book1_4209

Leviathan(Ovid, Met. 3.669); in his triumphal procession,a pair of lynxes draw hischariot (4.24–25),or it is panthers and lions (Nonnus,Dionysiaca 14.261).By the time of Schiller,his chariot is drawn by “majestic panthers in ateam” (“Gods of Greece” 58),while Keats imagines himself “chariotedby Bacchus and his pards” (“Ode to a Nightingale” 32).In English poetry the pard/panther was seen as the characteristicenemy of the hind (doe). Shakespeare’s Cressida lists the proverbialpredators and prey: “as false / . . . / As fox to lamb,as wolf to heifer’s calf,/Pard to the hind,or stepdame to her son” (TC 3.2.191–94). Dryden’s poemThe Hind and the Panther deploys these beasts and many others in acomplex religious allegory.See Lion, Wolf.LeviathanLight and darknesssee WhaleLight and darkness are probably the most fundamental and inescapableterms,used literally or metaphorically,in the description of anything inlife or literature. It seems almost superfluous to include them in a dictionary,andalmost circular to try to shed light on them. What followswill be highly selective.Light is traditionally linked with goodness,life,knowledge,truth,fame,and hope,darkness with evil,death,ignorance,falsehood,oblivion,anddespair. When all was darkness,the first thing God created waslight (Gen. 1.3),as if light is a precondition of creating anything,ofbringing a hidden thing “to light” (as in Job 28.11). To “see light” is to beborn (Job 3.16); in fact light is life itself (3.20): “the light of the wickedshall be put out” (18.5). The Lord is our light and salvation (Ps. 27.1); heshall be “an everlasting light” (Isa. 60.19). “The people that walked indarkness have seen a great light,” says Isaiah (9.2), and Matthew quoteshim as a prophet of Christ (4.16). John,for whom light is a dominantimage, makes Christ “the light of men” (1.4),“the true Light,whichlighteth every man that cometh into the world” (1.9); “men loved darknessrather than light” (3.19), but Jesus says,“I am the light of the world:he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,but shall have the lightof life” (8.12). Jesus tells his followers,“Ye are the light of the world”(Matt. 5.14),“the children of light” (Luke 16.8); Paul repeats it: “Ye are allthe children of light,and the children of the day; we are not of the night,nor of darkness” (1 Thess. 5.5). When Christ was crucified,there wasdarkness at noon (Matt. 27.45).Hell is dark,as far as possible from the light of God. Dante calls it “theeternal dark” and “the blind world” (Inferno 3.87,4.13). Milton,drawingon St. Basil,describes hell as full of flames,“yet from those flames / Nolight,but rather darkness visible / Served only to discover sights of woe”(PL 1.62–64). In absolute contrast,Dante concludes The Divine Comedywith a vision of “the Highest Light,” whom he addresses twice as Godand praises as the ultimate and ineffable truth (Paradiso 33.50ff.).Heaven in Milton is “the happy realms of light” (1.85),and Milton opensbook 3 by invoking Light itself: “Hail,holy Light,offspring of heavenfirst-born,/ Or of the eternal co-eternal beam / May I express thee112