ELEPHANT

16th February 2024

Photo Credit: webgusz (Getty Images), CANVA

QUOTATION

ULYSSES: The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie. Here comes Patrocles.

NESTOR: No Achilles with him.

ULYSSES: The elephant hath joints but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity not for flexure.

ULYSSES & NESTOR: Troilus & Cressida, Act 2, Scene 3

ELEPHANT (African Savanah Elephant: Loxodonta africana)

Achilles is the larger than life creature who will not bend his knee to the king in the quotation above. Ajax is also compared with an Elephant in Troilus & Cressida. Elephants appear in Julius Caesar as being trickable with concealed holes, and in Twelfth Night as the name of an inn.

Shakespeare and his contemporaries would know of Elephants from pictures, the stories of the Greek and Roman world, and also from the Elephants which had been part of the Tower of London Menagerie since Henry III in the 13th century. The tradition that the Elephant has no knee joints is found in the Physiologus, a 6th century Christian text linking animals to spiritual behaviour.

There are 3 living species of Elephants today: the African Savanah Elephant (Loxodonta africana), African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus). Both the African Savanah and Asian Elephants are classified as Endangered with declining populations and the African Forest Elephant is classified as Critically Endangered.

More Information

Folger Shakespeare Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works

Historic Royal Palaces: Tower of London Menagerie

IUCN Red List: African Savanah Elephant, African Forest Elephant, Asian Elephant

Perseus Digital Library: Elephant

WWF: Elephant Facts