Pard
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A pard (
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
: πάρδος) is the Greek word for the
leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant cat species in the genus ''Panthera''. It has a pale yellowish to dark golden fur with dark spots grouped in rosettes. Its body is slender and muscular reaching a length of with a ...
, which is listed in medieval
bestiaries A bestiary () is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beas ...
and in
Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...
's book ''Natural History.'' Over the years, there have been many different depictions of the creature including some adaptations with and without manes and some in later years with shorter tails. However, one consistent representation shows them as large felines often with spots.


History

One of the earliest known references to this creature appears in Pliny the Elder's book ''
Natural History Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
'' (in Book 8, chapter 17: "Lions: How they are Produced"). In it, Pliny writes about the creation of
cheetah The cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus'') is a large Felidae, cat and the Fastest animals, fastest land animal. It has a tawny to creamy white or pale buff fur that is marked with evenly spaced, solid black spots. The head is small and rounded, wit ...
(though he does not have a clearly separate word for this animal) which were believed to be a hybrid animal (like
mule The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey, and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two ...
s or
liger The liger is a hybrid (biology), hybrid offspring of a male lion (''Panthera leo'') and a tigress, or female tiger (''Panthera tigris''). The liger has parents in the same genus but of different species. The liger is distinct from the opposite ...
s) resulting from the union between a promiscuous lioness and the pard, i.e. the leopard. In fact, the word () or (), Greek for 'cheetah', comes from the combination of the word (Greek for 'lion') and , 'spotted'. The pard itself is described as being maneless like the female lion with a distinct odor. Pliny also states that the sexual passion between the pard and lioness is so violent that it enrages the male lion, who will often seek revenge on a lioness when smelling the pard. Because of this, the lioness will wash the pard's scent from her or follow the pride at a distance after mating. By the medieval era, pards were commonplace in books and artwork where various depictions of them are shown (some even including "bearded manes"). In the seventh-century book ''
Etymologies Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
'',
Isidore of Seville Isidore of Seville (; 4 April 636) was a Spania, Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville, archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montal ...
describes their coat as being mottled like a giraffe's. He goes on to describe them as being "headlong for blood" by being capable of killing their prey in a single leap. The author references Pliny the Elder's work by reaffirming that pards were the sires of cheetahs from lionesses. It wasn't until the 13th century that pards acquired their mythical reputation for being bloodthirsty and almost demonic creatures, primarily thanks to the MS Bodley 764 Bestiary. In this, their spots were said to symbolize sins, the devil, or even the variety of vices in mankind. It even claims that the Antichrist comes in the form of a pard. Despite the mention of their spots, in this bestiary pards are often illustrated without spots. Instead, they're colored and maned like a lion with a human-like, grinning face. Yet ironically, in the same century, different writers of the
Aberdeen Bestiary The ''Aberdeen Bestiary'' (Aberdeen University Library, Univ Lib. MS 24) is a 12th-century England, English illuminated manuscript bestiary that was first listed in 1542 in the inventory of the Old Royal Library at the Palace of Westminster. Du ...
oppositely describe the pard (borrowing in this case from the panther) as a beautiful and gentle creature whose only enemy is the dragon. It's said to sleep for three days after filling its stomach and arise, carrying with it a sweet scent from its mouth which attracts all animals except the dragon. Its roar is said to terrify the dragon into fleeing to its den. In this bestiary, the creature is said to symbolize Jesus Christ who opposes the devil. It also features the most accurate illustrations of it, depicting a creature with dark fur, spots, and no mane. By the 14th century, they are characterized again as a real animal. The
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
poem "An Entertaining Tale of
Quadrupeds Quadrupedalism is a form of locomotion in which animals have four legs that are used to bear weight and move around. An animal or machine that usually maintains a four-legged posture and moves using all four legs is said to be a quadruped (fr ...
," describes pards (also called "cat-pards" and "leopards" interchangeably in the text) as being resistant to fleas--and thus good for using their pelts as bedspreads. Their tails are noted as being "comically" short like a lynx's and that the creature often lives in
quarries A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to manage their safet ...
. Finally, by the 1700s, despite centuries of confusion, scientists understood cheetahs and leopards to be their own, independent species of cat and not the offspring of pards and lions.


Etymology

The English noun ''pard'' derives from
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...
''parde'', from
Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...
via
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
, ''párdos'' ("male panther"). The word ''pard'' is probably of Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...
origin; akin to
Sogdian ''purdhank''''The Free Dictionary'' – Pard
/ref> and Persian language">Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
پلنگ ''palang''.


In English literature

The pard is mentioned in Shakespeare's ''As You Like It'' ("Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel...") and John Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale ("...not charioted by Bacchus and his pards.").


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pard (Legendary Creature) Heraldic beasts Medieval European legendary creatures Mythological felines