History of the Rhinoceros 



131 



not a tame animal. Indeed, it inflicts injury on 

 man; and for this reason the ancients availed 

 themselves of it to fine a person a cup of wine, 

 which is expressed by the phrase 'to raise the 

 goblet of rhinoceros-horn.' l This goblet receives 

 its name from the rhinoceros, and so it is proper 

 also that there should be wine-kettles with the 

 emblem of the rhinoceros. On the two ends of 

 the handle of this vessel is pictured a rhinoceros 

 with head and body complete, the latter having 

 the shape of a glutton (fao t'ie). This certainly 

 indicates that it symbolizes a warning. In this 

 manner all vessels were decorated during the 

 Shang dynasty, and it is by such symbolic forms 

 that they are distinguished from those of the 

 Chou." Whatever the rough character of these 

 two sketches transmitted by the Po ku t'u lu 

 may be, 2 the single-horned rhinoceros is here 

 clearly outlined with a naive and refreshing 

 realism, such as could be spontaneously produced 

 only by the hand of primitive man, who with a 

 few forceful outlines recorded his actual ex- 

 perience of the animal. Here we do not face 

 the narrow-breasted academic and philological 

 construction of the scholars of the Sung period, 

 but the direct and vigorous impression of the 

 strong-minded hunter of past ages, who was 

 formed of the same stuff as the Bushman of 

 southern Africa and palaeolithic man living in 

 the caves of Spain and France. No bridge 

 spans the chasm yawning between the Shang 

 and Sung productions. The Shang rhinoceros 

 breathes the same spirit as its companions on 

 the rock paintings of the Bushman (Fig. 19), 

 and in the palaeolithic cave of Font-de-Gaume 

 in France (Fig. 20). The general form of the 



Fig. 21. 

 Inscription on Bronze Kettle 

 attributed to Shang Period, 

 showing Pictorial Form of 

 Sacrificial Bull (from Po ku 

 t'u lu). 



1 Quotation from Shi king (see Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. IV, p. 233). The 

 rhinoceros-horn goblets are discussed below, p. 167. 



2 Another cruder and more conventionalized symbol of the rhinoceros se, in which, 

 however, the single horn is duly accentuated, is figured in the same work (Ch. 1, 

 p. 25 b), as occurring in the inscription on a round tripod vessel (ting) attributed 

 to the Shang period. 



