Tortoise

“ Meanwhile Urashima looked at the tortoise, which looked back at him with wistful eyes full of meaning; and, though it could not speak, the young fisherman understood it perfectly, and his tender heart went out to it.
'Poor little tortoise!' he said, holding it up and stroking it gently to soothe its fears, 'you are all right with me. But remember, sweet little one, you've had a narrow squeak of losing a very long life. How long is it? Ten thousand years, they say; — that's ten times as long as a stork can boast of. ”

“ Is't not a great butterfly? Will, can'st thou tell?
WILL.
What is it in sadness?
WIT. A tortoise, my boy; whose shell is so hard that a loaden cart may go over and not break it, and so she is safe within, and wheresoever she goes she bears it on her back, needing neither other succour or shelter, but her shell. The word underneath her is Providens securus, the provident is safe, like the tortoise armed with his own defence, and defended with his own armour; in shape somewhat round, signifying compass, wherein always the provident foresee to keep themselves within their own compass, my boy. ”

“ The silken shriek of the soul’s torn membrane?
The male soul’s membrane
Torn with a shriek half music, half horror.
Crucifixion.
Male tortoise, cleaving behind the hovel-wall of that dense female,
Mounted and tense, spread-eagle, out-reaching out of the shell
In tortoise-nakedness,
Long neck, and long vulnerable limbs extruded, spread-eagle over her house-roof,
And the deep, secret, all-penetrating tail curved beneath her walls,
Reaching and gripping tense, more reaching anguish in uttermost tension
Till suddenly, in the spasm of coition, tupping like a jerking leap, and oh! ”

“ I judge this because I so often find him gazing at them through the wirework, his shell tilted at an angle as if he would fain climb up to satisfy his curiosity.
To the poor people who often visit my place in summer, many of whom have never seen such a creature before, the tortoise is an object of surprise, not unmixed with fear, for one woman asked if he would “fly at her,” and others seem to suppose him a creature of ferocious tendencies, judging by the way they keep at a distance and eye him askance. ”

“ Almost all other creatures are, in their youth at any rate, gay and frolicsome, delighting in their powers of speed and activity. No one has ever observed the tortoise at play; it can neither run nor frisk, climb a tree, nor throw a somersault. It plods gravely on from its birth to its death, like a creature in a living tomb, carrying a burden that seems almost too great for its strength—eating a little, sleeping a great deal,—thinking, it must be presumed, for even a tortoise must do something, deeply and uninterruptedly. ”

“ The tortoise, which had already stood motionless, its bright eye dilated with alarm, now subsides into its shell, hoping to pass for one of the surrounding stones; its scarabean competitor likewise is equal to the occasion, after its own manner, and falling over on its side, with legs stiff and extended, feigns death industriously. ”

“ It was this intimation which led me to identify the tortoise as a male symbol. Any person who has ever watched this creature in repose, and seen the action of the head and neck when the quadruped is excited, will recognise why the animal is dear to the goddess of amorous delight, and that which it may remind her of. In like manner, those who are familiar with the ram will know that it is remarkable for persistent and excessive vigour. Like the cat, whose salacity caused it to be honoured in Egypt, the ram was in that country also sacred, as the bull was in Assyria and Hindostan. ”

“ Meanwhile, the tortoise had hidden himself in a thicket, in a burrow having two openings. While the man was looking in at one hole, the jabutí would appear at the other, and then when the man came to this opening, he would quickly go to the first; so that we have here, once more repeated, the story of the race between the slow tortoise or sun, and the swift moon or man. We have already seen the tortoise escape from the jaguar by going into a burrow by one opening and retiring by another, just as the sun appears to go into its burrow in the west, and come out in the east. ”

“ Well, besides the toys there is the big tortoise. That was brought home by a sailor many years ago, and has now crept and crawled over Madam Knoll’s floor for at least ten years. It is slow and clumsy about turning around, but it has lively little black eyes. Sometimes when I sit and look at the tortoise I think how dreadful for it just to crawl about in the half-darkness between the chair legs when it had been used to glorious sunshine and soft warm white sand and sea-water thoroughly warmed by the sun, down on the coast of Guinea where it came from. ”

“ We always look out for natural history. Walking in a narrow street, we saw a tortoise, awake for the season, come crawling out to peep at the poultry; his hybernation being over, he wants to be social, and the hens in astonishment chuckle round him, and his tortoiseshell highness seems pleased at their kind enquiries, and keeps bobbing his head in and out of his testudo in a very sentimental manner. Women who want his shell for combs do not frequent these parts, and so, unless a cart pass over him as he returns home, he is in clover. ”

“ He should be temperate in food and sleep, work and rest. As the tortoise draws its head and feet within its shell, so should he be withdrawn from the outer world of senses and, retiring to a secluded spot, think and meditate deeply upon God. ”

“ Since then the Tortoises have had peace from the Long-necked People—Oubaas Giraffe and old Three Sticks. It is only the Things of the Air, like Crows and Lammervangers, that still hunt them, and baasjes know how they do? They catch a poor Tortoise in their claws and fly away with him, high up over a kopje, and then they drop him on the stones—kabloops!—and there he lies with his shell all broken, and without a shell how can a Tortoise live? And then the Thing of the Air comes and eats him up, and that is the end of the poor Tortoise. But a Red Tortoise they never touch. ”

“ The flesh of the Tortoise is eaten, not only by human beings, but by birds, such as the lämmergeier. In order to get at the flesh of the Tortoise, they carry it high in the air and drop it on the ground so as to break the shell to pieces, should the reptile fall on a stone or rock. If, as is not often the case in such a rocky land as that of Palestine, it should fall on a soft spot, the bird picks it up, soars aloft, and drops it again. ”

“ At last some one suggested that the liver of a monkey would be a specific for the royal sickness, and it was resolved to try it. The tortoise, who was the Queen's messenger, because he could live on both land and water, swim or crawl, was summoned. He was told to go upon earth to a certain mountain, [Pg 147] catch a monkey and bring him alive to the Under-world.
Off started the tortoise on his journey to the earth, and going to a mountain where the monkeys lived, squatted down at the foot of a tree and pretended to be asleep though keeping his claws and tail out. ”

“ The practice of divination is mostly associated with tortoise-shell, the figuring of a tortoise’s back having a mystic signification. In Chinese legend a divine tortoise emerged from the Yellow River, on the shell of which a sage discovered the system of numerals, and thus obtained the foundation of mathematics and the rudiments of philosophy. This tortoise was said to be the embodiment of the star in Ursa Major, and the progenitor of all the tortoise tribe. It can transform itself into other forms of life and lives to the age of ten thousand years. Hence it is the symbol of long life. ”

“ The tortoise, or sun, has a trial of strength with the jaguar or tapir, the moon, and vanquishes by substituting another in his place, in which case, we have simply a different form of the myth of the Tortoise and Deer. ”

“ There was one tortoise in particular that always managed to get the better of everybody, and many were the tales told in the forest of his great deeds. They began when he was quite young, and tired of staying at home with his father and mother. He left them one day, and walked off in search of adventures. In a wide open space surrounded by trees he met with an elephant, who was having his supper before taking his evening bath in the river which ran close by. ‘Let us see which of us two is strongest,’ said the young tortoise, marching up to the elephant. ”

“ Fortunately a tortoise received her on his back, and proceeded to raise up the earth, upon which the heavenly woman became the mother of mankind. These first men had white faces, and they used to dig in the ground to catch badgers. One day a zealous burrower thrust his knife too far and stabbed the tortoise, which immediately sank into the sea and drowned all the human race save one man. 149 In Finnish mythology the world is not a tortoise, but it is an egg, of which the white part is the ocean, the yolk is the earth, and the arched shell is the sky. ”

“ But after you have done this, and because you have done this, you should not swear that the tortoise has no dark side. Enjoy the bright, keep it turned up perpetually if you can, but be honest, and don't deny the black. Neither should he who cannot turn the tortoise from its natural position so as to hide the darker and expose his livelier aspect, like a great October pumpkin in the sun, for that cause declare the creature to be one total inky blot. The tortoise is both black and bright. ”

“ When the tortoise told the Queen's courtiers what the monkey had said, their faces fell.
"Why, here's a pretty piece of business. The monkey is of no use without his liver. We must send him after it."
[Pg 154]
So they dispatched the tortoise to the earth again, the monkey sitting a-straddle of his back. They came to the mountain again, and the tortoise being a little lazy, waited at the foot while the monkey scampered off, saying he would be back in an hour. The two creatures had become so well acquainted that the old Hard Shell fully trusted the lively little fellow. ”

“ Varieties of land tortoises are exceedingly numerous, and embrace some very peculiar forms, notably the Emysaura serpentina, which is a kind of compromise between a lizard and a tortoise, lives in and around Oriental lakes and rivers, and feeds indiscriminately upon small fish, reptiles, and birds. The Chelodina Novæ Hollandiæ of Australia, with its long snake-like neck and wide gaping jaws ”

“ The tortoise [-god] in the sea and the owl [-god] on land were very intimate. The tortoise spoke thus: "Your child is a boy. My child is a girl. So it will be good for us to unite them in marriage. If I send into the river the fish that there are in the sea your son and my daughter, being both of them enabled to eat fish, will possess the world." ”

“ The bird Khruth, no doubt a limited and particular form of Garuḍas, wishes to eat a tortoise (here perhaps the moon) which lies upon the shore of a lake. The tortoise consents to be eaten, under the condition that the Khruth accepts a challenge to a trial of speed, and arrives soonest on the other side of the lake, the bird to go through the air, and the tortoise through the water. The bird Khruth accepts the wager ”

“ Twice a day the man would come and wash the wound with water and liniment. When he thought the cut had healed, he took off the wrapping and the tortoise drew her head into her shell. The man kept visiting her every morning, however, tapping gently on the turtle’s back to wake her up. ”

“ Tortoise or Turtle Border Design.—A design in which the figure of the tortoise is arrayed in a manner similar to that of the Herati border design. In China the tortoise stands for longevity and immortality. In India it is also auspicious inasmuch as it represents the second incarnation of Vishnu where it supports the earth on its back. ”

“ Even in winter he went about without garments. He sat on a tortoise three feet long. Once he was asked: "About how old might this tortoise be?" He answered: "When Fu Hi first invented fish-nets and eel-pots he caught this tortoise and gave it to me. And since then I have worn its shield quite flat sitting on it. The creature dreads the radiance of the sun and moon, so it only sticks its head out of its shell once in two thousand years. Since I have had the beast, it has already stuck its head out five times." With these words he took his tortoise on his back and went off. ”

“ George over the dragon is not wholly apocryphal, but possesses a large substratum of truth.
THE TORTOISE AND TURTLE. THE tortoise has in all ages been an object of wonder to man. Its form, its slowness of movement, its wonderful coat of armour, its power of prolonged fasting, the absence of any apparent pleasure in its existence, have all seemed to set it apart among living creatures. The Orientals, who are profound thinkers, arrived at the conclusion that the world must be held up on the back of a tortoise, no other creature appearing capable of sustaining the burden. ”

“ The most famous of all the tortoises is the common land-tortoise, or Greek tortoise, which is found in many parts of the south of Europe, and also in Asia Minor. This is the animal which is so often kept as a pet, and about which so much pleasant literary interest has gathered. It does not grow to any great size, but will live in a garden for many years, crawling about by night as well as by day. ”

“ I may remark here that the German name for the tortoise is Schild-kröte (toad with shields) , that the Koribantes [509] produced their noisy music, and accompanied their Pyrrhic dances with kettledrums and the sound of arms, and that the Kureti, in order to conceal from Kronos the birth of Zeus, struck their shields with their lances. It is interesting to observe, that in Sanskṛit also, kaććhâs is the name given to the little shields of the tortoise or kaććhapas; that kaććhapî is the term applied to the noise of the thundering Sarasvatî, or the thunder ”