Walter Benjamin’s Real-Life Tales of Dogs: A Translation
Doubtless you think you know all about dogs. But it’s my view that, if I read out to you now the most famous description of a dog, you’ll have exactly the same response as I did when I came across it. For I said to myself: If the word dog or bitch did not occur in this description, I might possibly not have guessed what animal was being referred to. Things can appear so novel and strange when a great scientist looks at things as if for the very first time. And the scientist in question is Linnaeus. The same figure you’ve come across in botany, and who’s responsible for the classification of plants. Here’s what he has to say about the dog:
It feeds on meat, carrion, farinaceous plant products, not on leaves, can digest bones, and vomit after eating grass; will urinate on a stone—the colour of Grecian White, and extremely acidic. Drinks liquids by lapping them up; urinates to one side, in decent society often hundreds of times; licks its neighbour’s anus; nose is damp, with an excellent sense of smell; runs at an angle, walks on its toes, sweats very little, and in the heat, lets its tongue hang out; before going to sleep, circles around its resting place; has very sharp hearing even while asleep, and has dreams. The bitch is cruel towards jealous suitors; when on heat, has many partners; tends to bite them; very strong connection during and after copulation; gestation period nine weeks, litters of between four and eight, with the males resembling the father, the females the mother. Above all else, loyal; house companion for humans; wags its tail when its master approaches, will leap to his defence; if its master’s out walking, it’ll run on ahead and stand watch at the crossroads; eager to learn, goes looking for anything that’s been lost, does the rounds at night, warns of people approaching, keeps watch over property, keeps livestock away from the fields, herds reindeer, protects cattle and sheep from wild animals, holds lions in check, sets up game, points ducks, with a leap creeps up on the net, retrieves the hunter’s kill without nibbling at it, in France pulls the roasting spit, and in Siberia the cart. Begs for food from the table; if it’s stolen some, will timidly hide its tail; devours its food greedily. At home is master of all it surveys. Confirmed enemy of beggars, and will attack strangers without provocation. By licking, it heals wounds, gout and cancer. Howls at the sound of music, bites on a stone that’s been tossed in its direction; at the approach of a storm becomes unwell and foul-smelling. Has problems with tape worm. Can spread rabies. Becomes blind at the end of its life and bites itself.
That’s what Linnaeus has to say. After a description such as this most of the tales that are told about dogs, day in, day out, seem rather boring and run of the mill. At all events, they certainly can’t match this account’s strangeness and immediacy, nor most of those tales people tell in order to prove just how wise dogs are. After all, isn’t it an insult to dogs to go on telling only those tales about them that set out to prove something? Are they only interesting as a species? And doesn’t each one of them actually have its own individual identity?
No single dog is physically or temperamentally like another. Each one has its own good and bad qualities. Often these are extreme opposites, so that dog owners are provided with endless topics for social conversation. Each owner has a dog cleverer than the next person’s! But if someone then tells tales of his dog’s utterly stupid bits of behaviour, then every dog offers a vast range of material for a character portrait, and—if the dog has been subject to some strange twist of fate—for an actual biography. Even when it dies there are often peculiarities to be noted.
Let’s now hear about some of these peculiarities.
It is certainly the case that, with other animals, each one possesses distinctive qualities which are not necessarily to be found across the species as a whole. But the precise and diverse implications of this observation are not borne out except in the case of dogs, since—apart from the horse—humans have not established such a close connection with any other species. All of this can be traced back to one starting point: humankind’s great victory, thousands of years ago, over the dog; or more precisely, over the wolf or jackal. For, when they came under human dominion and allowed themselves to be tamed, this marked the beginning of the development of the first dog. Of course, in the case of the most ancient dog that appeared towards the end of the Stone Age, one can hardly speak of them in the same breath as our domestic and hunting dogs of today—rather, only of the half-savage dogs of the Eskimos, who go for months at a time seeking out their own food by themselves and who, in every respect, resemble the Arctic wolf. The same holds true for the timorous, spiteful and vicious dogs of the Kamchadals, who, according to traveller’s tales, do not display the slightest love and loyalty towards their master, but are constantly looking to kill him. The human domestic dog must have initially been much like that. Unfortunately, there are many later instances of dogs, and above all mastiffs, returning to their old ways because of inbreeding; in fact, they became even more terrible in their bloodthirstiness than they were in their original state. Listen to the tale of the most famous of all bloodhounds, known as Bezerillo. The Spaniards under Fernando Cortez had come across him during their conquest of Mexico and trained him to do the most horrendous things.
In earlier times the Mexican bulldog was used for the most ghastly purposes. It was trained to catch humans, throw them to the ground or even kill them. During the Conquest of Mexico, the Spaniards employed such dogs against the Indians and one of them, named Bezerillo, became famous—or rather infamous. We don’t now know whether it was an actual Cuban mastiff—a breed considered a mixture of bulldog and bloodhound. It’s described as being of medium size, red in colour, but black round the nose and up to the eyes. Its boldness and intelligence were equally extraordinary. Among all other dogs it occupied a very high position and always received twice as much to eat as the others. When attacking, it would always plunge into the midst of the thickest pack of Indians, seize them by the arm and drag them away as captives. If they surrendered, the dog would not harm them any further; but if they resisted, it would immediately pin them to the ground and strangle them. It knew precisely how to differentiate between those who resisted and those who surrendered, and would never touch the latter. But no matter how cruel and fierce it was, occasionally it showed itself to be much more human than its masters. One morning—so the tale goes—Captain Jagn de Senadza set out to play a cruel trick by having Bezerillo tear an old Indian woman prisoner to pieces. He gave her a piece of paper with instructions to carry the letter to the island’s governor; the catch was that the dog, who was to be immediately let loose after the old woman had left, would seize her and tear her to pieces. But the poor old wretched Indian, when she saw the raging dog preparing to pounce on her, fell to the ground, petrified, begging it with piteous words to spare her. At the same time, she showed it the piece of paper and assured the dog that she had to bring it to the governor, as she had been instructed. At the sound of these words the raging dog stopped short, and after a moment’s reflection, went up to the old woman, caressing her. This incident filled the Spaniards with astonishment and seemed to them supernatural and mysterious. Which is probably the reason why the old Indian woman was set free by the governor. Bezerillo met his end in an encounter with Caribs, who struck him down with a poisoned arrow. It’s not hard to understand why such dogs, in the eyes of the unfortunate Indians, seemed like four-legged servants of two-legged devils.
And the following strange tale is told of a breed of mastiffs that roam wild in packs round Madagascar:
On the island of Madagascar there are large packs of dogs that run wild. Their bitterest enemy is the cayman, which regularly devours them as they swim from one river bank to the other. In the constant battle with the monster, the dogs have invented a trick which enables them to avoid the cayman’s jaws. Before setting out on a swimming expedition, they gather on the bank in large packs, barking loudly. Attracted by the sound, all the alligators nearby stick their gigantic heads out of the water, close to where the throng is standing. At this moment, the dogs go galloping off along the bank and swim across the water unmolested, as the clumsy alligators are unable to follow them all that quickly. It’s also interesting to note that dogs brought to the island by settlers fell victim to the cayman, while their descendants, on the other hand, later managed to escape certain death by using the trick of the indigenous dogs.
Dogs, then, know how to help one another. But dogs in general have not been quite so helpful towards humans. I’m thinking of age-old human routines: hunting, night watch, trekking, wars—in the course of which dogs have worked together with humans across various periods of history and in the most distant parts of the globe. Many ancient peoples, for example, such as the Colophonians, waged their wars using large packs of dogs. In every battle the dogs would attack first. But I’m thinking not only of the heroic role of dogs in history, but equally of the company or assistance they provide to human beings in thousands of areas of everyday life. There is no end to the number of such stories. Let me just recount three quite short ones: concerning the Boot Dog, the Carriage Poodle and the Death Dog.
At the Pont-Neuf in Paris there was a young bootblack, who had trained a poodle to stick her hairy paws in the water and then tread on the feet of the passers-by. When they then shouted out, the bootblack would turn up and increase his earnings. As long as he was busy with a customer the dog stayed quiet; but when the footstool was free, the whole performance would begin anew.
Brehm tells of knowing of a poodle whose smartness was a great source of amusement. It was trained to do all sorts of things and understood, as it were, every word. Its master could for example send it off on a whole variety of errands, and it was sure to fulfil them. If he said, ‘Go fetch a carriage!’ the dog would run to the spot where coaches for hire were waiting, would jump into the cab and start barking until the coachman prepared to set off; and if he went the wrong way the dog would start barking once again, and in some cases, would actually run in front of the cab until it reached its master’s door.
An English newspaper tells the following tale. In Campbelltown in the province of Argyllshire, every funeral procession, on its way from the church to the cemetery, is accompanied—almost without exception—by a silent mourner in the shape of a large black dog. It always takes its place next to the figures immediately following the casket and escorts the cortege to the graveside. Once there, it stays until the final words of the eulogy have been pronounced, then turns, with suitable gravitas, and, moving slowly, departs the graveyard. This strange dog seems to know instinctively when and where a funeral will take place, as it always turns up at precisely the right moment; and since it has been carrying out this self-assigned duty for many years, its presence is considered completely natural; indeed, it would attract attention if the dog did not join the procession. Initially the dog was always chased away from the open grave where it had taken up its position; but in spite of this, at the very next opportunity, it would always join the group of mourners. Finally, people gave up trying to shoo the silent fellow-mourner away, and thereafter it officially took part in every funeral procession. The strangest part of all this, however, was the fact that on one occasion when a special steamer with a corpse and accompanying mourners arrived at the harbour, the mourning-dog was there waiting at the landing stage and accompanied the funeral procession in his usual manner out to the cemetery.
Do you know, by the way, that there is an encyclopaedia of famous dogs? It was put together by a man who has also made all sorts of odd things his business: for example, he has compiled an encyclopaedia of famous shoe-makers, an entire book with the title ‘Soup’ and other decidedly weird bits of writing. The book on dogs is particularly useful. The names of all those dogs that crop up in the course of history are included in it, along with those that writers have created in their works. In this book, I came across the lovely true story of the dog Medor who lived through the Paris Revolution of 1831, the storming of the Louvre, and had lost his master there. To close now, I’ll tell the tale, exactly as the author Ludwig Börne described it:
I left Napoleon’s coronation to attend another performance more after my own heart. I went to visit noble Medor. If on this earth one were to reward virtue with honours, then Medor would be the Emperor of all Dogs. Just consider his tale. After the storming of the Louvre in July the citizens killed in the battle were buried in the open square in front of the palace, on the side where the glorious pillars stand. As the corpses were being loaded onto carts to take them away for burial, a dog sprang up, with a heartbreaking howl of sorrow, onto one of the wagons and then leapt down into the large pit into which the dead bodies were being thrown. It was only with difficulty that he was removed; the lime that was being scattered into the hole would have burnt his skin even before the earth covered him. This was the dog which the people later named Medor. During the battle he had always stood beside his master, indeed he too was wounded. From the time of his master’s death, he no longer left the grave, and night and day would go round the wooden wall surrounding the narrow churchyard, whining from grief, or would run howling to and fro near the Louvre. Nobody took any notice of Medor, since nobody knew him or could guess at his pain. His master was probably a stranger who had come to Paris at the time, had fought and bled unnoticed for the freedom of his Fatherland and had been buried anonymously.
It was only after some weeks that Medor began to be noticed. He was now nothing but skin and bone and was covered with suppurating sores. He was given food to eat, but for quite some time wouldn’t touch it. Finally, the consistent compassion of a good woman of the town succeeded in easing Medor’s grief. She took him home, dressed and tended his wounds, and made him strong again. Medor grew calmer, but his heart still lay at his master’s graveside, where his carer took him after his recovery and which he did not leave for seven months. On several occasions he was sold off by greedy people to rich friends seeking curiosities; once he was even taken thirty hours’ distance away from Paris; but he would always come back. You could often watch him digging up a tiny piece of linen from the ground, looking ever so pleased when he’d found it, only to put it sadly back in the ground and cover it up. It was probably a piece of his master’s shirt. If you gave him a chunk of bread or cake, he would bury it in the ground, as if he wanted to feed it to his friend in the grave, and would then take it out again—something you would see him repeat several times a day.
During the first months, the duty sentry from the National Guard at the Louvre would take Medor with him into the guardhouse. Later he had a small hut set up for him next to the grave. Medor even acquired his own Plutarch, his rhapsodists, his painters. When I stepped on to the square in front of the Louvre, I was offered, for a price, the story of Medor’s life, songs about his exploits and his portrait. For ten sous I purchased Medor’s immortality complete. The little churchyard was surrounded by a wide wall of people, all of them poverty-stricken creatures from the masses. Here lay buried their pride and joy. Here was their opera, their ball, their court and their church. Whoever got close enough to pat Medor was really happy. Even I finally managed to get close. Medor was a large white poodle; I bent down to fondle him. But he paid no attention to me, my jacket was too fine. If, however, a man approached wearing just a vest, or a woman in rags, and patted him, he would respond in a friendly manner. Medor knew perfectly well where the real friends of his master were to be found. A young girl all in rags went up to him. He leapt up on her, clung to her, would not let her go. He was so happy, so at ease. If he wanted to ask the poor girl something, he did not need—like some elegantly groomed lady lowering herself—to grasp hold of the hem of her skirt. Whatever part of the girl’s dress he grabbed at, there was on it a piece of rag that fitted in his mouth. The child was so proud of the familiar connection she had with Medor. I crept away, embarrassed by my own tears.
And here endeth today’s lesson about dogs.
Between 1929 and 1932, Walter Benjamin wrote and read twenty-eight pieces for radio. Their first German publication was as late as 1985, edited for Suhrkamp (Frankfurt) by Rolf Tiedemann under Benjamin’s original title Aufklärung für Kinder (literally ‘Enlightenment for Children’). Benjamin broadcast a twenty-minute version of ‘Real-Life Tales of Dogs’ for Radio Berlin’s Youth Hour on 27 September 1930. The italicised sections in this print version indicate the points at which he drew from his various sources: A. E. Brehm’s Die Haushunde (1923), Ludwig Börne’s Briefe aus Paris 1830-1831 (1832) and Alfons von Czibulka’s Der Hundespiegel (1923).