Kitap 2
13
THERE are many things in common as to form, colour, size, and mode of life between the affection Elephas and the wild beast the elephant; but neither does the affection resemble any other affection, nor the animal any other animal. The wild beast, the elephant, indeed, is very different from all others; in the first place then, he is the greatest and the thickest of animals; in size, he is as great as if you were to put one animal on another, like a tower; in bulk, he is as large as if you should place several other very large animals side by side. But neither in shape is he much like unto any other. Then, as to colour, they are all intensely black, and that over their whole body. One horse, indeed, is very white, like the Thracian steeds of Rhesus; others white-footed, like the white-footed horse of Menelaus; and bay, like one hundred and fifty; others are tawny, as assuming the shape of a horse having a tawny mane, he lay down with her. And so it is with oxen, and dogs, and all other reptiles and animals which live on the earth. But elephants are only of a lurid colour, like to night and death. With regard to shape, they have a very black head, and unseemly face of no marked form, upon a small neck, so that the head appears to rest upon the shoulders, and even then it is not very conspicuous. For the ears are large, broad, resembling wings, extending to the collar-bone and breast-bone, so as to conceal the neck with the ears, like ships with their sails. The elephant has wonderfully white horns on a very dark body—others call them teeth—these alone are most white, such as is nothing else of even any other white animal; and these are not above the forehead and temples, as is the nature of other horned animals, but in the mouth and upper jaw, not indeed quite straight forwards but a little bent upwards, so that it might swallow in a straight direction, and lift a load in its flat teeth. Moreover the horns are large, the medium length being as much as a fathom, and some much larger; that is to say, as long as two fathoms. And the upper jaw from its lip has a long, ex-osseous, crooked, and serpent-like protuberance; and there are two perforations at the extremity of this protuberance; and these by nature are perforated all the way to the lungs, so as to form a double tube, so that the animal uses this pipe as a nostril for respiration, and likewise as a hand; for it could take a cup if it please with this protuberance, and can grasp it round and hold it firmly, and none could it take by force from the animal, except another stronger elephant. And with this also it seeks herbage for food; for neither does it live by eating flesh with its mouth and small teeth. For, its feet being long, raise the animal considerably above the ground; but its neck also, as I have said, is small, and therefore it cannot browse on the earth with its mouth; and moreover the excrescence of the horns in front of the mouth prevents the mouth from touching the herbage. Wherefore it raises a great load with its protuberance; then as if with a binder having bound the same with it, he can convey it to his mouth; whence the ancients properly call it proboscis, for it collects food in front of the animal. But neither is it able to drink from a lake or river with its mouth, for the same reason. But, if it is thirsty, it introduces into the water the extreme nostril of the proboscis, and then, as if inhaling, it draws in much water, instead of air; and when it has filled its nose, as it were a cup, it pours the same as a stream of water into its mouth, and then it draws anew and discharges again, until it fills its belly, as it were a vessel of burden. It has a rough and very thick skin, containing fissures with prominent edges, long channels, and other hollow clefts, some transverse, others oblique, very deep, like in all respects to a furrowed field. Other animals have naturally hairs for a mane, but in the elephant this is merely down. There are also innumerable other differences between it and other animals; for, like man, it bends its leg backward at the knee; and like woman, it has its dugs at the arm-pits. But there is no necessity for me now to write concerning the animal, except in so far as there is any discrepancy between the animal and the disease, and in so far as the symptoms of the patient resemble the nature of the animal. The disease is also called Leo, on account of the resemblance of the eyebrows, as I shall afterwards explain; and Satyriasis, from the redness of the cheeks, and the irresistible and shameless impulse ad coitum. Moreover it is also called the Heracleian affection, insomuch as there is none greater and stronger than it.
