Note 18 — Chapter I · STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS.
Reading edition
Menageries, etc.: “The Elephant,” ch. iii. In the Anglo-Saxon Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem, which has been printed by Cockayne in his Narratiunculæ Anglice conscriptæ, the belief in the alleged antipathy of the elephant to swine is embodied in the text and is thus rendered in the Latin version: “Pervenimus demum ad silvas Indorum ultimas; ubi cum castra collocavissemus, ceperamus velle epulari sub nocte hora xi; cum subito pabulatores lignatoresque exanimes nunciabant, ut celeriter arma caperemus, venire e silvis elephantorum immensas greges ad expugnanda castra. Imperavi ergo Thessalicis equitibus ut ascenderent equos, secumque tollerent sues, quorum grunnitus timere bestias noveram, et occurrere quam primum elephantis jussi ... nec mora trepidantes elephanti conversi sunt. Quieta nox fuit usque ad lucem.” (P. 58.) Another allusion to the same legendary incident will be found in the Lyfe of Alisaunder, one of the most ancient English romances, reprinted by Weber in his Metrical Romances of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Centuries.
“Forth went the kyng thennes with hy; Of the forme-ward he herd grete cry For hy weren assailed of olifauntz. The kyng highed, and his sergeauntz: Ac, so I fynde on the booke, By Porus conseil hogges hy took And beten them so they shrightte: The olifauntz away hem dightte; For hy ne have so mychel drade Of nothing as of hogges grade.” Weber, vol. i. p. 237.