viduals, allegories and schemes of sins, fit together like the parts of a mechanism. Dante's mind was not a divine organ, like that of a pope, but a man's mind; and nothing is less judicious than to interpret Dante with the premise that Dante could not err. Dante not only changed the order of the three beasts in Jeremiah, but in two cases he changed their gender. The lupus becomes la lupa, the pardus becomes la lonza. So his demoniacal dogs are bitches, as in Virgil and Lucan. Dante's reason for choosing the bitch-wolf is obvious.1 Though there existed a word lonzo, lonza was much the more usual form. But why did Dante employ lonza where parda would have done as well? Perhaps, as some one has suggested, perhaps he did so for the three l's, una lonza leggiera, un leone, una lupa. Seeing what a fancy medieval poets had for such embellishments, one can readily believe in the alliterative theory. Again, as will presently be shown, Dante was influenced in his choice by the classics. What kind of a beast may Dante have meant by this ounce of his? Had the poet ever seen one? Benvenuto da Imola, a sound-minded man, sheds light here. 'I believe,' writes he, 'that the author means rather the pard than anything else, not only because the pard's qualities seem better to agree with lust, . . . but, also, because that Florentine word lonza seems to mean the pard more than some other wild beast. Wherefore, when once a certain pard was being carried through Florence, the children ran up, crying, "See the ounce!" and this was told me by that most bland Boccaccio of 1 See chapter on 'The Wolf,' p. 114, note 3. Certaldo.' (Unde dum semel portaretur quidam pardus per Florentiam, pueri concurrentes clamabant: vide lonciam, ut mihi narrabat suavissimus Boccatius de Certaldo.) Though the word lonza was applied by one writer, at least, to the hyena,1 and by others to the lynx, Dante lays stress on the spotted skin, which he calls 'lively' and 'painted.' The pel maculato of Inf. I, 33, is Virgil's maculosa tegmine lyncis (Æn. I, 327),a and the pelle dipinta of Inf. XVI, 108, answers closely to the following lines of Ovid; for it is well to remember that the acceptation of folklore clustering about a name and an artist's scattered borrowings of physical description are not the same, as is very often obvious in Dante. Here are the lines (Met. III, 668–669):— Quem circa tigres simulacraque inania lyncum Pictarumque iacent fera corpora pantherarum. 1 Acta SS. Iunii, p. 436, de S. Raynerio, 'In ipso deserto reperit duas hyænas, quas vulgus vocat lonzas, leone velociores et audaciores.' Cited by Du Cange. According to Philippe de Thaün (Walberg's ed., p. 45), 'Hyene signefie, Ne larai nel vus die, Ume aver, cuveitus, 2 E. RAIMONDI (Delle Caccie . . . Libri Quattro), pp. 188, 190, R. BELLEAU (ed. Marty-Laveaux), Des Pierres Précieuses, vol. II, p. 171: — 195. 'Des onces mouchettez d'estoiles sur le dos Onces a l'œil subtil, au pié souple et dispos.' Ibid. p. 239, 'Pierre d'once, ditte Lyncurium.' Cf. PLINY, XXVIII, 32, 'Peregrinæ sunt et lynces quae clarissime omnium quadrupedum cernunt.' 8 See note I, p. 99. * But in Virgil it is not Venus who wears this skin. 5 Cf. STATIUS, Achill. II, 406, 'imbelles lynces sectari,' with the behaviour of Dante's ounce. Cf. also HORACE, Od. II, xiii, 40, 'Aut timidos agitare lyncas.' ΙΟΙ Except Emperor Frederick of Swabia, whose descriptions of birds are often extraordinarily accurate, medieval writers give what they imagined to be the habits of an animal, rather than its physical attributes. It is even safe to affirm that in the whole range of medieval zoology there is not one thoroughly scientific description of the looks of a dog or a horse, of a wild boar or a bear. The difficulty of identifying any variable exotic species is, therefore, almost insuperable. Yet we may be sure that leopards or similarly spotted beasts had come into Europe before 1229. Leopards and bears are mentioned as princely gifts in the Roman de Brut1 of Wace, a poem composed about 1155; and William of Malmesbury records 2 that Henry I of England longed fervently for the wonders from foreign lands,—leopards, lynxes, camels, of which breeds England had none, and right joyfully, as he said, begged them of other kings. Frederick II of Swabia states in his Art of Hawking that in the chase hunters use instruments or animals as, for example, various leopards, lynxes male and female, ferrets, and some others.3 By lynxes (lincos et lincas) he certainly did not mean the bobtailed creature with tufted ears, but some species of pard, as the Persian 1 Vs. 10889 ff. 2 De gestis regum Angliæ V (H. SAVILLE, Rer. Anglic. script. Francof. 1601), p. 161, 'Prona voluptate terrarum exterarum miracula inhiabat, leones, leopardos, lynces, camelos, quorum foetus Anglia est inops, grandi, ut dixit iucunditate a regibus alienis expostulans.' Cited by ALWIN SCHULTZ in Das Höfische Leben, I, 452. De Arte Venandi, I, cap. I, 'Aut habent animalia quadrupedia, domestica, agrestia, scilicet modos Leopardorum, Canum, Lincos, Lincas, Furectos, et alia plura.' yuz or the cheetah. Frederick passed through Parma with leopards in 1229.1 Probably not long before 1285 an ounce was shown in Florence.2 On April 5, 1291, the Capitano del Popolo in the presence of the priors moved that fifty small florins be paid pro Comuni Bindo de Luca for a leopard. In June the Podestà had to do with the payment of sixty soldi and ten denari to Piero del Maestro for feeding the leopard.3 From all these facts one may believe that Dante had seen a leopard, and that, in order to describe it, he used a word which other writers have applied, not only to the hyena, but also to the sharp-eyed lynx, whose nature is so envious that it hides from man its valuable lyngurium, or urinal stone. Etymologically lynx or lince and lonza are probably of one origin. That the word λúyğ or lynx was split by the learned into lince and by the others into lonza seems plain. On Dante's lonza, or ounce, there has been written enough to fill a volume, not wholly a valuable volume; for much that has been said is mere beating of bushes where the ounce never lay. Most critics have gone astray by failing to seek light in the animal lore of the Middle Ages. 1 See chapter on 'The Elephant,' p. 202, note 4. 2 T. CASINI, Aneddoti e Studi Danteschi, p. 53, cites the Consulte della Repubblica Fiorentina for 1285. This ounce had died or departed before June 29, 1285, when Raniero del Sasso made a proposition 'de curiis faciendis iuxta Palatium Potestatis, in loco in quo morabatur leuncia.' 3 Consulte della Rep. Fior. II, pp. 20, 91. Cited by Torraca. CHAPTER IX THE LION THE 'Physiologus' tells that the lion has three peculiarities. First, to throw the hunters off his track he rubs out his footmarks with his tail. This signifies the mystery of our Lord's becoming a man, a secret hidden from the heavenly powers and from the devil. Secondly, when the lion sleeps his eyes never close. Thus slept the body of Christ at the crucifixion, but his Godhood watched at the right hand of the Father. Thirdly, the lioness bears her cub dead, but on the third day his sire comes, breathes into his face, and thus brings him to life. This means our Lord's resurrection on the third day.1 Add now to these three attributes two more, and we shall know mainly what was thought about the lion in the Middle Ages. In the Bible and in the Fathers he figures in a good sense as the king, -the Lion of Judah,2-or typifies in stately fashion the might of Hell. 3 It is chiefly as a majestic beast, as an 1 Cf. LAUCHERT, Geschichte des Physiologus, p. 4. 2 Epist. V, i, 16-22. Cf. Genesis xlix, 9, 'Catulus leonis Iuda: ad praedam, fili mi, ascendisti: requiescens accubuisti ut leo, et quasi leaena, quis suscitabit eum?' Cf. the English version and Revel. v, 5. Cf. HUGO OF ST. VICTOR, De Bestiis II, cap. 1, 'Sic et Salvator noster, spiritualis Leo de tribu Iuda,' etc. 3 Other references are as follows: (a) Astronomical: a sign of the Zodiac appropriate to Mars, Parad. XVI, 37; as representing |