Hrabanus Maurus on Chameleon
Patrologia Latina Cursus Completus LXIII, 222B
Camaeleon non habet unum colorem, sed diversa est varietate conspersus, ut pardus. Dictus autem ita, quod hujus cameleontis corpusculum ad colores, quos videt, facillima conversione variatur, quod aliorum animalium non est ita ad conversionem facilis corpulentia.
Paraphrase and commentary
Hrabanus account for the chameleon is a exact copy of Isidore's account in Etymologies, book 8, 18. Strangely, in this case Hrabanus did not add any mystical explanation about the animal although it is mentioned in the Bible and even ranked among the unclean animals.i
- The chameleon has not one colour but is coloured differently like the pard. It is called like that becauseii the body of the chameleon can very easily change its colouring in respect to the colours it sees. It is not so easy for the body of other animals to change its colours.
Footnotes
i See Lev. 11:29-30
- 29These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind,
- 30And the ferret, and the chameleon, and the lizard, and the snail, and the mole.
ii Most probably there is a lacuna already in the text of Isidore's Etymologies which Hrabanus used for this record. Following the same logic implied for the camelopardus, the text now lost stated that the chameleon got its name from its likeness to both camel and leon. It is possible however that the etymology was closer to the now accepted one, namely that it originates from the Greek χαμαιλέων (literary "ground lion" or "dwarf lion").
