Ἐχῖνος τὸν τόκον ἀναβάλλῃ

[sc. This proverbial phrase] is said in reference to things which, if postponed, become worse. For terrestrial hedgehogs seem, when being poked on, to hold back childbirth, then later [sc. when troubled] by harsher embryos to (?)escape something worse in the childbirth.
*)exi=nos [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 elsewhere: "seeing the hedgehog carrying grape-clusters on its back, Komaulus killed it in this vineyard's drying-floor."⁴