Hrabanus Maurus on Elephants
Patrologia Latina Cursus Completus LXIII, 221C – 222A
Elephantem Græci a magnitudine corporis vocatum putant, quod forma montis proferat. Græcem enim mons lophos dicitur. Apud Indos autem a voce barrus vocatur. Unde et vox ejus barritus et dentes ebur. Rostrum autem promuscis dicitur, quoniam illo pabulum ori admovet, et est angui similis vallo munitus eburneo. Hi boves lucas dicti ab antiquis Romanis: boves, quia nullum #221D# animal grandius videbant : lucas, quia in Lucania illos primos Pyrrhus in prælio objecit Romanis. Nam hoc genus animantis in rebus bellicis aptum est. In eis enim Persæ et Indi ligneis turribus collocatis tanquam de muro jaculis dimicant. Intellectu autem et memoria multa vigent : gregatim incedunt : motu, quo valent, salutant, murem fugiunt, aversi coeunt. Quando autem parturiunt, in aquis vel in insulis dimittunt fetus propter dracones, quia inimici sunt, et ab eis implicati necantur. Biennio autem portant fetus, nec amplius quam semel gignunt, nec plures, sed tantum unum. Vivunt autem trecentos annos. Apud solam Africam et Indiam elephanti prius nascebantur : nunc sola India eos #222A# gignit. Elephas autem significat peccatorem immanem sceleribus, et facinorum deformitate squalidum : attamen tales sæpe ad Christum convertuntur. Unde scriptum est in libro Regum, quod adducerentur ad Solomonem simiæ et elephanti (III. Reg. x), quia, ipse est pax nostra, qui fecit utraque unum (Eph. II), et in sanguine suo mundavit conscientiam nostram ab operibus mortuorum.
Paraphrase and commentary
The account of the physical appearance and behavior of elephants is almost word-for-word borrowed from Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies Book XII, 2, 14. The description as usual starts with the etymology of the name of the beast, its snout and tusk.
- The Greeks are of the opinion that elephants are named like that in connection to their huge body, which resembles mountain. For indeed Greek word for mauntain is λόφος. In India however it is called barrus for its voice is like a war-cry (barritus) and its horns are made of ivory (ebur). Its snout is called promuscis, because it brings food to its mouth and it resembles a snake; it is protected by an ivory rampart (the tusk). They were called Lucanian oxen by the ancient Romans: oxen – because they have seen no animal bigger than oxen; Lucanian – because in Lucania for a first time Phyrrhus used them in battle against the Romans. For these kind of beasts can be used in war. In fact the Persians and Indians place wooden towers on top of them and fight with javelins from there as if from a wall.i
Reference is made to the usage of war-trained elephants in battle. The explanation of the term boves lucas can be found also in Lucretius, De rerum natura, book V, vv. 1302-4, where Lucretius mentioned the elephants with their ‘towered’ bodies, trained by the Phoenicians to endure war wounds. In the same passage Lucretius also called the beast “anguimanus” literary meaning “with serpent hand” because of the quick serpent-like motion of the trunk of the elephant. For the same reason Isidore, and thus Hrabanus, compared the trunk to a snake.
- They are reputed for their huge intellect and memory. They move about in herds and salute with such a gesture which they are capable of. They avoid mouses and are not prompt to mate. But when they are pregnant, they bare their offsprint in water or on an island because of the dragons, for they are the elephant’s foes and they kill elephants by clasping them.ii Elephants are being pregnant for two years, they give birth only once, and not to many but only to one offspring. But they live for threehundret years. Before, elephants were being born in Africa and India; now, only in India.
Elephants were often praised for their sexual abstinency and thus givven as an example for human behavior. Hrabanus, however, offered a different allegorical explanation equating the elephants with sinners, perhaps connecting the huge body of the beast with a huge sinnful deed.
- The elephant signifies immense sinners, wretched by the hedeousness of their deeds: yet such people often turn to Christ. In connection to this matter it is written in the book of Kings that apes and elephants were brought to Salomon, for he is our peace, who hath made both one (Ephesians 2:14) , and with His blood purified our conscence from the deed which belong to the realm of death.
Footnotes
i See for example the illumination in MS London, British Library, Harley 4751, fol. 8(Bestiary from the 13th c. drawing from Isidore’s Etymologies).
ii See for example the illumination in MS London, British Library, Harley 4751, fol. 58v. (Bestiary from the 13th c. drawing from Isidore’s Etymologies).
