Issac van Amburgh, the Lion King, places his head between my jaws. He tastes of hair-oil and garlic. My canines stretch below his ears and I quell my desire to clench my teeth. It does not pay to bite the one who feeds you. The crowd shouts its approval. Bouquets and wreaths land beside the bars. We take our bow, the lion and the man.
Issac van Amburgh, clad in a Roman tunic the colour of dry sand, with olive leaves embroidered at the collar and the hem, his sandals of brown leather bound in five bars around his pale calves, his knees as large as plates, thinks he is king. His hair curls, soft and black, and he swaggers with the air of a Sicilian brigand. He brandishes his whip to make us cower in fear. But we know better. We, who have travelled with him, from America to Britain, we have fame through Isaac. We are the beasts the public come to see. We snarl and roar and bare our teeth and seem to give obeisance. One leap, one concerted action, and he’d be gone. The audience knows it and they wait. But Isaac living is more use than Isaac dead.
They say he starves us and beats us to be tame. It’s part of the illusion. When he mouths the word of God, “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” we creep and lower our bellies into submission. When he claims to be a living Daniel, we curl around him as if we saw the rescuing angel. But the tiger’s purr has the edge of cynicism, and the panther’s smile is one of mockery. He does not know. He thinks it is his gift. He suspects nothing of our power or our malice.
Six times, in as many months, the queen comes to see us at Drury Lane. I pace around the cage and toss my mane in recognition, one monarch to another. She smiles. She is amused. We regard each other, eye to eye. I know she will return.
Landseer, the painter, on her behest, paints us and we hang in the Royal Academy. Issac van Amburgh thinks, of course, that the painting is all about him. There he lies, clad this time in the costume of a Roman soldier, red sleeves, metal breastplates and a red and silver kilt. He has the sense to hide his knees behind a doting leopard. Inside the bars the tiger and the lioness dutifully bare their fangs. Outside a crowd flocks and stares, a soldier in his regimentals, a black servant, a minister and his wife, a nursemaid or a seamstress, all against the wide open blue and white sky. Isaac’s countenance is solemn. He hugs a little white lamb whose profile looks a lot like him. Always one to make a Biblical point, is Isaac. All our fur glows in a golden, sumptuous light.
I hope the queen liked it, the painting. I would not want to boast. But the animal that dominates the canvas is not Isaac Van Amburgh, the self-styled Lion King. Oh no. There I am, overshadowing him, my paw draped nonchalant and clawless, a look of sublime indifference on my face. Now there is majesty.
