Heads and tales

by Unknown

Androcles and the Lion.

Addison,[139] in the 139th Guardian, has given us the story of Androcles and the Lion. He prefaces it by saying that he has no regard "to what Æsop has said upon the subject, whom," says he, "I look upon to have been a republican, by the unworthy treatment which he often gives to the king of beasts, and whom, if I had time, I could convict of falsehood and forgery in almost every matter of fact which he has related of this generous animal."

Better observation of it, however, from the time of Burchell to that of Livingstone, shows that Æsop's account is on the whole to be relied on, and that the lion is a thorough cat, treacherous, cruel, and, for the most part, with a good deal of the coward in him.

The story of Androcles was related by Aulus Gellius, who extracted it from Dion Cassius. Although likely to be embellished, there is every likelihood of the foundation of the story being true. Addison relates this, "for the sake of my learned reader, who needs go no further in it, if he has read it already:—Androcles was the slave of a noble Roman who was proconsul of Afric. He had been guilty of a fault, for which his master would have put him to death, had not he found an opportunity to escape out of his hands, and fled into the deserts of Numidia. As he was wandering among the barren sands, and almost dead with heat and hunger, he saw a cave in the side of a rock. He went into it, and finding at the farther end of it a place to sit down upon, rested there for some time. At length, to his great surprise, a huge overgrown lion entered at the mouth of the cave, and seeing a man at the upper end of it, immediately made towards him. Androcles gave himself up for gone;[140] but the lion, instead of treating him as he expected, laid his paw upon his lap, and with a complaining kind of voice, fell a licking his hand. Androcles, after having recovered himself a little from the fright he was in, observed the lion's paw to be exceedingly swelled by a large thorn that stuck in it. He immediately pulled it out, and by squeezing the paw very gently made a great deal of corrupt matter run out of it, which, probably freed the lion from the great anguish he had felt some time before. The lion left him upon receiving this good office from him, and soon after returned with a fawn which he had just killed. This he laid down at the feet of his benefactor, and went off again in pursuit of his prey. Androcles, after having sodden the flesh of it by the sun, subsisted upon it until the lion had supplied him with another. He lived many days in this frightful solitude, the lion catering for him with great assiduity. Being tired at length with this savage society, he was resolved to deliver himself up into his master's hands, and suffer the worst effects of his displeasure, rather than be thus driven out from mankind. His master, as was customary for the proconsuls of Africa, was at that time getting together a present of all the largest lions that could be found in the country, in order to send them to Rome, that they might furnish out a show to the Roman people. Upon his poor slave surrendering himself into his hands, he ordered him to be carried away to Rome as soon as the lions were in readiness to be sent, and that for his crime he should be exposed to fight with one of the lions in the amphitheatre, as usual, for the diversion of the people. This was all performed accordingly. Androcles, after such a strange run of fortune, was now in the area of the theatre, amidst thousands of spectators, expecting every moment when his antagonist would come out upon him. At length a huge monstrous lion leaped out from the place where he had been kept hungry for the show. He advanced with great rage towards the man, but on a sudden, after having regarded him a little wistfully, fell to the ground, and crept towards his feet with all the signs of blandishment and caress. Androcles, after a short pause, discovered that it was his old Numidian friend, and immediately renewed his acquaintance with him. Their mutual congratulations were very surprising to the beholders, who, upon hearing an account of the whole matter from Androcles, ordered him to be pardoned, and the lion to be given up into his possession. Androcles returned at Rome the civilities which he had received from him in the deserts of Afric. Dion Cassius says, that he himself saw the man leading the lion about the streets of Rome, the people everywhere gathering about them, and repeating to one another, 'Hic est leo hospes hominis; hic est homo medicus leonis.' 'This is the lion who was the man's host; this is the man who was the lion's physician.'"

We are glad to repeat this anecdote, although some may call it "stale and old." The last time we were at the Zoological Gardens, in the Regents Park, London, we saw a lion very kindly come and rub itself against the rails of its den, on seeing a turbaned visitor come up, who addressed it. The man had been kind to it on its passage home. It was by no means a tame lion, nor one that its keeper would have ventured to touch.

Sir George Davis and the Lion

Steele, in the 146th Guardian,[141] has followed up a paper by Addison, on the subject of lions, and gives an anecdote sent him, he says, by "a worthy merchant and a friend of mine," who had it in the year 1700 from the gentleman to whom it happened.

"About sixty years ago, when the plague raged at Naples, Sir George Davis, consul there for the English nation, retired to Florence. It happened one day he went out of curiosity to see the great duke's lions. At the farther end, in one of the dens, lay a lion, which the keepers in three years' time could not tame, with all the art and gentle usage imaginable. Sir George no sooner appeared at the grates of the den, but the lion ran to him with all the marks of joy and transport he was capable of expressing. He reared himself up, and licked his hand, which this gentleman put in through the grates. The keeper affrighted, took him by the arm and pulled him away, begging him not to hazard his life by going so near the fiercest creature of that kind that ever entered those dens. However, nothing would satisfy Sir George, notwithstanding all that could be said to dissuade him, but he must go into the den to him. The very instant he entered, the lion threw his paws upon his shoulders, and licked his face, and ran to and fro in the den, fawning and full of joy, like a dog at the sight of his master. After several embraces and salutations exchanged on both sides, they parted very good friends. The rumour of this interview between the lion and the stranger rung immediately through the whole city, and Sir George was very near passing for a saint among the people. The great duke, when he heard of it, sent for Sir George, who waited upon his highness, to the den, and to satisfy his curiosity, gave him the following account of what seemed so strange to the duke and his followers:—

"'A captain of a ship from Barbary gave me this lion when he was a young whelp. I brought him up tame, but when I thought him too large to be suffered to run about the house, I built a den for him in my courtyard; from that time he was never permitted to go loose, except when I brought him within doors to show him to my friends. When he was five years old, in his gamesome tricks, he did some mischief by pawing and playing with people. Having griped a man one day a little too hard, I ordered him to be shot, for fear of incurring the guilt of what might happen; upon this a friend who was then at dinner with me begged him: how he came here I know not.'

Here Sir George Davis ended, and thereupon the Duke of Tuscany assured him that he had the lion from that very friend of his."