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Biography
other usesThe manticore ( Middle Persian|Early Middle Persian Martyaxwar ) is a persian 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 European dragon|dragon or a scorpion , and it may shoot poisonous spines to either paralyze or kill its victims. It devours its prey whole and leaves no clothes, bones, or possessions of the prey behind.
Origin
The manticore myth was of Persian origin, where its name was "man-eater" (from Persian language|early Middle Persian ?????? martya "man" (as in human) and ???? xwar- "to eat"). The English term "manticore" was borrowed from Latin mantichoras , itself borrowed from Greek µa?t????a?—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 of Persia|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 (geographer)|Pausanias , in his Description of Greece , recalled strange animals he had seen at Rome and commented,
bquote|The beast described by Ctesias in his Indian history, which he says is called martichoras by the Indians and "man-eater" by the Greeks, I am inclined to think is the tiger . But that it has three rows of teeth along each jaw and spikes at the tip of its tail with which it defends itself at close quarters, while it hurls them like an archer's arrows at more distant enemies; all this is, I think, a false story that the Indians pass on from one to another owing to their excessive dread of the beast. ( Description , xxi, 5) 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:
bquote|And inasmuch as the following conversation also has been recorded by Damis as having been held upon this occasion with regard to the mythological animals and fountains and men met with in India, I must not leave it out, for there is much to be gained by neither believing nor yet disbelieving everything. Accordingly Apollonius asked the question, whether there was there an animal called the man-eater ( martichoras ); and Iarchas replied: "And what have you heard about the make of this animal ? For it is probable that there is some account given of its shape." "There are," replied Apollonius, "tall stories current which I cannot believe; for they say that the creature has four feet, and that his head resembles that of a man, but that in size it is comparable to a lion; while the tail of this animal puts out hairs a cubit long and sharp as thorns, which it shoots like arrows at those who hunt it."Flavius Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana , translated by F. C. Conybeare, volume I, book III. Chapter XLV, pp. 327-329.
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 Mannerism|Mannerist representations, as in Bronzino 's allegory The Exposure of Luxury, (National Gallery, London)John F. Moffitt, "An Exemplary Humanist Hybrid: Vasari's "Fraude" with Reference to Bronzino's 'Sphinx'" Renaissance Quarterly 49 .2 (Summer 1996), pp. 303-333, traces the chimeric image of Fraud backwards from Bronzino .— but more often in the decorative schemes called " Grotesque|grotteschi "— of the sin of Fraud, conceived as a monstrous chimera (mythology)|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 (astrology)|Leo , Scorpio (astrology)|Scorpio and Aquarius (astrology)|Aquarius cite book|last=Walker|first=Charles|title=Mysterious Britain|publisher=Grange Books|location=London|year=1992|edition=2nd|pages=114|isbn=1-85627-281-8
In popular culture
In the Divine Comedy , Geryon is depicted as a manticore-like demon that dwells at the deep barrier between the circles of violence and fraud.
Canadian writer Robertson Davies wrote a novel titled The Manticore , published in 1972. It is the second volume of his " The Deptford Trilogy|Deptford Trilogy . cite book|last=Surawicz B, Jacobson B|title=Doctors in Fiction: Lessons from Literature|publisher=Radcliffe Publishing|year=2009|page=125|isbn=1-84619-328-1
Following the success of their second album, Tarkus & ndash; which featured a manticore in the artwork and lyrics & ndash; Emerson, Lake & Palmer founded Manticore Records in 1973. An ELP retrospective box set released in 1993 was titled The Return of the Manticore , and included artwork similar to the manticore from Tarkus and the Manticore Records label.
In the third series of Merlin (TV series) , a manticore made an appearance and produced a deadly poison meant to kill King Uther. The creature of interest was approximately as big as a cat .
In Season 1 Episode 2 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic , Fluttershy befriends a manticore by removing a thorn from its paw.
Boogiepop and Others features a man-eating character known as Manticore.
In the American television series Dark_Angel_(TV_series)|Dark Angel , starring Jessica Alba , the main story arc involves the main character's escape from the government-funded lab known as Manticore. The lab specialized in creating human hybrids and their logo looked very much like a manticore.
The manticore appears as a Greek mythology|Greek myth unit in the game Age of Mythology .
There is a manticore in the 1982 animated film The Last Unicorn
A Manticore was mentioned in the 3rd Harry Potter book as having "got off" after it savaged someone
A Manticore is used in the George R. R. Martin novel A Clash of Kings in an attempt to poison the Princess Daenerys. In the novel A Feast for Crows , the death of Ser Gregor Clegane is attributed to festering wounds previously inflicted by a spear possibly poisoned with Manticore venom.
References
;Notes reflist
External links
commons category
http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast177.htm The Medieval Bestiary: Manticore
