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The Isle of the Amazons: A Marvel of Travellers

Author(s): Albrecht RosenthalReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Jan., 1938), pp. 257-259Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750015.

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MIRACULOUS

BIRDS

257

His

design

left

its

impression

upon

his

contemporaries.

It was still

used in

1631

by

the

prolific

publisher,

Matthias

Merian,

as

an

illustration

of

Johann

Ludwig

Gottfried's

account

of

the

New World

(Historia

Antipodum

odernewe Welt, p. 243). But its influence

was not

restricted to

this

sort

of

exploration

and

history

book.

It

found

its

way

even

into

a

treatise

of the

Linn6

of the sixteenth

century,

the

Ornithologia

f

Ulisse

Aldrovandi

(Pl.

33b).

It

is

true,

Aldrovandi

classes

the

roc

under

the

'Fabulous

Birds' without

rejecting altogether

the

possibility

of the

bird's

existence.

He

accepts

tale

quale

the

design

of Stradanus

and bases

on it

his

ornithological

criterion:

"rostrum

colum-

binum

potius,

quam Aquilinum

ostendit".1

In

Stradanus's

engraving

allegorical

rela-

tions, mythology, and marvels are in the

foreground

although

we

could

show that

he

intends

to

illustrate

faithfully Pigafetta's

report.

It

is

this

mediaeval

passion

for

miracles and

prodigies

whichcaused

him

to

depict

the

roc

;

for

actually

the

bird

has

no

part

in the

idea

of

the

engraving

: the illus-

tration

of the

discovery

of the east-west

straits.

Of

course,

the

roc

has a number

of other

characteristics

besides

his

power

to

overcome

the

elephant.

The most remarkable

of

these

features

which

adhere

to him

wherever

he is

mentioned from

China

to

Greece

is

perhaps

the report that the sun is darkened when he

appears.

This leads into old

and

deeply

rooted

ideas about the

significance

of

shade,

ideas which we

find still

alive in Christian

shape

in

the

fourteenth

century.

Fazio

degli Ubertis

in

speaking

of

Jerusalem,

says

:

Dove

fu in

croce

il

nostro

Pelicano,

Quel

di

che

obscur6 il

sol

con

li altri lumi.

R. W.

1

Ornithologiae

oc est de Avibus

Historiae

Libri

XII.

Bologna

1599.

Lib.

X,

p.

61o. Aldrovandi

reports

that

he

got

the

picture

of the roc

"ex tabulis

geo-

graphicis

Cornelii

de

Judaeis".

Only

the

Speculum

of

Cornelis

de

Jode

from

1593

can

be

meant.

But

this

work does not contain

any

such

picture.

Con-

fusions

are

not rare

in

Aldrovandi's

work

(cf.

Encycl.

taliana,

s.v.

Aldrovandi).

2

Dittamondo

VI,

cap. 5.

THE

ISLE OF THE

AMAZONS:

A

MARVEL

OF

TRAVELLERS

n his

recent

work

Storia

letteraria

delle

Scoperte

geografiche,

Leonardo

Olschki

studies

the

reports

of

the

great

geographical

explorers

in

relation to

the

literary

works

of

the Middle

Ages.x

Many

of

the

merveilles

described

by

Marco

Polo,

Mandeville,

Columbus,

and other

travellers reveal

them-

selves

here as

being

conscious

or unconscious

reminiscences of stories related , in the

romances

and chronicles

which

shaped

the

mediaeval

conception

of

distant

lands.

The

tale of a

country

of

Amazons,

which

recurs

in

the

accounts

of

several

explorers,

may

be added as

an

illuminating

example.

The

myth

has its

origin

in

historical--or

rather

pre-historical-fact, being

no

doubt

a

reminiscence of matriarchal

society.s

In

the earliest

Greek

accounts,3

the

Amazons

are

a

tribe

of

female warriors

who

have

mutilated

their

right

breasts

to

facilitate

the

use

of the

bow.

This

is

supposed

to

be

implied in their name: a=without, mazos=

breast.

A

new

and

particular

pattern

of

the

legend

developed

in Greek

litera-

ture at a later

stage.

It occurs

in

Pseydo-

Callisthenes'

History

of

Alexander

the

Great.'

According

to

this

book,

which

became

the

chief

source of

the mediaeval

romances,

the

country

of the

Amazons,

inhabited

only by

women,

is surrounded

by

a river.

Only

one

almost

impassable approach

leads

to

their

land.

Their

number

is

200,000.

Once

a

year they

cross

over

to the

other

side of

the

river-where

the men

live-for

a

religious

festival lasting 30 days. During that time

they

mix

with

the

men.

Female

children

are

brought

up

by

the

fathers until

they

are

seven

years

old,

when

they

join

their

mothers

to receive

military

training.5

1

Florence,

1937.

8

Cf.

Joh.

J.

Bachofen,

Das

Mutterrecht,

86I.

Pauly-

Wissowa, Realencyclopedie

er classischen

Altertums-

wissenschaft,

, 2,

col.

I754

ff.

W.

H.

Roscher,

AusfiThrliches

exikon

der

griechischen

nd

rdmischen

Mythologie,

ol.

267

ff.

I

The

legends

of

Bellerophon,

f

Theseus'

ictory

over

Antiope,

the

queen

of the

Amazons,

of Heracles'

ight

with

them,

and

many

other

tales,

belong

to

the

most

ancientepisodesof Greekmythology. Homer(Iliad,

III,

189;

VI,

I86)

already speaks

of them

as

of

a

remote

saga.

'

Ed. C.

Mifller,

1846,

book

3,

chapter

25.

6

Like

several

oriental

(especially

Babylonian)

myths

which

found

their

way

into

Greek

literature

through

the

legends

formed

around

Alexander

the

Great,

this

tale

is

also

an

oriental

contribution

to

western

mythology.

The

same

legend

occurs

in the

earliest

Indian

mythology

with

almost

all the

details

we

find in Pseudo-Callisthenes.

The

description

of

RBnA

ParamitAn

the

Mah.bhlirata,

where

he women

live on

one

side of the

Ganges

and the

men

on the

other,

may,

however,

by

this time have been

influenced

by

Greek

traditions. In Chinese

literature,

the

legend

appears

as

early

as

A.D.

648

in the

Ta-t'ang-hsi-yi-chi

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258

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

Many

variations of

this

tale

developed

in

late Greek

literature. But too

many

inter-

mediary

links

have

been

lost for us to

be

able to

disentangle

the various

lines of tra-

dition. The variations are usually confined

to

details

: the men cross

over to the

women,

not the women

to the

men,

the time

of

the

yearly

visit

is not

30

but

40

days,

the male

offspring

is

killed

immediately.

These and

similar

divergences

are

certainly

also due

to the

intermixing

of

the

literary

traditions

with local

versions of the

legend. Nothing,

for

instance,

is said in

Pseudo-Callisthenes

of

the

Amazons

having

one mutilated

breast,

nor

does the

Indian

version

speak

of it.

Later

Greek

texts

combine

the

early

con-

ception

of

the

one-breasted Amazon with

the

newer tradition.

Though

the

legend occasionally

found

its

way

into

historical

and

geographical

works

of

antiquity

(Strabo1

dismisses

the

wide-

spread

belief in the

existence of

such

a

country

of women as a

pure

myth),

its

diffu-

sion

was

chiefly

due

to

its inclusion in

the

History

of

Alexander the Great.

There

exists

a vast

number of

more

or less

free

translations

of

Pseudo-Callisthenes,

the chief

of

them

being

in Latin

(Julius

Valerius,

first

century),

Armenian

(fifth

century),

Persian

(seventh century), Syriac

(seventh-

eighth century), Arabic, Coptic, Hebrew

and

Malayese,

which

partly

accounts

for

the

tenacity

with which

this remote remini-

scence

of

matriarchal

society

recurs

in

almost

every

civilization.2

The Latin

version

by

Julius

Valerius3

is the

principal

source

for

the

mediaeval

stories,

such

as the

'Epitome,'

(ninth

cen-

tury),

the

'Historia

de

Preliis'

of

Archi-

presbyter

Leo

(eleventh

century),

and

later

Alexander

romances.'

Other

sources,

how-

ever,

in

which

our

Amazon-legend

occurs,

must

also

have been known to

mediaeval

authors. In

fact,

Benoit de

Ste.

Maure

(eleventh

century),

who

narrates

the

legend

with

a

great

wealth

of

detail,

which would

be

sufficient

proof

for his

knowledge

of

other

texts than the Alexander poems, introduces

his

account of the

country

of

'Amazoine'

with the verses

"Co nos

recontent

li

Traitid--

e

li

grant

Livre

Historial"

(Roman

de

Troie,

verses

23301

f.).

Guido de

Columnis,

whose Historia

Destructionis Troie is based

on

Benoit's

poem,

again evidently

knew

of

still

another version of the

legend.

From these

romances

the

story

was

trans-

ferred to the

geographical

literature

of

the

later

Middle

Ages.

Marco Polo5

takes

over

the

literary

pattern

in

describing

the

island

of Male

and

Female. As

he

quotes

the

'livre de Alexandre' in another connection

-his

conception

of the Orient is to

a

great

extent

based

on

the fabulous

descriptions

in

that

romance-it is

likely

that the account

of the

Male and Female

islands

also

had

its

literary

prototype

in

the

Alexander

book.

Various

geographical

explorers

repeat

this

tale.6

Not one of

them,

however,

actually

speaks

of

having

seen the

country

or

island

of

women.

Columbus,

like

Pigafetta,

and

others,

reports

that

adverse

winds

prevented

him

from

sailing

to the island

(Matinino).

He

professes,

like

others,

that

captured

natives gave him the information about the

customs

of

its

inhabitants,

which

are

pre-

cisely

those

4escribed in

the

literary

tradi-

tion.

There

is

every

reason for

mistrusting

this

account,

for neither

he himself nor

his

interpreters

really

understood

the

language

of the

natives.7

Besides,

no

traces

of

a

survival

of

matriarchy

have been

found

in

those

parts

of the world

Columbus

discovered.

But

as

he

imagined

that

he was

sailing

through

the

Indian Ocean

where,

according

to Marco

Polo,

the fabulous

islands

of

Male

and

Female were

situated,

he

had reason

to

believe that he was near to the Island of

Women:

the

slightest

indication

of

the

proximity

of such an island would

imme-

diately

recall

to his

mind

all

the

details of

the

literary

tradition of the

Amazon

legend

and

he

would

relate

them

as facts

of

geo-

graphical

reality, actually

believing

that

he

had

at

last established

the

geographical

position

of the

island.

The common

root

of

this

literary

tradition

as

it

manifests

itself

the account of

Hsuian

Chuang's

journeys.

Fr. Hirth

(China

and the Roman

Orient Researchesnto

theirAncient

and Medieval

Relations

s

presented

n Old

Chinese

Accounts,

1885,

pp.

200oo-2o2)

assumes that

information

regarding

the legend

came

to China

through

Indian

sources,

translated

by

Buddhist

linguists.

"

Geographia,

XI,

5,

1-4.

2

Cf.

Th.

Noeldeke,

Beitrdge

zur

Geschichte

des

Alexanderromans,ienna,

K.

Akad.d.

Wissensch.,

enkschr.

Phil.-hist.

Classe,

vol.

38,

1890.

Jos. Marquart,

Die

Benin-Sammlung

es

Reichsmuseums

iir V/6lkerkunde

n

Leiden,

1913,

p.

202,

note

I.

3Julii

Valeri

Alexandri Polemi res

gestae

Alexandri

Macedonis

ranslatae x

Aesopo

Graeco,

ec. Bern.

Kuebler,

Lipsiae,

i888.

'

Paul

Meyer,

Alexandre

e

Grand

dans

la

littirature

franfaise

du

moyen

dge,

II,

p.

192.

3

The Book

of

Ser Marco

Polo.

Newly

translated

and

edited

by

H.

Yule,

London,

1871,

II,

p. 405-

1

Cf. H.

Yule,

ibid.

7

Cf. Ieonardo Olschki, op. cit. p. -9.

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THE

ISLE

OF THE

AMAZONS

259

in the

reports

of the

travellers

must be

sought

in the

mediaeval

romances

about

antiquity;

a

fact

which

reflects

the

importance

attached

to

them

as

encyclopaedias

and

authoritative

books of

information.

With

increasing knowledge

of

geographical

realities

there

developed

a

tendency

to

locate

the

monsters

and

fabulous

creatures

which

populate

the

imaginary kingdoms

of

ancient

and

mediaeval

descriptions

of

the

world,

in

ever

more

distant corners

of the earth.

Fabulous creatures such as the

kynocephali,

the

monoculi,

or the

pygmies,

-the

tradition

of

which is

closely

linked with

that

of

the

Amazons,

are

still

to

be found

on

geographical

maps

of

the

sixteenth

century,

but,

alas

they

have

been driven

to

the South

Polar

regions

ALBRECrr

ROSENTHAL

TWO

NOTES

ON

THE CULT

OF

RUINS1

I. RUINS

AND

ECHOES

It

appears

from

a scene

in

Webster's

"Duchess

of Malfi"

(Act

V,

Scene

III),

that

the

love of

ruins

and the love

of echoes

were

closely

associated

in

the

Elizabethan

mind.

Immediately

before

meeting

his

death, the hero, Antonio, is led by his friend

Delio

to the

ruins of an ancient

abbey

which

"gives

the best

echo that

you

ever

heard."

Antonio

begins

his

dialogue

with

the

warning

voice

of

the

echo

by meditating

on

the nature

of ruins

:

I

do love

these ancient

ruins.

We never

tread

upon

them

but

we set

Our

foot

upon

some reverend

history

And,

questionless,

ere in

this

open

court,

Which

now

lies

naked

to the

injuries

Of

stormy

weather,

some

men

lie interred

That

loved

the church

so

well,

and

gave

so

largely

o't,

They

thought

it should

have

canopied

their

bones

Till

doomsday

but

all

things

have

their

end :

Churchesand cities,whichhave diseases ike to men,

Must

have

like

death that

we have.

The

echo

answers,

in the voice

of Antonio's

murdered

duchess,

"like

death

that

we

have."

And

of

every

sentence

that

Antonio

speaks

the

echo

resumes

the

"deadly

accent."

That

dilapidated

buildings

are

haunted

by ghosts

is

a

common

belief. But

to

a

poet

of Webster's

power

of

imagery

the

association

of

an

echoing

voice

with a ruined

building

had a

profounder

meaning.

The

scene

which

he wrote reveals

a

natural

affinity

between

the two. What the ruin

is

to

the sense

of

sight,

the echo

is

to

the sense

of

hearing

:

a

faint reflection

of the

past.

A

ruin 'lives' as

long

as

it

yields

an

echo.

Only

when the

stone has lost

that

power

is

the

death

of

the

building complete.

That this

was

actually

in

Webster's

mind

becomes

apparent

at the end

of

the

play.

After Delio has

taken

his

friend

to

the

ruined

abbey

which

"gives

the best

echo

that

you

ever

heard,"

the hero

and

his

companions

are

killed

;

and

while

the

spectator

still

has

the

scene

of

the

echo

in his

mind,

he

hears

the words

of utmost

hopelessness

in

which

the

dying

Bosola

proclaims

his

belief

in

universal

perdition

:

We

are

only

like

dead

walls

or

vaulted

graves,

That,

ruined,

yield

no

echo.

"These

notes

are

to

be

taken

as

incidental con-

tributions

o

a

study

in

progress

by

Yv.

S.

Heckscher

(cf.

his

thesis Die

Romruinen,amburgDiss., I936).

2.

UTOPIAN

RUINS

To

interchange

the tenses

of

Past,

Present

and

Future

is

one

of

the

favourite

pas-

times

of

Romanticists.

A romantic

philo-

sopher

coined

the

phrase

:

"The historian is

a

prophet

looking

backwards."'

It

was for

a

Romantic

architect

to discover

that the

reverse

is

equally

true

and

that the

r6le

of

the

prophet

can

be

played

with effect

by

an

antiquarian

looking

forward. In a

strange

drawing

in

the

Soane

Museum,

first

pub-

lished

by

John

Summerson,s

the

great

vault

of the

Bank

of

England

which

is

Soane's

architectural

chef

d'euvre,

is

represented

by

Soane's

own

draughtsman-and

evidently

at

Soane's

request--in

a state of

delapidation

so

that it

looks

like

a

classical

ruin.

Soane

evidently

felt

that,

by

indulging

in

this

reverie,

a

new nuance

was added

to

his archi-

tectural

achievement.

By anticipating

a

situation

which would

normally

be

regarded

as

'posthumous,'

he

meant

to

give

a

new

glamour

to the

building.

If Edmund

Burke

could

have

seen

this

drawing

he

might

have

used

it

as

an illus-

tration

for one

of

his favourite

theses

:

"We

delight

in

seeing things,

which so

far from

doing,

our

heartiest

wishes

would

be

to

see

redressed.

This

noble

capital,

the

pride

of

England,

and

of

Europe,

I

S44Der Historiker

ist

der

riickwiirts

gewandte

Prophet" (Friedrich

Schlegel).

1

The

Strange

Case

of

J.

M.

Gandy.

The

Architect,

1936, pp. 38-44.