Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Let man and beast be covered - This was done that every object which they beheld might deepen the impression already made, and cause them to mourn after a godly sort. Virgil tells us that the mourning for the death of Julius Caesar was so general, that the cattle neither ate nor drank: -
Non ulli pastos illis egere diebus
Frigida, Daphni, boves AD flumina: nulla neque amnem
Libavit quadrupes, nec graminis attigit herbam .
Ecl. 5:24.
"The swains forgot their sheep, nor near the brink
Of running waters brought their herds to drink.
The thirsty cattle of themselves abstain' d,
From water, and their grassy fare disdain' d."
Dryden.
And that they sometimes changed: or reversed the harness and ornaments of cattle, as indicative of mourning, we have a proof in Virgil' s description of the funeral procession in honor of Pallas, slain by Turnus, Aen. 11 ver. 89.
Post bellator equus, positis insignibus, Aethon
It lacrymans, guttisque humectat grandibus ora .
"Stripp' d of his trappings, and his head declined,
Aethon, his generous warrior-horse, behind,
Moves with a solemn, slow, majestic pace;
And the big tears come rolling down his face."
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