Dogs in Art History Literature

Dogs in Art History Literature.

The Dog in History, Art, and Literature

Of the dog in ancient story Many a pleasant tale is told."

MARY HOWITT

Whatever its direct origin, there is incause of the Trojan war ; and " Thou dog dubitable proof that the domestic dog in in forehead " is his taunt flung at a despicvarious recognisable breeds was co-existent able man. But generally his allusions are

not uncomplimentary to canine sagacity, and they show a certain sympathy and esteem for an animal which was evidently held in high value. When the "God of the silver bow " strikes beasts and men with pestilence, it is said :

" Mules first and dogs he struck, but at themselves,

Dispatching soon his bitter arrows keen, Smote them."

Yet, mixed with these friendly dogs there were apparently those of the pariah kind. Cowards in battle are threatened thus :

"... The vulture's maw Shall have his carcase, and the dogs his bones."

Shepherd dogs and hounds are more than once indicated :

" As dogs that careful watch the fold by night, Hearing some wild beast in the woods,

which hounds

And hunters with tumultuous clamour drive Down from the mountain-top, all sleep

forego."

In the Iliad there is also mention of the hunting of lions and boars by dogs. ' They all trembled as dogs around a lion " (Lib. V. 476) , and again a brave warrior faces his foes " as when a boar or lion looking fiercely round, conscious of his strength, turns upon the dogs and huntsmen " (Lib. XII. 41). The Boarhound must have been a favourite in Homer's .time, for it enters frequently into his similes of warfare ;

With the earliest civilised societies, and that it was the trusted companion of man many hundreds of years prior to the time when it became the painted Briton's pride. Homer, the first of Greek poets, frequently used the word " dog " as an epithet of contempt and reproach to women lacking in modesty and virtue, applying it to Helen (Lib. VI. 344).

" As when dogs and swains In prime of manhood, from all quarters rush Around a boar, he from his thicket bolts, The bright tusk whetting in his crooked jaws ;

They press him on all sides, and from beneath

Loud gnashing hear, yet firm, his threats defy."

Homer's most celebrated reference to the dog, however, is, of course, the incident in the Odyssey, in which Odysseus, after long years of war and wandering, returned in disguise to Ithaca to be welcomed by his aged dog, Argus, who went up to him with wagging tail and close-clapped ears and straightway died of sheer joy at his master's unexpected return.

Ruskin, in writing of the dog in Art,* says : " The Greeks seem hardly to have done justice to the dog. My pleasure in the entire Odyssey is diminished because Ulysses gives not a word of kindness nor of regret to Argus." This is true ; the disguised king spoke no word, for he did not wish to be recognised by Eurneneus. But he did more than merely speak when he saw his well remembered hound yield up its last fluttering breath at his feet.

" Odysseus saw, and turned aside To wipe away the tear ; From Eurneneus he chose his grief to hide. . . ."

Certainly the Greeks did not do full justice to the dog. Outside of Homer it is rarely noticed in their literature, and seldom favourably. In their sculpture also it was not often introduced. In a work attributed to Myron, one of the most skilful artists of ancient times, there is a dog closely resembling our Newfoundland, said to have been the favourite dog of Alcibiades. The two dogs in the familiar "Action" group, as also the beautifully modelled pair in the Graeco-Roman group found at Monte Cagnolo, are small hounds somewhat resembling our Lurcher. Xenophon records two species of Spartan dogs. Reference is made to their use in battle, for which purpose they were sometimes provided with spiked collars, so that the " dogs of war " was no mere figure of speech. At Marathon one of these dogs gave such assistance to its master that its effigy was engraved upon his tablet. Plutarch, in his life of Themistocles, has a pretty reference to a dog which perished in swimming after its master who had abandoned it, and who, in remorse, afterwards gave it a decent burial. The Greeks made sacrifice of dogs to the gods of Olympus. The mythical three-headed dog Cerberus was supposed to guard the entrance to Hades and to watch at the feet of Pluto, to which deity a dog and a youth were periodically sacrificed. A great number of dogs were destroyed in Samothrace in honour of the goddess Hecate.

Among the Romans, also, dogs were at certain periods sacrificed to the gods. At the festival of Robigalia, April 25th, a dog was offered at the fifth milestone on the Via Claudia.* The Romans were fairly advanced in their knowledge of the dog and his uses. So much so that a classification was drawn up.

Three main divisions were recognised : (i) Canes villatica, or watchdogs ; (2) Canes pastorales, or sheepdogs ; (3) Canes venatici, hunting dogs ; which were further subdivided into pugnaces, to attack the quarry ; nare sagaces, to track it out ; and pedibus celeres, to overtake it. In their commerce with distant countries the Romans acquired new breeds for particular uses or to improve their own kennels. Symmachus mentions the presence of British pugnaccs (which were no doubt Mastiffs) at the Coliseum in Rome, and Claudian refers to

boasted much. He said, ' Long will it be before you hunt like this ! ' They assembled and answered that they thought no king had such luck in hunting. Then they all rode home, and the King was very glad " (Heimskringla, St. Olaf, c. 90).

Besides hunting dogs, the Northmen possessed other kinds, among which were shepherd and watch-dogs.

" When Olaf was in Ireland he went on a coast-raid. As they needed provisions they went ashore and drove down many cattle. A bondi came there and asked Olaf to give him back his cows.

From the Bayettx Taptstry,

" The British hound

That brings the bull's big forehead to the ground."

Long before the introduction of Christianity into Northern Europe the dog was understood and appreciated by the Scandinavians, who probably obtained many varieties during their commercial expeditions to Italy and the East, and their raiding expeditions " West-over-sea." As one may gather from the Sagas, they were accustomed to use dogs with the hawks.

"One day the King (Olaf, of Sweden) rode out early with his hawks and dogs and men with him. When they let loose the hawks, the King's hawk in one flight killed two heathcocks, and at once he again flew forward and killed three more. The dogs ran underneath and took every bird that fell to the ground. The King galloped after, and picked up the game himself, and

replied that he might take them if he could recognise them and not delay their journey. The bondi had with him a large sheepdog. He, pointed out to it the herd of cattle, which numbered many hundreds. The dog ran through all the herds, and took away as many cows as the bondi had said belonged to him, and they were all marked with the same mark. Then they acknowledged that the dog had found out the right cattle. They thought it a wonderfully wise dog. Olaf asked if the bondi would give him the dog. ' Willingly,' answered the bondi. Olaf at once gave him a gold ring, and promised to be his friend. The dog's name was Vigi, and it was the best of all dogs. Olaf owned it long after this " (Olaf Triggvason's Saga, c. 35).

From Ireland, also, the Vikings appear to have introduced the great Wolf-hound. In the Saga of Nial's Burning, Paa (the peacock) says to Gunnar :

" ' I will give thee three things : a golden bracelet ; a kirtle which belonged to Myrkiarton, King of Ireland ; and a dog which I got in the same country. He is huge of limb, and for a follower equal to an able man. Moreover, he hath man's wit, and will bark at thine enemies, but never at thy friends. And he will see by each man's face whether he be ill or well disposed towards thee. And he will lay down his life for thee. Samr is his name.' Then he said to the hound, ' From this day follow thou Gunnar, and help him what thou canst.' So the hound went to Gunnar, and lay down at his feet, and fawned upon him."

It is interesting to add that Samr, although he could not avert the murder of Gunnar, forestalled the performance of the famous dog of Montargis by avenging his master's death upon his murderer. Sad to relate, however, he was himself killed in revenge, for it is stated that " Onund of Trollaskog smote Samr on the head with his axe, so that it pierced the brain ; and the dog, with a great and wonderful cry, tell dead on the ground."

Like the Greeks and Romans, the Scandinavians were in the habit of making sacrifice of dogs as propitiation to their deities. This circumstance does not, however, imply that they did not value their dogs. Indeed, the contrary is the case ; they sacrificed what they valued most, and at a very early time the Northmen imposed penalties for the killing of dogs.

" If a man kills a lapdog of another he must pay twelve aurar if the dog is a lapdog whose neck one can embrace with one hand, the fingers touching each other ; six aurar are to be paid for a greyhound (mj6hund), and for a hunting dog half a mark, and also for a sheepdog, if it is tied by the innermost ox, or untied by the outermost ox, also at the gate. One aurar is to be paid for a dog guarding the house if it is killed " (Frostath XI. 24).

It is more than probable that the Scandinavians when founding their colony in that part of France to which they gave the name of Normandy took with them many of their favourite breeds to become the progenitors of the good chiens de Normandie, the white St. Huberts, the Bassets, Griffons, and those chiens courants a poil ras, of which M. le Comte Lahens owns the few surviving specimens. The Normans, who were always lovers of good canine society, brought dogs with them when they came over to conquer England, but we already possessed many good strains, and our Mastiffs in particular were celebrated, as were our Wolfdogs and Gazehounds. There is a small group of British dogs accompanying a hawking party figured in the Bayeux Tapestry ; but the drawing is crude, and it is hazardous to determine the breeds.

One animal appears to be a black Mastiff, although such a dog would hardly be used in the hunting field, even in the eleventh century, and it is to be presumed that all three running in advance of King Harold's palfrey are hounds. The two smaller dogs cannot be identified, but they are probably terriers rather than spaniels.

Between the Roman period and the Middle Ages materials for the history of the dog are scanty and indefinite, but there is evidence that close attention was given to those breeds which were used in various forms of sport, and in their illuminated manuscripts the monks were fond of introducing drawings of hounds, many of them very beautiful, more particularly the stately Deerhounds, which rank with the noblest and most intelligent of dogs, and which were classed among the three signs of a gentleman the two others being his horse and his hawk. It was one of these that was the favourite hound of King Arthur, who hunted with him over the heaths of Tintagel or among the woods of Caerleon in pursuit of wolf, boar, or red deer. Very famous was this " hound of deepest voice," for whose baying Queen Guinevere listened as she halted with Geraint on the knoll above the waters of Usk, Cavall his name a name only less famous in Arthurian legend than that of Hodain, the hound linked so strangely with the fates of Tristram and Iseult. Such, too, was the yet more celebrated Bran, the companion of Fingal. " White-breasted Bran " was the best of the " nine great dogs," and the " nine smaller game-starting dogs " which always accompanied Fingal on his hunting expeditions in Ireland and Scotland. The " surly strength of Luath " another of Fingal's dogs is duly celebrated in Gaelic tradition, but he was not so perfect or graceful as Bran,

" With his hind legs like a hook or bent bow, His breast like that of a garron (hunting pony), His ear like a leaf."

In the early ages in England the hounds entered greatly into the supe r stitions of the people. They were believed to be quick to detect the presence of invisible spirits, and in connection with this aptitude for seeing into the spirit-world they were often the outward objects through which devils and demons made their appearance. There are persons Mr. Rider Haggard among the number who still aver that dogs can reappear as ghosts, and in many remote places it is said that the Hounds of Gabriel can be heard at night racing in full cry above the gables, foreboding trouble to those within. This belief in the Wild Huntsman and his train of clamorous hounds is one of the most widespread superstitions in Europe. It probably originated in the gabble of migrating geese.

Mention of the melancholy story of the " peerless hound," Gelert, ought not to be omitted. Tradition has it that King John gave Gelert in 1205 to Llewellyn, who was his son-in-law, and there is a village called Bedd Gelert, near Snowdon, where the faithful hound's grave is pointed out. But the incident of a dog being killed in mistake for the wolf which was supposed to have slain his master's heir dates from much earlier times. It appears through all the folk-tales, and was probably derived from ancient Hindostan.* And "This famous tale is told at Haidarabad, Lucknow, and Kashmir. In its more usual form, as in the Panchatantra and the collection of Somadeva, the mongoose takes the place of the dog and kills the cobra on the baby's cradle."

W. Crooke, B.A., " Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India."

This reference reminds one of the extent to which dog-worship prevailed in India from prehistoric times, and which is still continued, especially in connection with the god Bhairon. The temple of Bhairon, in Benares, is the only sacred building into which the dog is privileged to enter. Throughout India the dog is held in respect, as it is in all Mohammedan lands. In no country where this was not the case could there have originated so beautiful a legend as that of Yudishthira, who, on appealing to Indra for entrance into heaven, asked that his dog might accompany him. Indra replied that his heaven had no place for dogs. Whereupon Yudishthira responded : " Then I go not into heaven, for to abandon the faithful and devoted is an endless crime, like the murder of a Brahmin. Never, therefore, come weal or woe, will I abandon that faithful dog that hath trusted in my power to save it." Or that other equally beautiful story, re-told by Sir Edwin Arnold, of the woman who, while being led to her death, caught sight of a helpless dog lying at the wayside exhausted by the fierce heat, glaring upon the water that was out of his reach. The woman in compassion paused and drew off her embroidered shoe, and, making a cup of the heel's hollow, dipped it in the neighbouring well and gave a draught to the parched hound, which fawned upon her in gratitude. The King who had condemned her marked the merciful act, and in sudden clemency bade the woman go free, saying, " Thou hast shown pity to this brute beast in its misery. I dare not show less pity unto thee."

In Western countries, as in Oriental, the dog has had its special protecting deities and its patron saints. St. Eustace is the patron of dogs in the South of Europe. In the North it is St. Hubert, who presides over the chase and the destinies of dogs. He is said to have been so inordinately fond of the chase that he neglected his religious duties for his favourite amusement ; till one Good Friday, when hunting in the forest with his famous hounds of the breed which has since borne his name, he was confronted by a stag bearing a crucifix between its antlers, threatening him with eternal perdition unless he reformed. Upon this he entered the cloister and became in time Bishop of Liege and the apostle of Ardennes and Brabant. He died at an advanced age, A.D. 727.

Thread from his miraculous stole is more efficacious in cases of hydrophobia than all the prophylactics of Pasteur. The St. Hubert hounds were mighty of body, with legs somewhat low and short Bloodhounds rather than Greyhounds. It is to be doubted whether one of this famous race of The festival of St. Hubert is still held on November 2nd, and on that day crowds of pilgrims assemble at his shrine to invoke a blessing on themselves and on their dogs. At the church of Lime, where some relics of the saint are preserved, the following rhyme half charm, half prayer is recited :

" Saint Hubert glorieux, Dieu me soil amoureux Trois choses me defend ; De la nuit du serpent, Mauvais loup, mauvais chien, Mauvais betes enragees Ne puissent m'approcher, Me voir, ne me toucher, Non plus qu'c'toile au del,"

and it is believed that his blessing or a

"St. Hubert's breed, Unmatched for courage, strength, and speed,"

could now be anywhere discovered.

Much might be written of the famous dogs of history of the Mastiffs of the Knights of Rhodes, who could distinguish a Turk from a Christian by the smell of him ; of the Spanish Bloodhounds, who helped in the conquest of Mexico and Peru ; of Mathe, the favourite of Richard II., who, as Froissart asserts, deserted his master to fawn upon and remain in the service of the usurper ; and of the Spaniel which saved the Dutch Republic by waking William the Silent during the night attack on the camp before Mons. But it is too large a subject to be dealt with here.

As for the dog in art, it would occupy the leisure of a lifetime adequately to treat so immense a theme. Yet it is a study which would yield great results. The student who should visit the galleries of Europe and take careful note of not only the magnificent canvases of Titian and Velasquez and Veronese, in which the Bloodhound so frequently looks out, grand as surly kings and admirals, but also the paintings of all other masters from the earliest times to our own Landseer and Riviere, would confer an invaluable boon upon all lovers of canine nature. Hitherto this method of tracing the dog's history and variations has only been done in connection with one breed, by Mr. W. Arkwright, whose monograph on the Pointer is a veritable monument of erudition and discernment.

From the old flea-bitten Argus that first recognised his disguised master in the Odyssey down to Pope's Bounce, Byron's Boatswain, Sir Walter Scott's Maida, to Matthew Arnold's Geist and Kaiser, and to Mrs. Browning's Flush, particular dogs have been celebrated in the history of letters. There is not much trace of a real appreciation of the more generous kinds, at least as friends and companions, in the whole range of French literature. On the other hand, there is scarcely one great British poet, from Chaucer to Burns and Moore and Tennyson, who does not, more or less directly, impress us with the conviction that he was a true lover of dogs.

In prose literature it is the same. The dog appears now and then in the novels of Fielding and Smollett. Dr. Johnson was a lover of dogs, and knew the points of a Bulldog.* Scott was noted as a good

* Johnson, after examining the animal attentively : " No, sir, he is not well shaped, for there is not the quick transition from the thickness of the fore part to the tenuity the thin part behind, which a Bulldog ought to have." Taylor said a small Bulldog was as good as a large one. Johnson : " No, sir ; for in proportion to his size he has strength, and your argument would prove that a good Bulldog may be as small as a mouse." (BOSWELL, 1777.)

.judge of all breeds. Perhaps the first author to make a dog the hero and chief character in a story was Captain Marryat, in " Snarleyow," which was earlier than Dr. John Brown's delightful " Rab and His Friends." Ouida, who has done so much towards promoting a greater kindness to animals, infused with pathos her admirable story of "A Dog of Flanders." Nor should we forget Mr. Anstey's " Black Poodle," or Mr. Robert Hichens' "Black Spaniel," or Maurice Maeterlinck's beautiful tribute to his dead Pelleas in " My Dog." Mr. Ollivant's " Owd Bob," with its thrilling descriptions of Sheepdog trials in the dales of Kenmuir, is one of the best of fictional dog books, comparable only with Jack London's two deeply impressive stories of the huskies of NorthWest Canada, " The Call of the Wild," and " White Fang," in which is embodied from two points of view the argument of the close relationship between the dog and the wolf ; Buck being a respectable civilised dog who answers to the " Call of the Wild," and joins a pack of wolves, and White Fang being a starved, wolfine hanger-on to a dog-sled who gradually adopts the ways of trained and intelligent dogs.

Women have always played an important part in our British love of the dog, and it is interesting to note that the earliest printed work in the English language in which the various breeds then in existence were scientifically classified was the " Book of Field Sports," written by Dame Juliana Berners, who was Prioress of St. Alban's, about the middle of the fifteenth century.* The catalogue of breeds in her volume was not an extensive one. " Thyse ben the names of houndes," she wrote, " fyrste there is a Grehoun, a Bastard, a Mengrell, a Mastif, a Lemor, a Spanyel, Raches, Kenettys, Teroures, Butchers' Houndes, Dunghyll dogges, Tryndeltaylles, and Pryckeryd currys, and smalle ladyes poppees that bere awaye the flees."

* Edward Plantagenet's "Master of Game," in which sporting dogs are interestingly dealt with, was written earlier, it is true, but it remained for centuries in inaccessible manuscript.

The list is instructive, since it shows that, over four centuries ago at least five of the varieties (already owned the names by which we know them to-day.

Dame Juliana Berners was nearly a hundred years in advance of Dr. John Keys, or Caius, who in 1570, or thereabouts, wrote a treatise on the English dog. During his student days, in 1541, Caius made a long sojourn in Italy. In Padua, where he took his M.D. degree, he became intimately acquainted with Andreas Vesalius, the celebrated anatomist, with whom he resided for eight months, and who introduced him to Conrad Gesner, the famous naturalist. Gesner was then engaged upon his very ponderous " History of Animals," published eight years afterwards in four folio volumes, and he requested his friend to furnish him with information on the dog. Caius, on returning to Cambridge, gathered the required facts and embodied them in a long letter, written, of course, in Latin, which was afterwards translated and published under the title : "Of Englishe Dogges : A Short Treatise in Latine by Johannes Caius, drawne into Englishe bv Abraham Fleming, 1576. "

Apart from its historical interest the treatise is now of no great value, but it shows that even in the reign of Queen Elizabeth such types as those of the Mastiff, the Bulldog, the Bloodhound, Greyhound, Beagle, Setter, Pointer, and Spaniel were already clearly differentiated; and it recognised the importance of special training for the sporting breeds and the value of the contributory work of the terrier in unearthing the fox and driving the otter from his holt.

According to Dr. Caius A gentle kind, serving the game. A homely kind, apt for sundry necessary uses. A currish kind, meet for many toyes. He divides the first of these classes into two sections Venatici, which were used for the purpose of hunting beasts ; and Dogges serving a pastime of hunting beastes are divided into Aucupatorii, which served in the pursuit of fowl. The Venatici are described by him as :

Levemrius, or Harriers. Terrarius, or Terrars. Saiiguinarius, or Bloodhounds. Agaseus, or Gazehounds. Leporariiis, or Grehounds. Lorarius, or Lyemmer. Vertigus, or Tumbler. Canis furax, or Stealer.

The next section is devoted to Aucupatorii, which comprised

Dogs used for index, or Setter.

Fowling t Aqnaticus, or Spaniell.

"The first," Dr. Caius notes, " findeth game on the land. The other findeth game on the water." And he proceeds to give an ample account of the work of the Spaniel and the Setter.

His fourth section consists of the following varieties of the dog :

Canis Pastoralis, or The Shepherd's Dogge. The Mastive, or Bandogge, called Canis Villaticus, or Carbenarius.

In the concluding section are the Admonitor, or Wapp. Vernerpator, or Turnespet. Saltator, or Dauncer.

Thus we see that Dr. Caius was able to add very considerably to the number of breeds noted by Dame Juliana Berners. His statements concerning some of the dogs he describes are sometimes extremely vague and indirect, but one has to remember that most of his information was gathered, not from personal knowledge of dogs or from books previously published, but from inquiry among the sporting friends whom, as physician to the Queen, he met at the court of Elizabeth, and of whom one was certainly Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, an authority of some significance, since he was the first sportsman to train setting dogs in the manner generally adopted by his successors and continued to the present time.

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