Lion's Head

“ At this point three dusky etchings stood out against the golden east on the yellow sands, and looked intently at us with their enormous heads high in the air. And now the beast slowly arose and moved on. A lion's head seems always disproportionately large, but when he is exercising for an appetite to eat you it looks large indeed. ”

“ The owl uncannily turning its head here and there and staring at her with its eyes, yellow in the firelight.
She dropped on the floor by him and clung again to his knees, her head in his lap in pity for him.
“That is the story of the dying lion,” he said after a while. “The lion who worked all his cunning and skill and courage to get the beautiful doe in his power, only to find he was dying—dying and could not eat. Could you love a dying lion, child?” ”

“ The lion’s head with its powerful muscular development, its fine mouth, and picturesque masses of floating hair, has often furnished ceramists, gold and silversmiths, and art workmen of every kind with motives for use upon their creations. ”

“ He carries his head high and walks with a slowness which may well pass for majesty. He always appears calm and dignified and conscious of his strength. The bushy and magnificent mane which overshadows his head and neck gives an added grandeur to his appearance.
Some adult Lions have attained a length of nearly ten feet, from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail; but usually they do not exceed six or seven feet. With the exception of the mane and a tuft of hair at the tip of the tail, the coat of the Lion is entirely smooth, and of a tawny color. ”

“ Here are strange beasts which may pass either for the fancies of the herald or for the discoveries of the palæontologist; but in the lion with four bodies and a single head we must surely look for a symbolical meaning of some kind. He is balanced, to be sure, by other strange forms, in which two or three heads rise from a single body. ”

“ Like everything great, the Lion has his share of critics and detractors. A few writers have asserted that because he does not stalk through his native forests with head proudly erect, like a drum-major on parade, he is mean-spirited and cowardly. ”

“ Then the lion related to him how he and the other animals had been so tired that they had all fallen asleep, and on awaking, had found him dead and his head cut off, and how the hare had fetched the root that brought him to life again, and how he, the lion, had in his haste put the head on the wrong way, but he assured his master that he could soon make it all right again. ”

“ At this kindness on the part of the great creature, Una bent her head and wept grievously. ‘He, my lion and my noble lord, how does he find it in his cruel heart to hate her that him loved?’ she moaned sadly, and the lion again looked pityingly at her, and at last the maiden checked her sobs and bade her ass go on, the lion walking by her side during the day, and sleeping at her feet by night.
[102] They had travelled far and for many days, through a wilderness untrodden by either man or beast, when at the foot of a mountain they spied a damsel bearing on her shoulder a pot of water. ”

“ They have been even found bold enough to put their heads into the lion's mouth. This is always a foolish thing to do, and sometimes it has ended in the lion's closing his great jaws and smashing the man's head as one would smash an egg-shell. ”

“ The lion also has five legs like so many of the latter. The head is carved with great boldness and vigour, although it is a little conventional. The jaws are extended, the upper lip and nostrils being drawn up, and even an unimaginative person may well fancy he can hear a deep roar proceeding from that fierce, wide-opened mouth. ”

“ The wings have disappeared; there are but two natures to be joined, and the junction seems to be made without effort; the lion furnishes strength and rapidity, the man the various powers of the arm and hand, and the beauty of the thinking and speaking head. The divine character of the personage thus figured is indicated by the three pairs of horns bent round the dome-like tiara, and also by the place he occupies in the inferior compartment of a relief on which, at the top, appear those lion-headed genii we have already figured (Vol. I., Fig. 6) . ”

“ In eastern countries, they were always used to plough, and beat out the grain, besides other services omitted in modern times; the lion excels every other animal in courage, force, and prowess: man far surpasses all other creatures, in understanding, judgment, and wisdom; and there is no bird so sagacious, or can fly so swift, or soar so high as the eagle, or that bears so intense a love to its young ones.
VI. The Man, which the lion on the standard of Judah, and the head on Reuben’s, typified, was, in the fulness of time, united to the divine essence. ”

“ At the bottom of this unique scene we have another lion transfixed by some five arrows, most of which are lodged in or about the animal’s head; like the lioness he has sunk Pg 220over on his back, his limbs being contorted almost beyond recognition. To the left we have the full hind-quarters of a lion who is springing up in a frenzy of rage excited by an arrow-wound in the back. Last of all in the bottom left-hand corner another lion is seen in the act of expiring as the result of his wounds. ”

“ The Cowardly Lion stuck his head into her room to try to console the girl for the loss of her feathered friend. ”

“ I prefer to be the head of a fly rather than the tail of a lion.” ”

“ This surprised the Lion, who was not used to being spoken to in such an impertinent manner. He roared and said: "Do you know whom you are speaking to? I am the Lion, the King of all beasts. What affair of yours is it what I do? Leave me at once, or I will kill you all." ”

“ The sands and suns that breed Lions, breed Men with Lion's hearts in them. The Lion is for himself noble, but blood of the Irrational in the veins of the Rational is a contradiction. The noblest moral nature and the hot blind rage of animal blood! ”

“ The shaggy manes, and the latent terror that sits gloomily enthroned in the open eyes of the superior Lion—suited to the darkness of the den, and the nature of this animal’s sense of vision,—are as well thought of, as they are executed ”

“ How strong we are, and how we prevail over even the king of beasts." The Lion replied: "That statue was made by one of you men. If we Lions knew how to erect statues, you would see the Man placed under the paw of the Lion." ”

“ Thus we went on from one day to another, and the lion began to take great pleasure in me. After some time, the dens were placed in great wagons, and conveyed to another town, where the people came in crowds, curious to behold the lion and the Fox.
Though we lived in great harmony, yet, before long, my life became tedious and sorrowful. “Lion,” said I one day, “we must try to obtain our freedom.”
“Well said!” replied lion: “can I break these iron bars which keep us within the den?” “That neither of us can do,” I rejoined; “but, where strength is vain, cunning may succeed. Just let us try ”

“ Looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way."—Pilgrim's Progress.
He wandered on a weary way,
A weary way he wandered on;
Till eagerness and fortitude—
Till all but hope were gone.
The night fell dark around his steps,
And terrible is falling night,
For cheerful thoughts of enterprise
Attend on morning’s light.
And there were Lions in the way—
The lion mighty in his wrath—
No marvel that the traveller shrank
From such a dreary path. ”

“ But we think that such Lion-looks are to be seen in Nature; and that such were seen, when the Dog which appealed to, and obtained, the royal pity, was first thrown into the Lion’s den at the Tower. We believe that this representation of the Lion and Snake is not taken from any old master, but is Mr. Spilsbury’s own design.
10 No. VIII. Neither is there any expression of ferocity, but of home comfort, in these two maneless Lions—or Lion and Lioness of Senegal. That which is asleep, however, rather illustrates our definition of Character, and is so far out of the question. ”

“ Even the sun fails to get it; both the photographer and the carver give you a dying lion, and that is all. The shape is right, the attitude is right, the proportions are right, but that indescribable something which makes the Lion of Lucerne the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world, is wanting. ”

“ When the King sent for his twelve huntsmen next morning they walked through the ante-room without even casting a glance at the spinning-wheels.’
Then the King said once more to the Lion: ‘You have deceived me again; they are men, for they never once looked at the spinning-wheels.’
The Lion replied: ‘They knew they were being tried, and they did violence to their feelings.’ But the King declined to believe in the Lion any longer. ”

“ And I submit that the presence of it in this region in this animal is a stamp of his persistently ferocious nature, as much as the various peculiarities of arrangement of hair on man’s eyebrows in a previous chapter are of the mental and moral habits of the individual man. As rulers of old used, in their genial fashion, to brand a supposed or actual criminal on his shoulder or forehead, so is the lion branded with an hereditary mark of his nature and the past life of himself and his ancestors. ”

“ And so books say, and seem to prove it, by many strange stories, that the lion, while he is the strongest and bravest of beasts of prey, is also the most patient and merciful. He knows his own strength and courage, and therefore he does not care to be shewing it off. He can afford to endure an affront. It is only the cowardly cur who flies out and barks at every passer-by. And so with our blessed Lord. The Bible calls Him the Lion of Judah; but it also calls Him the Lamb dumb before the shearers. ”

“ There are none of the more familiar of our English lions; the Red Lion, the White Lion, the Blue Lion—to say nothing of the accompanying stomach-warmer—familiar as they are in our town streets, are not to be found here ”

“ Early one morning one of our herdsmen came running up to us in great fright, and announced that a lion was devouring a lioness! We thought at first that the man must be mistaken; but his story was perfectly true, and only her skull, the larger bones, and the skin were left. ”

“ Thus the lioness, according to Gérard the lion-hunter, gives herself to the most vigorous of her lion wooers; she encourages them to fight among themselves for superiority, lying on her belly to gaze at the combat and lashing her tail with delight. ”

“ The terrible strength of the Lion is the subject of repeated reference. In the magnificent series of prophecies uttered by Jacob on his deathbed, the power of the princely tribe of Judah is predicted under the metaphor of a Lion—the beginning of its power as a Lion's whelp, the fulness of its strength as an adult Lion, and its matured establishment in power as the old Lion that couches himself and none dares to disturb him. Then Solomon, in the Proverbs, speaks of the Lion as the "strongest among beasts, and that turneth not away for any." ”

“ The Lion looked at him and growled. “I’ll remain here till I die,” said the Man, “if you don’t become a woman again.” The mane and tail then began to disappear, the Lion went towards the bush where the skin petticoat lay; it was slipped on, and the woman, in her proper shape, took up the child. The Man descended and partook of the horse’s flesh, but never again asked the Woman to catch game for him. [91]
[Contents]
26. THE LION AND THE BUSHMAN.
[A Tale.]
(From Sir James E. Alexander’s “Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa,” vol. ii. p. 51.) ”

“ As they move forward, the lion at first looks at them very calmly, and very often wags his tail as if in a playful humour; but when they approach nearer, he growls, as if to warn them off. Then, as they continue to approach, he gradually draws up his hind-legs under his body, ready for a spring at them as soon as they are within distance, and you see nothing of him except his bristling mane and his eyes glaring like fire ”

“ These fables, therefore, and a hundred others, are not written to dignify the royalty of the lion among the beasts, but to depreciate royalty among men under the symbol of a lion, — an animal that has a majestic aspect and noble antecedents, but is both tyrannical and mean, mutton-headed and stealthy. His friends are always the cunning, and his natural enemies the courageous. ”

“ Of the millions they left where the sweet berries grow,
Away on the hills where the merry birds sing,
And the brook dances down to the valley below.
BLOCKADED BY A LION. BY DAVID KER.
"Now, monsieur," says old Major De Launay, pointing to the vast jungle of monstrous reeds fringing the African coast far as the eye can reach, as the Tunis steamer heads seaward out of Bona Harbor, "if you want some sport, take a gun and go in among those reeds, and you may be sure of not having long to wait before you find yourself face to face with a lion."
"A lion?" ”

“ Alone of its kind, is a work of art, called “the Lion of Lucerne,” executed in memory of the Swiss guards, who were slaughtered in Paris, the 10th of August, 1792, whilst endeavoring to defend the unfortunate King, Louis XVI. I have visited the Lion this morning. The sun glanced through the trees as if to caress the beautiful monument. It is hewn in the rock—a colossal lion drooping in death over a broken column, which, though expiring, it still seeks to defend. The expression of sorrow and suffering in the countenance of the noble animal, is indescribable. ”