Dragons and Elephants
The ancient Greeks and Romans had no doubt at all about the actual existence of dragons, and were already telling stories about them, as we have seen. They even knew about their strange love of collecting gold and guarding it in caves - without any special reason except, as Phaedrus made the dragon say in his version of the old Greek Fable:
I guard my gold for no reason of reward or gain, but because great Zeus has made this the proper employment for dragons.”
Another Greek writer, one of the earliest of art critics, Philostratus, described a picture in which there was a hill, “encircled by the sea, which is the home of a dragon, guardian doubtless of some rich treasure that lies hidden under the earth. This creature is said to be devoted to gold and whatever golden thing it sees it loves and cherishes; thus the Fleece in Colchis and the Apples of the Hesperides, since they seemed to be of gold, two dragons that never slept guarded and claimed as their own.”
The idea of dragons guarding gold may have come from the north by way of the tales of the gryphons whose gold the Arimaspians stole, according to the Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote about 450 B.C. These gryphons were like dragons without a tail, being pictured frequently in Greek art - in sculptures and on vases - as huge lions with the wings of an eagle.
“The northern parts of Europe are very much richer in gold than any other region,” says Herodotus. “The story runs that the one-eyed Arimaspians purloin it from the gryphons”, and elsewhere he calls them “the gold-guarding gryphons”.
Herodotus believed in the gryphons - though not that the Arimaspians were born with only one eye. And later writers believed even more amazing things about the great serpent-like dragons of India and Africa.
Many reports and stories of these dragons were collected by the Roman writer Pliny (who was killed in the eruption of Vesuvius that buried Pompeii in A.D. 79) and digested into his huge Natural History.
Here is what he says about dragons and elephants, in the Elizabethan translation by Philemon Holland, which Shakespeare must have read:
“Elephants breen in that part of Africa which lieth beyond the deserts and wilderness of the Syrtes … but India bringeth forth the biggest - as also the dragon that are continually at variance with them, and evermore fighting - and thoseof such greatness that they can easily clasp and wind round about the elephants, and withal tie them fast with a know. In this conflict they die, both the one and the other; the elephant falls down dead as conquered, and with his heavy weight crusheth and squeezeth the dragon that is wound and wreathed about him …
“The dragon therefore, espying the elephant, assaileth him rom a high tree and launcheth himself upon him. But the elephant, knowing well enough he is not able to withstand his windings and knittings about him, seeketh to come close to some trees or hard rocks, and so for to crush and squeeze the dragon between him and them. The dragons, ware thereof, entangle and snarl his feet and legs first with their tails. The elephants on the toher side undo those knots with their trunks as with a hand; but to prevent that again, the dragons put their heads into heir nostrils and so stop their breathing, and withal fret and gnaw the tenderest parts they find there.
“Now if these two mortal enemies chance to encounter on the way, they bristle and bridle one against another, and prepare themselves to fight; but the chiefest thing the dragons make at is the eye - whereby it comes to pass that many times the elephants are found blind, pined of hunger and worn away …
“Some report of this mortal war between them that the occasion thereof ariseth from a natural cause; for (they say) the elephants’ blood is exceeding cold, and therefore the dragons be wonderful desirous thereof to refresh and cool themselves therewith during the parching hot season of the year. And to this purpose they lie under the water, waiting their time to take the elephants at a vantage when they are drinking. They catch fast hold first of their trunk, and they have not so soon clasped and entangled it with their tail, but they set their venomous teeth in the elephant’s ear (the only part of their body which they cannot reach with their trunk, and so bite it hard. Now the dragons are so big withal that they are able to receive all the elephant’s blood. Thus they are sucked dry until they fall down dead; and the dragons also, drunk with their blood, are squeezed under them and so die together.”
Pliny may have thought of dragons as being without wings, but another Roman writer, Lucan, who died only a few years before him, leaves no doubt of the general belief:
“You also, the dragon, shining with golden brightness, deadly with wings, you move high in the air, and following whole herds you burst asunder vast bulls, embracing them with your folds. Nor is the elephant safe through his size; everything you devote to death, and no need have you of venom for a deadly fate.”
The dragons of the ancient world were not always feared, however. Some of them were held sacred, such as that of which both a Roman poet comtemporary with Pliny, and Aelian, a writer on natural history of two centuries later, tell us.
This sacred dragon lived in a deep underground cave not far from Roma, and could only be fed from above. However, on special days ceremonies were held outside the dragon’s cave, and maidens were let down blindfold into it carrying cakes made of honey and barley:
“Maidens, let down for such a rite, grow pale when their hand is trusted unprotected in the dragon’s mouth,” says the poet Propertius. “He snatches at the delicacies if offered by a maid; the very baskets tremble in their hands; but if the dragon accepts their offering they return and fall on the necks of their parents, and the farmers cry ‘We shall have a fruitful year’!”
If, however, the girl is not good and virtuous, Aelian tells us, “the dragon does not touch it, knowing at once that she is impure, and the food she has touch therefore unsuitable for his sacred touch.”
The cake falls to the group, breakes into little pieces, and the ants come and carry it away crumb by crumb. As for the girl whose shame is thus made manifest to all, “she is punished as the law directs,” says Aelian grimly.
Another dragon was worshipped at Melita in Egype, Aelian goes on to tell us. It was unlawful for anyone to see this dragon, who dwelt in a lonely tower where priests came each day to leave milk, honey and cakes for it in golden bowls set on a special table. And each day when they came they found the bowls empty.
“Upon one occasion, a man of noble birth, who was filled with a great curiosity to see the dragon, having entered alone and placed the food, went out. But when the dragon had begun to eat, he flung open the door suddenly and came in again.
“The dragon was much insulted and left immediately. As for the man who had impiously desired to see him, he did so to his own destruction. For he was immediately seized with madness, rushed out, and having confessed his crime lost the power of speech, and shortly afterwards died.”
Yet another dragon, living in a cave in Epirus in north western Greece, was honoured much as the Roman dragon had been. Each year a gret feast was held in its honour, and once again a maiden was chosen who went alone and naked into the cave to offer food to the dragon. If it took the food gently from her hands, the people rejoiced since this meant a fertile and fortunate year. But if it snatched it, and drove her out of the cave, there was lamentation throughout all Epirus, and a year of death and misfortune was to be expected.
From the Hamish Hamilton Book of Dragons
Written by admin on September 9th, 2006 with
no comments.
Read more articles on Dragon Myths and Legends.
- [+] Digg: Feature this article
- [+] Del.icio.us: Bookmark this article
- [+] Furl: Bookmark this article