Nicholas, Nick, and George Baloglou. An Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds: Translation and Commentary. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii; 557 (DuBruck).

Summary

The translators have taken a Byzantine animal epic of the fourteenth century (in Manolis Papathomopoulos’s edition of 2002, Thessalonica), rendered its 1,082 verses in (Australian) English, and provided a long introduction of 158 pages, along with thirty-six Manuscript C (=Constantinople) illustrations, a commentary (126 pages), textual notes (thirty-two pages), six appendices, a bibliography, and an index. While the legendary King Arthur would assemble his knights in springtime, the Byzantine Lion King calls his subjects on September 15, 1364, all quadrupeds, tame (clean, domestic) and wild (bloody, loathsome). The lion’s seat-mate is the elephant, and his chief advisors are a cheetah and a leopard.

Furthermore, wolf, dog, and fox are summoned to hear the lion’s plea for peace in the animal kingdom. The cat, rat, and monkey become ambassadors, while the hare is to serve as messenger, together with a horse, a donkey (“of giant dick and balls”), and a camel. Pledges for a lasting peace are made — whereupon the animals begin to attack one another. The cat calls the rat a “long-tailed, long-nosed, and long-whiskered fool,” and the latter retorts by addressing the feline as “shameful, filthy flour-shitter.” The name calling continues, and generally, the herbivores (low class) are abused by the carnivores (aristocracy), in pairs: Fox vs. Hound, Hare vs. Fox, Deer vs. Boar, Sheep vs. Billy Goat, Ox vs. Buffalo, Donkey vs. Ox, Horse vs. Donkey, Camel vs. Horse, Wolf vs. Horse, Bear vs. Wolf, Cheetah vs. Leopard, Monkey vs. Elephant, Ox vs. Lion King. The sparring escalates to the point that battle is no longer avoidable. A glorification of Christ Almighty (comparable to the Te Deum of mysteries and passion plays) ends the poem.

While the intense vituperations (containing moments of self-praise) may be compared to the bragging episodes of western epic knights, the tirades yield much about the characters of the Byzantine animals, as perceived by the anonymous author. Some descriptions are clearly legendary, such as the elephants’ inability to kneel (because their legs are “straight” and have neither knees nor ankles), or the deer’s preference for eating snakes. Generally, though, the quadrupeds are well observed within their habitats.

The translators’ introduction is the key to this epic; since many observations are repeated in the commentary, we shall only mention these remarks as they occur in the first 158 pages. The historical situation of the late Byzantine world was complex.