Manticore
Encyclopedia
The manticore is a legendary creature
similar to the Egyptian sphinx
. It has the body of a red lion
, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth (like a shark
), and a trumpet
-like voice. Other aspects of the creature vary from story to story. It may be horned, winged, or both. The tail is that of either a dragon
or a scorpion
, and it may shoot poisonous spines to either paralyze or kill its victims. It devours its prey whole. It leaves no clothes, bones, or possessions of the prey behind. During the early centuries, it was a common belief that if a person went missing their disappearance was caused by a manticore and that manticore were real. The creature's feet may be those of a dragon, but are most often described as the paws of a lion. Its size ranges from the size of a lion to the size of a horse. It is also mistaken as a bearded man when seen from a distance.
مارتیا martya "man" (as in human) and خوار xwar- "to eat"). The English term "manticore" was borrowed from Latin mantichora, itself borrowed from Greek μαντιχωρας—an erroneous pronunciation of the original Persian name. It passed into European folklore first through a remark by Ctesias
, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II
in the fourth century BC, in his notes on India ("Indika"), which circulated among Greek writers on natural history but have not survived. The Romanised Greek Pausanias
, in his Description of Greece, recalled strange animals he had seen at Rome and commented,
Pliny the Elder
did not share Pausanias' skepticism. He followed Aristotle
's natural history by including the martichoras—mistranscribed as manticorus in his copy of Aristotle and thus passing into European languages—among his descriptions of animals in Naturalis Historia
, c. 77 AD.
Later, in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana Greek writer Flavius Philostratus (c. 170–247) wrote:
Pliny's book was widely enjoyed and uncritically believed through the European Middle Ages, during which the manticore was sometimes illustrated in bestiaries. The manticore made a late appearance in heraldry, during the 16th century, and it influenced some Mannerist
representations, as in Bronzino's allegory The Exposure of Luxury, (National Gallery, London)— but more often in the decorative schemes called "grotteschi
"— of the sin of Fraud, conceived as a monstrous chimera
with a beautiful woman's face, and in this way it passed by means of Cesare Ripa
's Iconologia into the seventeenth and eighteenth century French conception of a sphinx
.
A manticore features as medieval sixteenth century graffiti
on the wall of North Cerney church in Gloucestershire
; it was seen as an unholy hybrid of the zodiacal signs Leo
, Scorpio
and Aquarius
Legendary creature
A legendary creature is a mythological or folkloric creature.-Origin:Some mythical creatures have their origin in traditional mythology and have been believed to be real creatures, for example the dragon, the unicorn, and griffin...
similar to the Egyptian sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
. It has the body of a red lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth (like a shark
Shark
Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....
), and a trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
-like voice. Other aspects of the creature vary from story to story. It may be horned, winged, or both. The tail is that of either a dragon
European dragon
European dragons are legendary creatures in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe.In European folklore, a dragon is a serpentine legendary creature. The Latin word draco, as in constellation Draco, comes directly from Greek δράκων,...
or a scorpion
Scorpion
Scorpions are predatory arthropod animals of the order Scorpiones within the class Arachnida. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by the pair of grasping claws and the narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back, ending with a venomous stinger...
, and it may shoot poisonous spines to either paralyze or kill its victims. It devours its prey whole. It leaves no clothes, bones, or possessions of the prey behind. During the early centuries, it was a common belief that if a person went missing their disappearance was caused by a manticore and that manticore were real. The creature's feet may be those of a dragon, but are most often described as the paws of a lion. Its size ranges from the size of a lion to the size of a horse. It is also mistaken as a bearded man when seen from a distance.
Origin
The manticore myth was of Persian origin, where its name was "man-eater" (from early Middle PersianPersian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
مارتیا martya "man" (as in human) and خوار xwar- "to eat"). The English term "manticore" was borrowed from Latin mantichora, itself borrowed from Greek μαντιχωρας—an erroneous pronunciation of the original Persian name. It passed into European folklore first through a remark by Ctesias
Ctesias
Ctesias of Cnidus was a Greek physician and historian from Cnidus in Caria. Ctesias, who lived in the 5th century BC, was physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon, whom he accompanied in 401 BC on his expedition against his brother Cyrus the Younger....
, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II
Artaxerxes II of Persia
Artaxerxes II Mnemon was king of Persia from 404 BC until his death. He was a son of Darius II of Persia and Parysatis.-Reign:...
in the fourth century BC, in his notes on India ("Indika"), which circulated among Greek writers on natural history but have not survived. The Romanised Greek Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
, in his Description of Greece, recalled strange animals he had seen at Rome and commented,
Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
did not share Pausanias' skepticism. He followed Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's natural history by including the martichoras—mistranscribed as manticorus in his copy of Aristotle and thus passing into European languages—among his descriptions of animals in Naturalis Historia
Naturalis Historia
The Natural History is an encyclopedia published circa AD 77–79 by Pliny the Elder. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny...
, c. 77 AD.
Later, in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana Greek writer Flavius Philostratus (c. 170–247) wrote:
Pliny's book was widely enjoyed and uncritically believed through the European Middle Ages, during which the manticore was sometimes illustrated in bestiaries. The manticore made a late appearance in heraldry, during the 16th century, and it influenced some Mannerist
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
representations, as in Bronzino's allegory The Exposure of Luxury, (National Gallery, London)— but more often in the decorative schemes called "grotteschi
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...
"— of the sin of Fraud, conceived as a monstrous chimera
Chimera (mythology)
The Chimera or Chimaera was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of multiple animals: upon the body of a lioness with a tail that ended in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her...
with a beautiful woman's face, and in this way it passed by means of Cesare Ripa
Cesare Ripa
Cesare Ripa was an Italian aesthetician who worked for Cardinal Anton Maria Salviati as a cook and butler.Little is known about his life. He was born in Perugia and died in Rome. After the death of the cardinal, Ripa worked for his relatives...
's Iconologia into the seventeenth and eighteenth century French conception of a sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
.
A manticore features as medieval sixteenth century graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
on the wall of North Cerney church in Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
; it was seen as an unholy hybrid of the zodiacal signs Leo
Leo (astrology)
Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac, originating from the constellation of Leo. In astrology, Leo is considered to be a "masculine", positive sign. It is also considered a fire sign and is one of four fixed signs ruled by the Sun.Individuals born when the Sun is in this sign are...
, Scorpio
Scorpio (astrology)
|Infobox align="right" style="border:3px solid white;"||style="text-align: center;"|Scorpio is the eighth astrological sign in the Zodiac, which spans the zodiac between the 210th and 239th degree of celestial longitude. Generally, the Sun transits this area of the zodiac between 24 October and...
and Aquarius
In popular culture
- In the Divine Comedy, GeryonGeryonIn Greek mythology, Geryon , son of Chrysaor and Callirrhoe and grandson of Medusa, was a fearsome giant who dwelt on the island Erytheia of the mythic Hesperides in the far west of the Mediterranean. A more literal-minded later generation of Greeks associated the region with Tartessos in southern...
is depicted as a manticore-like demon that dwells at the deep barrier between the circles of violence and fraud. - Canadian writer Robertson DaviesRobertson DaviesWilliam Robertson Davies, CC, OOnt, FRSC, FRSL was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best-known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is variously said to have gladly accepted for himself...
wrote a novel titled The ManticoreThe ManticoreThe Manticore is the second novel in Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy.Published in 1972 by Macmillan of Canada, it deals with the aftermath of the mysterious death of Percy Boyd "Boy" Staunton retold during a series of conversations between Staunton's son and a Jungian psychoanalyst.The title...
, published in 1972. It is the second volume of his "Deptford TrilogyThe Deptford TrilogyThe Deptford Trilogy is a novel trilogy by Canadian novelist Robertson Davies.-Overview:The trilogy consists of Fifth Business , The Manticore , and World of Wonders...
. - Following the success of their second album, TarkusTarkusTarkus is the second album by the British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released in 1971.In 1993 the album was digitally remastered by Joseph M. Palmaccio...
– which featured a manticore in the artwork and lyrics – Emerson, Lake & PalmerEmerson, Lake & PalmerEmerson, Lake & Palmer, also known as ELP, are an English progressive rock supergroup. They found success in the 1970s and sold over forty million albums and headlined large stadium concerts. The band consists of Keith Emerson , Greg Lake and Carl Palmer...
founded Manticore RecordsManticore RecordsManticore Records was the record label launched by Emerson, Lake & Palmer's production company Manticore in 1973. The manticore is featured in the artwork for the album Tarkus by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, . Initially the label was jointly owned with Island Records, but that partnership was dissolved...
in 1973. An ELP retrospective box set released in 1993 was titled The Return of the ManticoreThe Return of the ManticoreThe Return of the Manticore is a 4-disc retrospective on the band Emerson, Lake & Palmer's career. It was released in 1993 and features several new recordings of previously released songs, most notably a studio recording of "Pictures at an Exhibition," presented in Dolby Surround Sound...
, and included artwork similar to the manticore from Tarkus and the Manticore Records label. - There is a manticore in the second episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is MagicMy Little Pony: Friendship is MagicMy Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is an animated television series that premiered on October 10, 2010 on the United States cable network The Hub, and is based on Hasbro's My Little Pony line of toys and animated works. The series is produced by Hasbro Studios and DHX Media Vancouver...
. - In the BBC production, Merlin, episode 9 of series 3 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1762846/) entitled "Love in the Time of Dragons" features a manticore that controls Gaius' old love, the healer Alice.
- The Manticore is encountered as creatures of evil in the popular Castlevania series.