SPHINX FIGURE,
DORCHESTER, OXON.
A carving in the arm-rest of one of the stalls of Beverley Minster, suggested in the block on [page 159], shews a sphinx with a shield; there are in the same church several fine examples seated in the orthodox manner.
On a capital in the sedilia of Dorchester Abbey is a curious compound which may be classed as a sphinx. One of the hands (or paws) is held over the eyes of a dog, which suggests the manner in which animals were anciently sacrificed. Another sphinx in the same sedilia is of the winged variety. It has the head cowled; many of the mediæval combinatory forms are mantled.
COWLED SPHINX,
DORCHESTER, OXON.
In Worcester Cathedral is a compound of man, ox, and lion, very different from the sphinx or cherubim shapes, being a grotesque deprived of all the original poetry of the conception.
Virgil describes Scylla (the Punic Scol, destruction) as a beautiful figure upwards, half her body being a beautiful virgin; downwards, a horrible fish with a wolf’s belly (utero). Homer similarly.
The mermaid is a frequent subject, but more monotonous in its form and action than any other creature, and is generally found executed with a respectful simplicity that scarcely ever savours of grotesqueness. The mermaid, “the sea wolf of the abyss,” and the “mighty sea-woman” of Boewulf, has an early origin as a deity of fascinating but malignant tendencies.
The centaur, perhaps, ranks next to the sphinx in artistic merit. To the early Christians the centaur was merely a symbol of unbridled passions, and all mediæval reference classes it as evil. Virgil mentions it as being met in numbers near the gates of Hades, and the Parthenon sculptures shew it as the enemy of men.
