PANTHER
Panther · pantera
IMAGE SOURCE · WIKIMEDIA COMMONS · RIGHTS · COMMONS PUBLIC-DOMAIN FILE
COMMONS FILE PAGE ↗
LATER BESTIARY WITNESS · NOT AN ILLUSTRATION OF ISIDORE
The panther lives in two books at once. Isidore gives it a short encyclopaedic entry. The Aberdeen Bestiary gives it a long, sweet-smelling allegory, and names where that story comes from: Physiologus.
The folio is headed “Pard, continued. De pantera”: the panther begins partway down the page, straight after the pard.
After eating, the panther sleeps for three days. When it wakes, a sweet smell comes from its mouth, and every animal follows it except the dragon.
The panther’s enmity with the dragon appears in Isidore. The Aberdeen text also credits it to Physiologus. Same motif, two different sources. We show both and merge neither.
THE LAYERS · KEPT DISTINCT
ISIDOREETYMOLOGIAE XII.2.8–9
Isidore’s panther is a friend to every animal except the dragon. Its coat is spotted. It gives birth only once, because its young tear the mother’s womb with their claws as they are born.
PHYSIOLOGUS LINEAS NAMED IN THE ABERDEEN TEXT
The three-day sleep, the sweet breath that draws the other animals, and the dragon fleeing from that smell belong to the Physiologus tradition and the later bestiary. The Aberdeen text names Physiologus as its authority, and reads the panther as a figure of Christ.
Which Latin version of Physiologus the Aberdeen scribe used is not identified here. VERSION-SPECIFIC SOURCE REQUIRED.
MANUSCRIPT WITNESSABERDEEN MS 24 · f.9r
University of Aberdeen MS 24, a Second Family English bestiary of about 1200. The panther section begins on f.9r, after the end of the pard. The image above is a Wikimedia Commons public-domain reproduction of a detail of that page.
HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW
Isidore XII.2.8–9 checked in two online editions (LacusCurtius and The Latin Library).
Aberdeen f.9r heading, text and Physiologus attribution checked on the University of Aberdeen’s own folio page.
Commons file AberdeenBestiaryFolio009rPantherDetail.jpg, marked public domain (faithful reproduction of a two-dimensional public-domain work).
The public-domain status covers this one Commons file. It is not a reuse permission for the University of Aberdeen’s own images.
Record levels, status labels, the streams diagram and the interface framing are authored by Make It Believable. They are not historical testimony.
WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW YET
- Which Latin version of Physiologus lies behind the Aberdeen panther.
- Where the panther section ends after f.9r. Not confirmed in this pass.