In literature the hare is the very emblem of fearfulness. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare describes “a very dishonest, paltry boy…more a coward than a hare.” The Greek orator Demosthenes warned, in his speech “On the Crown,” against living “the life of a hare, in fear and trembling.” Aesop’s fable “The Hares and the Frogs” describes hares as “very timid,” saying that “the least shadow sends them scurrying in fright to a hiding place.” Yet the hare in her maternity was tenacious and courageous, and the care she took to confront a threat to her leverets showed resourcefulness rather than neglect.
