This beast is preceded by a reputation that transcends oceans and mountains: it is said to originate from the depths of the forests of Hyrcania, the wild, rugged, evergreen land that borders the Caspian Sea. Its name is at once a curse and an incantation.

It is reputed to be swift as an arrow, wild as the Tigris, the fastest flowing of all rivers, from which it takes its name. Its fur blazes red as an open fire, the sooty stripes akin to branches in the em-bers, the facial features finely drawn, the ears upstanding, the cheeks powerful, the muzzle bristling with white whiskers, the eyes glowing green beneath heavy brows, and on its forehead a dark symmetrical marking, the meaning of which no one knows.

The creature shakes its huge head, reveals its large, terrible teeth, its two pointed fangs, its fleshy maw. It runs its tongue over its bare nose. A growl rises up from its throat; a hoarse snarl unlike anything heard before echoes through the terraces—a bloodcurdling sound, after which every word becomes a whisper.

And a rumor circulates, half lore, half poem: that there exist only females of its species, for the animal is savage, as savage as only a mother can be when robbed of her offspring. Chance alone bears out the assertion: beneath the tail with its brown-black rings lies concealed a fertile womb that will bear no more cubs.

The animal moves off again, paces the ring with silent steps, clings to the shadow cast by the walls, looks for a spot offering refuge, quiet, and shelter—and finds none. There is only the greasy gray of the palisade, the barred openings, the white dazzle of the billowing togas, patches of brightness, naked faces frozen into masks.

When, in fact, had they first set eyes on this animal? Not in a nightmare, as a man-eating manticore with the sneering face of a child, its bared jaws full of powerful teeth, its tail armed with stings, but in the flesh, part of an Indian delegation on the shores of the island of Samos. On that occasion too it had been a female, the only one of the group of solitary beasts to have survived the desperately long, torturous journey. It was paraded before Augustus on a wrought-iron chain as a gesture of rever-ence— and as a hideous wonder of nature, as rare and horrifying as the herm-like boy who had been made to stand beside it: half-naked, his whole body dusted with spices, with no arms, these having been cut off at the shoulders when he was still an infant. There they stood, the snarling animal and the mutilated human —two wondrous beings, a bizarre pair, a cue for poets to pen epigrams about the majesty of the abominable.

Sublime

Latim Em Pó

Leones Contra Gacelas

Ale y Lelita 1

The Pearl of India

Kenai