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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Take a look at this passage from the final book of the Odyssey and tell me, please, what you think might be going on with the chains mentioned:
"...and the ghosts [of the slain suitors] trailed after with high thin cries
as bats cry in the depths of a dark haunted cavern,
shrilling, flittering, wild when one drops from the chain--
slipped from the rock face, while the rest cling tight..."
Now, my reading of this interprets the bat falling from the chain as a chain of bats, somehow hanging together. If true, do bats ever hang together in a chain? I've seen individual bats in caves, but never a chain of bats. Or could Homer simply mean that the strings of bats along the cave ceiling are hanging so close together that the form is chain-like? This is very interesting to consider. But, then again, I could have misinterpreted the passage.
In any case, I at least wonder if this is a true phenomenon. When a bat slips from a group in a cave ceiling, do the others shrilly call out? Also, why doesn't the limestone calcify [wrong verb, but I can't think of a better one] the little bat feet while the bats are hibernating? It is a wonder that they ever get loose. I saw a bat once that was dead and covered with a first veil of limestone. Quite spooky to contemplate, actually.
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
I would go along with your second supposition, that of them hanging, chain-like. a nice description. and while I would expect that they do cry out when one leaves or arrives, I'm not sure they consider it shrill... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
From this report of the density of hibernating clusters, it would seem that "bat capes" would be a better description than "bat chains": "Density of hibernating bats can range from 300 to 484 bats/square foot. Some caves support over 80,000 bats. Suitable hibernation sites in caves must be draft- free and have a constant winter temperature." http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/wildlife/tes/indianabat.htmBTW perhaps Homer was thinking of Baht chains which are actually chains. "Thai Baht Chains: "Thai gold" is .965 fine, a little over 23K. The alloy makes the gold harder so that it stands up to wear much better than very soft 24K gold. Thai gold is sold by the "Baht weight", which is 15.2 grams. So a "two Baht" chain would weigh 30.4 grams, just a little under one troy ounce (31.1 grams). ... The labor charge on a heavy, plain chain will be cheaper per Baht weight in comparison to a very fancy, lightweight pair of earrings." http://www.belleaircoins.com/coins&things/essays/highkaratgold.htm
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Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 176
member
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member
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 176 |
I’m not sure about the ‘chain’ wordwind, but I think Homer may be describing the “high thin cries” coming from the bat that drops from the chain, rather than the remaining bats. The passage is rather ambiguous on that point: in one part of the passage, Homer’s words of “as bats cry in the depths of a dark haunted cavern, shrilling, flittering, wild when one drops from the chain—" suggests that the remaining bats in the ‘chain’ cry as one bat drops. But then he follows that up with, “while the rest cling tight”, which seems to suggest that it is the one bat crying, leaving ‘the rest [to] cling tight’.
Since bats use a type of sonar to navigate by making a high-pitched noise (a ‘high thin’ cry as Homer calls it), which bounces off of the surrounding objects and returns to the bat, it would make more sense to me for the one bat leaving the ‘chain’ to make the noise for navigation purposes, than for the remaining bats to make the noise, since they have no need to navigate.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
This site doesn't mention a chain of bats, WW, but I thought you might be interested in the first link in the bulleted list at the bottom of the page: http://www.bcpl.net/~tross/gnlist.html.
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