Soliman the Elefant

This is the sad story of Soliman the Elefant, one that is quite familiar to Europeans of an older era, and they are reminded of it constantly by museums, pictures, hotels where Maximillian stayed and where the elephant is still being proudly shown off in a sculpture or a picture.

If one has to juxtapose something in between, he needs something of equal grandeur. Thus I choose the story of Suleiman from Malabar in Europe. It is a very charming but at the same time sad story of a man’s indulgence and pompousness. If I were to tell you that this magnificent creature (presumably from the Nilambur forests, but I must admit that one source indicates it could have been from Sri Lanka – nevertheless my love for the elephant does make me tell this story) died of loneliness and poor diet while in a rich king’s stable, you may be surprised. I will get to it by and by, for when I delved into the story, it proved to have a life of its own, the story of an emperor’s pet that had captivated Europe since 1505, has been immortalized in currency, medal’s and sculptures, and has finally been resurrected into a Spanish novel by a Nobel Prize winner, soon to be published in English.