Catoblepas
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The catoblepas (from the Greek καταβλέπω, (katablépō) "to look downwards") is a legendary creature from Ethiopia, described first by Pliny the Elder and later by Claudius Aelianus. It is said to have the body of a buffalo and the head of a hog. Its back has scales that protect the beast, and its head is always pointing downwards. Its stare or breath could either turn people into stone, or kill them. The catoblepas is often thought to be based on real-life encounters with wildebeest, such that some dictionaries say that the word is synonymous with "gnu."
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[edit] Ancient and medieval descriptions
Pliny (Natural History, 8.77) described the catoblepas as a mid-sized creature, sluggish, with a heavy head and a face always turned to the ground. He thought its gaze, like that of the basilisk, was lethal, making the heaviness of its head quite fortunate.
Claudius Aelianus (On the Nature of Animals, 7.6) provided a fuller description: the creature was a mid-sized herbivore, about the size of a domestic bull, with a heavy mane, narrow, bloodshot eyes, a scaly back and shaggy eyebrows. The head was so heavy that the beast could only look down. In his description, the animal's gaze was not lethal, but its breath was poison, since it ate only poisonous vegetation.
[edit] In Literature
The catoblepas is described in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci:
It is found in Ethiopia near to the source Nigricapo. It is not a very large animal, is sluggish in all its parts, and its head is so large that it carries it with difficulty, in such wise that it always droops towards the ground; otherwise it would be a great pest to man, for any one on whom it fixes its eyes dies immediately.
In The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Gustav Flaubert describes it as:
...a black buffalo with the head of a hog, hanging close to the ground, joined to its body by a thin neck, long and loose as an emptied intestine. It wallows flat upon the ground, and its legs are smothered under the huge mane of stiff bristles that hide its face.
In The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (The New Arcadia), by Sir Philip Sidney, the "forsaken knight" that Amphilalus fights has a Catoblepta upon his crest:
So passed he over into the island, taking with him the two brothers of Anaxius; where he found the forsaken knight attired in his own livery, as black as sorrow itself could see itself in the blackest glass: his ornaments of the same hue, but formd into the figures of ravens which seemed to gape for carrion: only his reins were snakes, which finely wrapping themselves one within the other, their heads came together to the cheeks and bosses of the bit, where they might seem to bite at the horse, and the horse, as he champed the bit, to bite at them, and that the white foam was engendered by the poisonous fury of the combat. His impresa was a Catoblepta, which so long lies dead as the moon (whereto it hath so natural a sympathy) wants her light. THe word signified, that the moon wanted not the light, but the poor beast wanted the moon's light.
[edit] Catoblepas in fantasy games
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The catoblepas is a common monster in roleplaying games and video games. Long associated with the Dungeons & Dragons game, the catoblepas was among the creatures included in the original 1977 version of the Monster Manual. In a Forgotten Realms product from the 1990s, Marco Volo described "death cheese" made from the milk of catoblepas dwelling in the Vast Swamp at Cormyr's border. In the current (3.5th edition) Dungeons & Dragons game the catoblepas is described in Monster Manual II as:
a bizarre, loathesome creature that inhabits dismal swamps and marshes...(it) is a meandering grazer...but once a month, usually under the light of a full moon, it hunts for meat to round out its diet of reeds and grasses.[1]
Catoblepas appeared in various Castlevania videogames such as, Aria of Sorrow for Game Boy Advance and Dawn of Sorrow for Nintendo DS. In Dawn of Sorrow, his breath could turn Soma Cruz into stone, but if Soma obtained the monster's soul, he could use that same ability on his enemies. It also appears in Circle of the Moon, where it's virtually a somewhat altered version of the gorgon.
The catoblepas has also appeared in several Final Fantasy games as either a powerful monster or as the summoned creature, "Shoat". This creature also appears by name in Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga as a boss monster. Catoblepas is the monster in Monster in My Pocket #20. The catoblepas appears, too, in the Lost Kingdoms series of games. It appears in the MMORPG RuneScape in a dungeon where it is called "catablepon".[2]
However, in a number of circumstances, such as in certain games of the Final Fantasy, Castlevania, and Heroes of Might and Magic series, the name Gorgon gets applied to creatures that would be more accurately described as Catoblepas. Sometimes the names are used to describe two creatures that are just a palette swap of each other. In the case of Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin, the attack method also changes--the Catoblepas's breath causes petrification, while the Gorgon's breath inflicts poison.
In the game Age of Mythology, one of the items that can be collected is named "Scales of the Catoblepas".
In The Witcher, Geralt needs to get a catoblepas steak for a cursed Princess in Act III.
[edit] The catoblepas in other media
The Catoblepas was elected to be the symbol of the dark armor called "surplice" which is part of the garment of one of Hades' Specters in the Saint Seiya Manga series called "Meiou Hades wa Shinwa: Lost Canvas". The owner of this surplice (part of the 108 Evil Stars) is Ronge in the Ancient Holy War of the 18th Century, where Aroon is the resurrection of the Hades God and Tenma is the legendary Saint of Pegasus.
Catoblepas is also the title character of the manga series Hitomi no Catoblepas, however, apart from the ability to kill with a glance, he bears little resemblance to his mythical namesake.
The Super Sentai series Juuken Sentai Gekiranger & its western counterpart Power Rangers Jungle Fury also feature a character inspired by the Catoblepas.
[edit] References
- ^ Monster Manual II by Ed Bonny, Jeff Grubb, Rich Redman, Skip Williams, Steve Winter. First printing September 2002
- ^ RuneScape - the massive online adventure game by Jagex Ltd
