Darmodes' elephant

[fin john]

All,

   Within this chapter is a reference to Darmonodes' elephant which has never been properly sourced. "Had this tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with low salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their zones."

 

   Darmonodes has never been identified. The Mansfield-Vincent edition provides the following:

"Darmonodes' elephant: Compare Montaigne (Sealts, No. 366), Book 2, chap. 12: 'witness the Elephant, that is the love of an herb-wife, in the city of Alexandria, was co-rivall with Aristophanes, the Grammarian; who in all offices portraying to an earnest wooer and passionate suitor, yielded nothing unto him; For, walking thorow the Fruit-market, he would here and there snatch up some with his trunke, and carry them unto her: as neere as might be he would never loose the sight of her: and now and then over her band put his trunke into her bosomes, and feel her breasts.'"

 

  Mansfield-Vincent says this story was repeated in some form in Plutarch"s Morals, Pliny the Elder's Natural History, and Edward Topsell's the Historie of Four-Footed Beastes (1607). But no one mentions Darmonodes. Who is Darmonodes?      John Gretchko

[Stephen Hoy]

What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch! Had this tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with low salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their zones.

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This elephant tale can be traced to one of Plutarch’s essays, “Whether Water-Animals or Land-Animals are More Clever,” one of more than sixty essays collectively referred to as Plutarch’s Morals. In the original, Plutarch assigns the elephant to Aristophanes the Grammarian (while Aristophanes was engaged at the library of Alexandria).

 

Darmonodes--or as I hear the word, "Damonidas"--was a king who offered a wise saying in another of Plutarch’s essays: “Damonidas, being placed by him that ordered the chorus in the last rank of it, said: Well done, you have found a way to make this place also honorable.” If this is Melville's allusion (and not a substitution error), it seems particularly apt in a chapter honoring the tail.

 

Neither essay is contained in Philemon Holland’s popular selection of twenty essays from Plutarch’s Morals, but both were available in a comprehensive edition, Plutarch’s Morals translated from the Greek original by several hands. Another reader of Plutarch, Miguel de Montaigne, collects several elephant stories in his essay, “An Apology for Raymond Sebonde.”

 

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In the amours of many animals there is much variety. Some are furious and mad, others observe a kind of human decency and tricking of themselves to set off their beauty, not without a courtly kind of conversation. Such was the amour of the elephant at Alexandria that rivalled Aristophanes the grammarian. For they were both in love with a girl that sold garlands; nor was the elephant's courtship less conspicuous than the other's. For as he passed through the fruit market he always brought her apples and stayed with her for some time, and thrusting his proboscis within her waistcoat instead of a hand took great delight in gently feeling her breasts.              
 <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=uiEAAAAAYAAJ&dq=elephant%20Alexandria%20Aristophanes&lr=&pg=PA188&ci=134,178,814,423&source=bookclip">Plutarch's Morals  By Plutarch,  William Watson Goodwin</a>

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From: fin john <stein....@gmail.com>
To: ishmailites <ishma...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sat, March 6, 2010 8:34:11 AM
Subject: Darmodes' elephant

[fin john]

   All,

   Stephen makes a good case for Plutarch and Damonidas. There is another Plutarch source in this chapter: "As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of all beings. For according to King Juba  . . ."  The Mansfield-Vincent edition accords this with Plutarch's Morals.

 

  Perhaps someday someone will round together all uses of Plutarch in Melville. It could be revelatory.                 John Gretchko

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