Having once started discussing the characteristics of eagles why not
to mention one more specific feature of theirs - ability to "renew
their youth"? When the eagle gets old, reads the Physiologus, and its
eyes loose their sharpness, the eagle rises as close to sun as
possible, so that its feathers and eyes are burnt out, and then drops
down - like a stone - to a well of "living water" (perhaps, meaning
simply flowing from the spring, not the magic "living water" of the
fairy-tales, though, who knows?), and then its wings retain strength
and new feathers, and the eyes become as sharp again as in its youth.
The symbolic meaning is clear: a Christian, willing to reach
salvation, should rise his soul as close to Almighty as possible, so
that homo vetus would get burnt in him, and then, after baptism in a
"living water," he would retain the youth of homo novus.
These movements of an eagle are similar to the ones mentioned by the
colleague from the Monastery library but it is rather the symbolic
interpretation what links the image if an eagle with the
contemplation than the attentiveness of the medieval people and their
knowledge about the hot streams of air, and so on. I would even dare
to say that the species of the bird (and even of the beast at all)
and its real behaviour are not that important in this case, for
almost the same procedure of renewal is performed by the small lizard
also appearing in the Physiologus, and by the the phoenix of
Claudian.
This prevalence of symbolism is not a news at all but, to my sincere
surprise, the saints' lives show pretty different approach toward the
symbolic of birds and animals than the bestiaries, Physiologus and
even the iconography of the same saints.
Elena Lemeneva
[log in to unmask]
Central European University
Medieval Studies Department
Nador utca 9, 1051 Budapest
HUNGARY
Pannonia utca, 49/B, IV/3
1133 Budapest Hungary
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