The following sketch purposes only to initiate the task here propounded, the author’s access to materials being limited, and only sufficient to enable him, as he thinks, to establish generally the proposition which it involves, to grasp as it were some of the broader and salient features of the investigation, while leaving a rich gleaning of corroborative information for the hand of any other who may please to continue and extend his observations.
At the outset it will be necessary to assign a much more extended signification to the word dragon than that which is contained in the definition at the head of this chapter. The popular mind of the present day doubtless associates it always with the idea of a creature possessing wings; but the Lung of the Chinese, the δράκων of the Greeks, the Draco of the Romans, the Egyptian dragon, and the Nâga of the Sanscrit have no such limited signification, and appear to have been sometimes applied to any serpent, lacertian, or saurian, of extraordinary dimensions, nor is it always easy to determine from the passages in which these several terms occur what kind of monster is specially indicated.
Thus the dragon referred to by Propertius in the quotation annexed may have been a large python. “Lanuvium[144] is, of old, protected by an aged dragon; here, where the occasion of an amusement so seldom occurring is not lost, where is the abrupt descent into a dark and hollowed cave; where is let down—maiden, beware of every such journey—the honorary tribute to the fasting snake, when he demands his yearly food, and hisses and twists deep down in the earth. Maidens, let down for such a rite, grow pale, when their hand is unprotectedly trusted in the snake’s mouth. He snatches at the delicacies if offered by a maid; the very baskets tremble in the virgin’s hands; if they are chaste, they return and fall on the necks of their parents, and the farmers cry ‘We shall have a fruitful year.’”[145]
To the same class may probably be ascribed the dragon referred to by Aristotle.[146] “The eagle and the dragon are enemies, for the eagle feeds on serpents”; and again,[147] “the Glanis in shallow water is often destroyed by the dragon serpent.” It might perhaps be supposed that the crocodile is here referred to, but this is specially spoken of in another passage, as follows[148]: “But there are others which, though they live and feed in the water, do not take in water but air, and produce their young out of the water; many of these animals are furnished with feet, as the otter and crocodile, and others are without feet, as the water-serpent.”
A somewhat inexplicable habit is ascribed to the dragon in Book ix.[149]: “When the draco has eaten much fruit, it seeks the juice of the bitter lettuce; it has been seen to do this.”
Pliny, probably quoting Aristotle,[150] also states that the dragon relieves the nausea which affects it in spring with the juices of the lettuce; and Ælian[151] repeats the story.
It is also probable that some large serpent is intended by Pliny in the story which he relates,[152] after Democritus, that a man called Thoas was preserved in Arcadia by a dragon. When a boy, he had become attached to it and had reared it very tenderly; but his father, being alarmed at the nature and monstrous size of the reptile, had taken and left it in the desert. Thoas being here attacked by robbers who lay in ambush, he was delivered from them by the dragon, which recognized his voice and came to his assistance. It may be noted in regard to this that there are many authenticated instances of snakes evidencing considerable affection for those who have treated them with kindness.[153]
The impression that Pliny’s dragon was intended to represent some large boa or python is strengthened by his statement:[154] “The dragon is a serpent destitute of venom; its head placed beneath the threshold of a door, the gods being duly propitiated by prayers, will ensure good fortune to the house, it is said.”
It is remarkable that he attributes to the dragon the same desire and capacity to attack the elephant as is attributed to the Pa snake in Western China, and by the old Arabian voyagers to serpents in Borneo.
The Shan-hai-king, a Chinese work of extreme antiquity, of which special mention will be made hereafter, says: “The Pa snake swallows elephants, after three years it ejects the bones; well-to-do people, eating it, are cured of consumption.”