Chap. III.] 



THE ELEPHANT. 



103 



of the Lower Empire and the Romancers of the middle 

 ages; and Phile, a contemporary of Petrarch and 

 Dante, who in the early part of the fourteenth century, 

 addressed his didactic poem on the elephant to the Em- 

 peror Andronicus II., untaught by the exposition of 

 Aristotle, still clung to the old delusion, 



" II(J5es 5e rovrq) Qavjxa Kai traces repas, 

 Ovs, ov KaOdirep raWarcov %woov yevrj, 

 Encode Kiveiv e| avdpOpoov K\a<r/j.dTW 

 Kal yap ari6apo7s (rvvreOevres oo-reois, 

 Kai rfj wXafiapa rwv (Tcpvp&v Karacrrdcre^ 

 Kal ry irphs apdpa tu>i/ o~K6\5)V viroKpi(T€L t 

 N9i/ els rSuovs &yov<ri, vvv els v(pe<reis, 

 Tas iravrodairas eKbpofxas rov Orjpiov. 



* * * * * * 

 Bpaxvrepovs ovras 5£ TUiV bmvQloov 

 * kvafxcpiXeKToos ol5a rovs efxitpoMovs' 

 Tovrois e\e<pas evrade\s &airep gtvKols 

 'OpdoaTadijv 6.KafjLiTTOs vnruJorTcau jueVet." 



Y. 106, &c. 



Solinus introduced the same fable into his Polyhistor ; 

 and Dicuil, the Irish commentator of the ninth century, 

 who had an opportunity of seeing the elephant sent 

 by Haroun Alraschid as a present to Charlemagne 1 in 

 the year 802, corrects the error, and attributes its per- 

 petuation to the circumstance that the joints in the 

 elephant's leg are not very apparent, except when he 

 lies down. 2 



It is a strong illustration of the vitality of error, 

 that the delusion thus exposed by Dicuil in the ninth 

 century, was revived by Matthew Paris in the thir- 

 teenth ; and stranger still, that Matthew not only saw 



1 Egenha.rd, Vita Karoli, c. xvi. Imperatoris Karoli viderunt. Sed, 

 and Annates Francorum, a.d. 810. forsitan, ideo hoc de elephante ficte 



2 "Sed idem Julius, unum de sestimando scriptum est, eo quod 

 elephantibus mentiens, falso loqui* genua et suffragines sui nisi quando 

 tur; dicens elephantem nunquam jacet, non palam apparent." — Di- 

 jacere ; dum ille sieut bos certissime cttilus, Be Mensura Orbis Terra, 

 jacet, ut populi communiter regni c. vii. 



Francorum elephantem, in tempore 



