Their likeness is not found on earth, in air or sea!”
The significance of the Griffin, however, goes deeper than the conventionality, which alone the artists deride; for it is only half an explanation to cry “conventional.” What made it “conventional?” Why did men convene to admire such an object?
One has to grope among the beginnings of history to be able to guess; and for that purpose, one has to stoop to the mental level of wild backwoodsmen, not men of civilised breeds who have reverted, like the mustangs of South America, but real, wild backwoodsmen, none of whose ancestors have ever been anything else, since time began.
On trying the thing, I found it as easy to think [167] ]with them as ever it was to keep down to the level of civilised men, carousing after dinner, when
“The soul subsides, and wickedly inclines
To seem but mortal, e’en in sound divines.”
Of course it is a commonplace to connect the Griffin with the winged lion of Babylon and other misshapen beasts. But Babylon was as much sophisticated as London is to-day, and as far removed from primitive conditions.
It is among the wild backwoodsmen, if anywhere, that one can reach back to the real antiquity; and if you listen to them at home, especially when they have forgotten you or suppose you asleep, you gradually realise what a great place is filled in their minds by beasts of prey, and in particular by the little-seen-but-much-felt feline foes. Many a man and woman among the jungle folk has never beheld them at all, but few have escaped their depredations. They combine the terrors of force and cunning, and abide a bugbear to humanity, from infancy to age.
Perhaps this may be best illustrated by one of the most famous incidents in the life of Confucius, dated by the Family Sayings at B.C. 516, about the time when Darius was sacking Babylon. Here is the paragraph in the old Chinese history (translated by Legge, Li Ki, II. II. 3, 10.)
“As he was passing by the side of the Ta’e [168] ]mountain, there was a woman weeping and wailing by a grave. Confucius bent forward in his carriage, and after listening to her for some time, sent Tsze-Loo to ask the cause of her grief.