סיס, a bird too well known to need description. Our
translators of the Bible have given this name to two different Hebrew
words. The first, דרור, in Psalm lxxxiv, 3, and Prov. xxvi, 2, is
probably the bird which Forskal mentions among the migratory birds of
Alexandria, by the name of _dururi_; and the second, עגור, Isa. xxxviii,
14, and Jer. viii, 7, is the crane; but the word סיס, in the two last
places rendered in our version “crane,” is really the swallow. So the
Septuagint, Vulgate, and two ancient manuscripts, Theodotion, and Jerom,
render it, and Bochart and Lowth follow them. Bochart assigns the note
of this bird for the reason of its name, and ingeniously remarks that
the Italians about Venice call a swallow _zizilla_, and its twittering
_zizillare_. The swallow being a plaintive bird, and a bird of passage,
perfectly agrees with the meaning of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The annual
migration of the swallow has been familiarly known in every age, and
perhaps in every region of the earth. In Psalm lxxxiv, 3, it is said,
“The sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts.” By the
altars of Jehovah we are to understand the temple. The words probably
refer to the custom of several nations of antiquity,--that birds which
built their nests on the temples, or within the limits of them, were not
suffered to be driven away, much less killed; but found a secure and
uninterrupted dwelling. Hence, when Aristodicus disturbed the birds’
nests of the temple of Kumæ, and took the young from them, a voice,
according to a tradition preserved by Herodotus, is said to have spoken
these words from the interior of the temple: “Most villainous of men,
how darest thou to drive away such as seek refuge in my temple?” The
Athenians were so enraged at Atarbes, who had killed a sparrow which
built on the temple of Æsculapius, that they killed him. Among the
Arabs, who are more closely related to the Hebrews, birds which build
their nests on the temple of Mecca have been inviolable from the
earliest times. In the very ancient poem of a Dschorhamidish prince,
published by a Schulten, in which he laments that his tribe had been
deprived of the protection of the sanctuary of Mecca, it is said,
“We lament the house, whose dove
Was never suffer’d to be hurt:
She remain’d there secure; in it, also,
The sparrow built its nest.”
In another ancient Arabian poet, Nabega, the Dhobianit swears “by the
sanctuary which affords shelter to the birds which seek it there.”
Niebuhr says, “I will observe, that among the Mohammedans, not only is
the _kaba_ a refuge for the pigeons, but also on the mosques over the
graves of Ali and Hassein, on the Dsjamea, or chief mosque, at Helle,
and in other cities, they are equally undisturbed.” And Thevenot
remarks: “Within a mosque at Oudjicum lies interred the son of a king,
called Schah-Zadeh-Imam Dgiafer, whom they reckon a saint. The dome is
rough cast over; before the mosque there is a court, well planted with
many high plane trees, on which we saw a great many storks, that haunt
thereabout all the year round.” See SPARROW.
translators of the Bible have given this name to two different Hebrew
words. The first, דרור, in Psalm lxxxiv, 3, and Prov. xxvi, 2, is
probably the bird which Forskal mentions among the migratory birds of
Alexandria, by the name of _dururi_; and the second, עגור, Isa. xxxviii,
14, and Jer. viii, 7, is the crane; but the word סיס, in the two last
places rendered in our version “crane,” is really the swallow. So the
Septuagint, Vulgate, and two ancient manuscripts, Theodotion, and Jerom,
render it, and Bochart and Lowth follow them. Bochart assigns the note
of this bird for the reason of its name, and ingeniously remarks that
the Italians about Venice call a swallow _zizilla_, and its twittering
_zizillare_. The swallow being a plaintive bird, and a bird of passage,
perfectly agrees with the meaning of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The annual
migration of the swallow has been familiarly known in every age, and
perhaps in every region of the earth. In Psalm lxxxiv, 3, it is said,
“The sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts.” By the
altars of Jehovah we are to understand the temple. The words probably
refer to the custom of several nations of antiquity,--that birds which
built their nests on the temples, or within the limits of them, were not
suffered to be driven away, much less killed; but found a secure and
uninterrupted dwelling. Hence, when Aristodicus disturbed the birds’
nests of the temple of Kumæ, and took the young from them, a voice,
according to a tradition preserved by Herodotus, is said to have spoken
these words from the interior of the temple: “Most villainous of men,
how darest thou to drive away such as seek refuge in my temple?” The
Athenians were so enraged at Atarbes, who had killed a sparrow which
built on the temple of Æsculapius, that they killed him. Among the
Arabs, who are more closely related to the Hebrews, birds which build
their nests on the temple of Mecca have been inviolable from the
earliest times. In the very ancient poem of a Dschorhamidish prince,
published by a Schulten, in which he laments that his tribe had been
deprived of the protection of the sanctuary of Mecca, it is said,
“We lament the house, whose dove
Was never suffer’d to be hurt:
She remain’d there secure; in it, also,
The sparrow built its nest.”
In another ancient Arabian poet, Nabega, the Dhobianit swears “by the
sanctuary which affords shelter to the birds which seek it there.”
Niebuhr says, “I will observe, that among the Mohammedans, not only is
the _kaba_ a refuge for the pigeons, but also on the mosques over the
graves of Ali and Hassein, on the Dsjamea, or chief mosque, at Helle,
and in other cities, they are equally undisturbed.” And Thevenot
remarks: “Within a mosque at Oudjicum lies interred the son of a king,
called Schah-Zadeh-Imam Dgiafer, whom they reckon a saint. The dome is
rough cast over; before the mosque there is a court, well planted with
many high plane trees, on which we saw a great many storks, that haunt
thereabout all the year round.” See SPARROW.