4 The Poets Beasts. 



nical, and, though usually magnanimous, it is also on 

 occasion " inhuman." It is " the awful lion's royal shape " 

 in one place'; in another we meet- only " the shaggy terror 

 of the wood." While Cowper portrays the beast sparing 

 a victim " on the terms of royal mercy, and through generous 

 scorn to rend a victim trembling at his foot," Armstrong 

 writes of "the ruthless king of beasts, that on blood and 

 slaughter only lives." 



In spite too of its prodigious strength, it is well W'Orth 

 noting that no incident of man's triumph over the lion is 

 neglected, and — as Pausanias tells us that Polydamas, the 

 athlete, killed a lion, "although he was unarmed" — it is 

 particularly recorded (whenever such was the case) that the 

 man was without weapons during the encounter. In the 

 same spirit the Assyrian king has left the proud chronicle 

 on stone how " I, Assar-Banipul, king of multitudes, by my 

 might, on my two legs, a fierce lion, which I seized behind 

 the ears, in the service of Istar, goddess of war, with my 

 two hands killed." ^ In the same spirit of pride at such 

 a conquest, the son of Jesse makes his boast before the 

 king, and afterwards, being himself king, he places among 

 his " mighty men," and before " the Thirty," that man of 

 calm courage Benaiah, who " went down and slew a lion 

 in the midst of a pit in time of snow," and who also 

 slew, terrible as himself, two "lion-like" men of Moab. 

 Our own Richard — "he who robbed the lion of his heart" 

 — after three days' fasting, so the legend goes, in the 

 dungeons of "Almaync," was especially glorified by the 

 ballad-singers of his day, because he had torn a lion to 

 pieces, and this, too, "without his weapons in his hands." 

 So, too, " irresistible Samson," who " tore the lion as the 

 lion tears the kid " (" and he had nothing in his hand "). 



' " Who drew the linn vanquished? 'iwas a man." — Pope, "Avcc 

 plus dc raison nous aurions Ic dcssus si mes confreres savaieiit peindre," 

 says the lion in La Fontaine. 



