[sc. This proverbial phrase] is said in reference to things which, if postponed, become worse. For terrestrial hedgehogs seem, when spurred on, to hold back childbirth, then later [sc. when troubled] by harsher embryos to [?]escape something worse in the childbirth.
Ἐχῖνος [means] both the animal and the stomach of an ox.[2]
In the Epigrams [it is written]: 'the hedgehog body, shaggy with sharp quills.'[3] And again: 'seeing the hedgehog carrying grape-clusters on its back, Komaulus killed it in this vineyard's drying-floor.'[4]