Peafowl

Peafowl can refer to either of two species of birds in the genus Pavo of the pheasant family, Phasianidae. Peafowl are best known for the male's extravagant tail, which it displays during courtship. The male is called a peacock, and the female a peahen.

And there they placed a peacock in his pride,
Before the damsel.

Quotes

• The peacock spends the day keeping watch. The holy bird, the peacock, spends the day calling "haya!". A bird red from cornelian, blue from lapis lazuli, white from chalcedony, with all kinds of gold, and leather inlaid with gold -- may the coppersmith fashion the peacock for you thus.
  • Anonymous, Nanshe and the birds (Nanshe C), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.

• The very port and gait of a swan, or turkey, or peacock show the high idea he has entertain'd of himself; and his contempt of all others. This is the more remarkable, that in the two last species of animals, the pride always attends the beauty, and is discover'd in the male only.
  • David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions, Part 1, Section 12.

• Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can't nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
  • Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (1977), on why a peacock can't fly much better than a chicken.

• Both the peacock and the chicken passed through [Mesopotamia] on their way westward[;] the Sumerians called the chicken ‘ the bird from Meluhha’ and the Syrians called it the ‘Akkadian bird’.
  • Oppenheim AL 1977 Ancient Mesopotamia Chicago/London, Univ. Chicago Press.(p 317: quoted from Kazanas, N. (2009). Indo-Aryan origins and other Vedic issues. Aditya Prakashan. ch. 7

• For Sheer attractiveness,adorning ability,and adaptability,the Indian peafowl is clearly unsurpassable and incomparable.No other bird can claim such Triple'A' ranking.Regal and resplendent,yet common and plebian,it stands in a class of its own,a true symbol of India in all its beauty and colourful splendour.It is rightly the National Bird of India
  • Samar Singh,"Behold the National Bird (2012).English Balbharti Book 9th grade Maharashtra State Board,India.

Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,—a stride and a stand.
- William Shakespeare

• "There is not a single cultural element of Central Asian, Eastern European or Caucasian origin in the archaeological culture of the Mittanian area [….] But there is one element novel to Iraq in Mittanian culture and art, which is later on observed in Iranian culture until the Islamisation of Iran: the peacock, one of the two elements of the 'Senmurv', the lion-peacock of the Sassanian art. The first clear pictures showing peacocks in religious context in Mesopotamia are the Nuzi cylinder seals of Mittanian time. There are two types of peacocks: the griffin with a peacock head and the peacock dancer, masked and standing beside the holy tree of life. The veneration of the peacock could not have been brought by the Mittanians from Central Asia or South-Eastern Europe; they must have taken it from the East, as peacocks are the type-bird of India and peacock dancers are still to be seen all over India. The earliest examples are known from the Harappan culture, from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa: two birds sitting on either side of the first tree of life are painted on ceramics. [….] The religious role of the peacock in India and the Indian-influenced Buddhist art in China and Japan need not be questioned" .... "The peacock was therefore subordinated to Indra and connected with the thunderbolt, so that in some Buddhist images Indra is sitting on a peacock throne. It is even possible to trace the peacock as the 'animal of the battle' in Elam till the late 3rd millennium B.C - if it is possible to identify two figured poles from Susa with 'peacock' symbols" ... "Yet the development of the Andronovo culture did not start before 1650-1600 B.C. So that we are forced to accept that the Indo-Aryans in what is now Iran, especially Eastern Iran before 1600 B.C., were under the Indian influence for such a long period that they could have taken over the peacock veneration. In that case, they could not be part of the Andronovo culture, but should have come to Iran centuries before, at the time when the Hittites came to Anatolia."
  • Burchard Brentjes 1981, (BRENTJES 1981:145-47). BRENTJES 1981: The Mittanians and the Peacock. Brentjes, Burchard, in "Ethnic Problem of the History of Central Asia in the Early Period", ed. M.S.Asimov, B.A.Litvinsky, L.I.Miroshnikov, D.S.Rayevsky, Nauka, Moscow, 1981. Quoted in [1], also quoted in Kazanas, N. (2009). Indo-Aryan origins and other Vedic issues. Aditya Prakashan. ch. 7

• "The peacock is a native to India, which seems to be the source of most peacock motifs [….] The name mayura may have some connection with magyar, which is the self-name of the Hungarians [….] Some Indian song was the likely common origin of both folksong 95 and folksong D because of the Hindu mythological elements found in the latter two. In particular, a possible origin may be the Vedic hymn of the Vena bird (Rig Veda book 10, hymn 123) [….] Uralic linguistics identified a set of words that reflect borrowings [….] The people who brought these words with them and merged with the Proto-Hungarians at some point in history also may have brought with them the peacock motifs and part of the Rig Vedic oral tradition".
  • REVESZ 2019: Peacock Motifs in Rig Vedic Hymns and Hungarian Folksongs. Revesz, Peter Z. in University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Journal of the Computer Science and Engineering Department, 2019.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 591.

• For everything seemed resting on his nod,
  As they could read in all eyes. Now to them,
  Who were accustomed, as a sort of god,
  To see the sultan, rich in many a gem,
  Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad
  (That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem,)
  With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt
  How power could condescend to do without.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto VII, Stanza 74.

• To frame the little animal, provide
  All the gay hues that wait on female pride:
  Let Nature guide thee; sometimes golden wire
  The shining bellies of the fly require;
  The peacock's plumes thy tackle must not fail,
  Nor the dear purchase of the sable's tail.
  • John Gay, Rural Sports (1713), Canto I, line 177.

• To Paradise, the Arabs say,
  Satan could never find the way
  Until the peacock led him in.
  • Charles Godfrey Leland, The Peacock.

• "Fly pride," says the peacock.
  • William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, scene 3, line 81.

• Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while
  And like a peacock sweep along his tail.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I (c. 1588-90), Act III, scene 3, line 5.

• Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,—a stride and a stand.
  • William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida (c. 1602), Act III, scene 3, line 251.

• And there they placed a peacock in his pride,
  Before the damsel.
  • Alfred Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette.