Nearly a fairytale.
This is a memorial to my beloved three cats Mini, Moritz and Clio who
taught me to
understand their thinking and behaviour.
Cats like keyboards: when they put their paws on it, something happens on
the monitor. It doesn’t smell, but they can see it. My cats like my computer,
sit often on my desk and watch what I am doing there.
Cat Mini
– the specialist in behaviourism |
Cat
Moritz – the boss |
Cat Clio
– the Muse |
Cat Clio, the Muse of History, Writing and other Arts Subjects, is a
capacity in old history, cat Mini is specialized in behaviourism. Cat Moritz is
the boss and thinks he supervises all of us.
One day, I was studying some papers about the Chimaera of Arezzo and had
some articles and pictures on my desk. I left the room, the cats seemed to
sleep. When coming back and standing in the door, I was a witness to the
following conversation of the cats.
Mini: What a monster is that? Clio: This is the Chimaera of Arezzo. Mini: Is it a lion? Clio: No, it is fantasy. Men call it
“myth”. They invented a beast with parts of a lion, a goat and a snake. Mini: And they think it is living? Clio: Yes, strange enough. It is
living in their fantasy world. |
|
Mini: But what is the idea behind this invented
animal, so to speak the true nucleus of the myth?
Clio: The basic idea is the goat, exactly the
Bezoar Goat. This goat (in Greek ή
χίμαιρα) was living in the Near East in
antique times in large numbers. They were very hungry and ate up everything
which was eatable. Even they climbed trees and ate the fresh green leaves. So
men hated them.
Moritz: But when these poor goats are hungry they
must eat. When I am hungry I eat.
Mini: You are often hungry, aren’t you?
Clio: Stop it. In order to demonstrate the
dangerousness of this goat, men gave her a repulsive appearance. They put her
head on the back of a lion with elements of a dragon and with a snake instead
of a tail. They say it is the infant of two divine beings: Echidna, a beautiful
virgin with a snake-like lower part of the body, and Typhon, a monster with one hundred snake-like
heads and a horrible voice. Chimaera is a sister of Hydra, a water-snake with
the body of a dog and between five and one hundred heads, Kerberos, the hound
of hell with only three heads and Sphinx, a lion with the head of a woman and wings.
They all would not be able to win a prize in a beauty contest.
Moritz: Nobody is responsible for his relatives!
Clio: Back to Chimaera! The head of the goat is
female due to the length of its horns, the lion may be
male due to the mane …
Mini: …although there is missing a very special
part …
Moritz: Oh!
Clio: …and the snake – uncertain.
Moritz: Did I understand correctly: the parents
divine and the child half male, half female with a tail of uncertain sex?
Clio: Her name is female. So let us say: Chimaera
is female.
Moritz: Okay! I like her.
Mini: But what an invention! Horrible! Not only the
composition of the Chimaera, but even more the idea to disfigure our cousin,
the imposing lion!
Moritz: Indeed! It is scandalous!
Clio: I agree, it is tasteless, but in
addition ridiculous is the continuation of the story. Men believe that the
king of the country where Chimaera lived asked the hero Bellerophon to kill
her. Some people believe he succeeded, but this is impossible: Chimaera is
also a divine being and therefore immortal. Men
believe that Bellerophon attacked poor Chimaera sitting on his flying horse
Pegasus. This would be the first air-raid in war history. Mini: What an incredible story! This
is unfair! It could have been produced by television! But let
us talk about the statue. Is it of natural size? What is written on
Chimaera’s right front paw? Why does the snake bite the horn of the goat?
What did Chimaera hold in her mouth? |
Drawing after
an Apulic funeral vase. Approx. 350 BC. |
Clio: Let us start with the inscription
in Etruscan letters. It can be read as the Etruscan word “tinscvil”, which
means “offering” and not “offering to Tinia” as you can read in some
publications. Tinia is the highest god of the Etruscans, and an offering to
Tinia must have been “tinia tinscvil” as we know from other finds. The
inscription has been cast together with the figure and thus proves the
Etruscan, not Greek origin of the statue. The size is natural with respect to
the goat, but too small with respect to the lion. Since nobody met a chimaera
personally, we cannot decide this question. The snake biting the horn is the
result of a bad reconstruction of the statue. Of course the snake would not
bite the horn when Chimaera was fighting, it would dart her tongue against the
common enemy as it is shown in the picture of the struggle. The strange form of Chimaera’s chaps indicate to my opinion that she had
something in her mouth, most probably the lance of Bellerophon. This means that
Bellerophon was not able to kill her …
Moritz: Steadfast Chimaera!
Clio: … because she disarmed him!
Mini: I can derive from her attitude and
the position of her ears that she is defending herself very strongly. She is
not aggressive as you can read in publications; in this case she would have put
her ears at the side as Clio demonstrates in her foto here.
Clio: But I am not aggressive!
Mini: No, of course you aren’t. It is
just the posture of your ears. The posture of your entire body must be taken
into account. In this case your tail talks that you aren’t aggressive. You are
listening to all sides. Not all men understand the body language of cats. But
let us go on.
The
position of Chimaera’s forelegs is typical for a defending, barking dog …
Moritz: I don’t like dogs! They are so
noisy!
Mini: … or lion.
Moritz: That’s okay, I like lions.
Mini: May be the Etruscan artist knew
better dogs than lions but he did not make a mistake.
Moritz: And where is Bellerophon?
Clio: This is a thing we don’t know.
Perhaps his figure was lost, perhaps there was no group showing the struggle
between Chimaera and Bellerophon, only a brave Chimaera defending her area. One
must add that the head of the goat has been hurt, also Chimaera has been
wounded. But I am convinced: She won the struggle and survived. She withdraw in a rocky area in Asia Minor, called
Yanartaş, where her fiery breath still nowadays can be seen.
Moritz: So she is still alive?
Clio: She lives still at least in the
mind of sensitive men. Our tin-opener Peter visited the place. He swears that
he has met her in a cave and looked into her red glowing eyes. She blew some
fire and hot air against him, just a little bit, as a sign of her esteem, as we
cats do when knibbeling his fingers.
Moritz: I would like to meet her!
Mini: I would like it, too!
Moritz: I hope she will get better soon!
At this
moment, the three cats noticed me and stopped talking. They know that I understand
their language, but they know also not to talk too much. They are very pleasant
companions. We understand even without talking.