his care?  

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  Will you be looking for him to come back, and get in your seed to the crushing-floor?  

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  Is the wing of the ostrich feeble, or is it because she has no feathers,  

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  That she puts her eggs on the earth, warming them in the dust,  

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  Without a thought that they may be crushed by the foot, and broken by the beasts of the field?  

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  She is cruel to her young ones, as if they were not hers; her work is to no purpose; she has no fear.  

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  For God has taken wisdom from her mind, and given her no measure of knowledge.  

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  When she is shaking her wings on high, she makes sport of the horse and of him who is seated on him.  

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  Do you give strength to the horse? is it by your hand that his neck is clothed with power?  

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  Is it through you that he is shaking like a locust, in the pride of his loud-sounding breath?  

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  He is stamping with joy in the valley; he makes sport of fear.  

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  In his strength he goes out against the arms of war, turning not away from the sword.  

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  The bow is sounding against him; he sees the shining point of spear and arrow.  

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  Shaking with passion, he is biting the earth; he is not able to keep quiet at the sound of the horn;  

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  When it comes to his ears he says, Aha! He is smelling the fight from far off, and hearing the thunder of the captains, and the war-cries.  

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  Is it through your knowledge that the hawk takes his flight, stretching out his wings to the south?  

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  Or is it by your orders that the eagle goes up, and makes his resting-place on high?  

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  On the rock is his house, and on the mountain-top his strong place.  

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  From there he is watching for food; his eye sees it far off.  

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  His young have blood for their drink, and where the dead bodies are, there is he to be seen.  

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