Associating freely

Remembering the tapestry at the Spirito Santo, I decided to look for the Durer rhino today (the one from the Manoeline embassy); and while looking it up, remembered this poem:

The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo's feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The 'potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo's voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.

The hippopotamus's day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way --
The Church can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the 'potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr'd virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.

Which is of course wrong: this is a hippo, that a rhino. A hippo feels more cuddly (though it is a vicious beast in fact).

A hippo playing a harp, rising into heaven surrounded by singing angels reminded me that on the outside of the Chartres cathedral, the wall to the right of the front entrance, which is probably the Southern Wall (if, like others, the cathedral also faces East) there is a one of those Gothic cartoons: an especially goofy looking man-sized donkey playing a mandolin and -- er -- singing. A striking figure, it has even given a name to a tavern in front of it; yet, I couldn't find its photo on the internet. I can't believe no one thought to photograph it. Yet, maybe it is true: the internauti seem more interested in the labyrinth; how very mathematico-computational of them. (Not many admirers of the Hippopotamus poem among them, I guess).

Another cute donkey in stone is in the courtyard of the Pitti in Florence: under the statue of Hercules at rest there is a memorial tablet of a donkey -- the beast who had worked and died at the site. It was dedicated by the thankful stone masons whose labor it had eased. (Did they call him, jokingly, Hercules?)

Donkeys and Hippos, Chartres and TS Eliot. A glass bead game?