[One hypothesis is that the shot has no significance at all. Another is
that it is to be emblematic of the threats of nature confronting the
man-apes.
But there's another hypothesis. In Dante's work THE INFERNO (completed
in the early 1300's), the Leopard is one of three beasts (along with the
Lion and the Wolf) preventing Dante's fast ascent to Joy. The poet
Virgil (Dante's symbol for reason), explains that to get to Joy, one
must first descend into Hell; the beasts cannot be bypassed.
Here are the beginning passages from THE INFERNO (from the Ciardi
translation [Mentor: 1954] pp. 28-9), ending with confrontation with the
Leopard. Those who have seen THE SHINING and 2001 will note some
striking parallel imagery here in these passages apart from that of the
Leopard . . .]
* * * *
Midway in our life's journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood. How shall I say
what wood that was! I never saw so drear,
so rank, so arduous a wilderness!
Its very memory gives a shape to fear.
Death could scarce be more bitter than that place!
But since it came to good, I will recount
all that I found revealed there by God's grace.
How I came to it I cannot rightly say,
so drugged and loose with sleep had I become
when I first wandered there from the True Way.
But at the far end of that valley of evil
whose maze had sapped my very heart with fear!
I found myself before a little hill
and lifted up my eyes. Its shoulders glowed
already with the sweet rays of that planet
whose virtue leads men straight on every road,
and the shining strengthened me against the fright
whose agony had wracked the lake of my heart
through all the terrors of that piteous night.
Just as a swimmer, who with his last breath
flounders ashore from perilous seas, might turn
to memorize the wide water of his death --
so did I turn, my soul still fugitive
from death's surviving image, to stare down
that pass that none had ever left alive.
And there I lay to rest from my heart's race
till calm and breath returned to me. Then rose
and pushed up that dead slope at such a pace
each footfall rose above the last. And lo!
almost at the beginning of the rise
I faced a spotted Leopard, all tremor and flow
and gaudy pelt. And it would not pass, but stood
so blocking my every turn that time and again
I was on the verge of turning back to the wood.
This fell at the first widening of the dawn
as the sun was climbing Aries with those stars
that rode with him to light the new creation. . . .
* * * *
Dante wasn't the first to use the Leopard as a symbol. Here are some
quotes from the Old and New Testaments which do the same:
ISAIAH 11:6 -- The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the
leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion
and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
JEREMIAH 5:6 -- Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them,
and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch
over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in
pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings
are increased.
JEREMIAH 13:23 -- Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard
his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
DANIEL 7:6 -- After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard,
which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had
also four heads; and dominion was given to it.
HOSEA 13:7 -- Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard
by the way will I observe them.
REVELATION 13:2 -- And the beast which I saw was like unto a
leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as
the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat,
and great authority.
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