ABSTRACT
There is of course, another set of symbols, a countervailing tendency to honour and celebrate certain creatures as symbols of human glories and virtues. Some very strong animals have had a remarkably good press even though they were actually dangerous, as images of human virtues. Lions are the prime example, constantly cited as showing noble and kingly virtues such as magnanimity. Thus Chaucer: For lo! the gentle kind [nature] of the lion! For when a fly offendeth him or biteth He with his tail away the fly smiteth All easily, for, of his genterie Him deigneth not to wreak him on a fly As doth a cur, or else another beast.1
