THE
PELICAN
PELLICANUS is the word For a certain breed of bird
Who truly is a crane; Egypt is his domain.
There are two kinds thereof; Near to the Nile they live:
One of them dwells in the flood, The fishes are his food;
The other lives in the isles On lizards, crocodiles,
Serpents, and stinking creatures, And beasts of evil nature.
In Greek his title was Onocrotalos,
Which is longum rostrum, said In the Latin tongue instead,
Or long-beak in our own. Of this bird it is known
That when he comes to his young. They being grown and strong.
And does them kindly things, And covers them with his wings,
The little birds begin Fiercely to peck at him;
They tear at him and try To blind their father's eye.
He falls upon them then And slays them with great pain,
Then goes away for a spell, Leaving them where they fell.
On the third day he returns, And thereupon he mourns,
Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican;
Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what thy bosom ran-
Feeling so strong a woe To see the small birds so
Then he strikes his breast with his beak Until the blood shall leak
Blood that but one drop of has the world to win
And when the coursing blood Spatters his lifeless brood,
Such virtue does it have That once again they live.
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.
G. M. Hopkins, S. Thomae Aquinatis
KNOW that this pelican Signifies Mary's Son;
The little birds are men Restored to life again
From death, by that dear blood Shed for us by our God.
learn one meaning more, Revealed by holy lore:
Know why the small birds try To peck their father's eye,
Of sea foule above all not common in Englande, I noted the Pellicane, which is faigned
to be the lovingeste birds that is: which rather then her yong shoulde want, will spare her
beart bloud out of her bellie, but for all this lovingness she is very deformed to beholde, for
shee is of colour russet, notwithstanding in Guinea I have seene of them as white as a swanne,
having legges like the same, and a body like the Herne, with a long necke, and a thicke long
benke, from the nether inawe whereof downe to the breast passeth a skinne of such a bignesse,
asisable to reccive a fishe as bigge as ones thigh, and this her bigge throat and long bill doeth
make her seem so ougly.
Who turns on them in wrath And puts them all to death.
Men who deny the light Would blind God's blazing sight,
But on such people all His punishment will fall.
This is the meaning I find; Now bear it well in mind.
Sir John Hawkins, Secoud Guinca Voyege
Philippe de Thaun, Bestiary
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