16 September 2020
To see the elephant or to see the lions mean to have experience in life, to be worldly and world weary, to have seen so much that nothing surprises. To see the lions is the older phrase and originated in Britain, where it has remained. The elephant version is originally American but has since spread to Britain as well.
To see the lions was originally literal, referring to lions that were kept in the Tower of London. The menagerie in the Tower was established by King John, and the earliest record of lions being kept there is from 1210. The Tower menagerie lasted until the nineteenth century, when the animals were transferred to the London Zoo.
John Smith, of Jamestown and Pocahontas fame, records a literal visit to see the Tower lions in 1629. It’s a bittersweet story of an animal’s continuing love for the man who raised it despite being subsequently kept in the intolerable conditions that prevailed in old zoos:
Those they gave Mr. Archer, who kept them in the Kings Garden, till the Male killed the Female, then he brought it up as Puppy-dog lying upon his bed, till it grew so great as a Mastiffe, and no dog more tame or gentle to them he knew: but being to returne for England, at Safee he gave him to a Merchant of Marsellis, that presented him to the French King, who sent him to King Iames, where it was kept in the Tower seven yeeres: After one Mr. Iohn Bull, then servant to Mr. Archer, with divers of his friends, went to see the Lyons, not knowing anything at all of him; yet this rare beast smelled him before hee saw him, whining, groaning, and tumbling, with such an expression of acquaintance, that being informed by the Keepers how hee came thither; Mr. Bull so prevailed, the Keeper opened the grate, and Bull went in: But no Dogge could fawne more on his Master, than the Lyon on him, licking his feet, hands, and face, skipping and tumbling to fro, to the wonder of all the beholders; being satisfied with his acquaintance, he made shift to get out of the grate. But when the Lyon saw his friend gone, no beast by bellowing, roaring, scratching, and howling, could expresse more rage and sorrow, nor in foure dayes after would he either eat or drinke.
But the metaphorical use of the phrase predates Smith’s literal visit. Robert Greene refers to it as an “old proverb” in 1590 when he tells of a prostitute taking advantage of an inexperienced young man:
This courtisan seeing this countrey Francesco was no other but a meere nouice, & that so newly, that to vse the old prouerb, he had scarce seent the lions. She thought to intrap him and so arrest him with her amorous glances that shee would wring him by the pursse.
The American to see the elephant would seem to have a similar origin, except the reference is to a circus elephant. Asa Green, writing under the pseudonym of Elnathan Elmwood uses the phrase in his 1833 A Yankee Among the Nullifiers:
“Two hundred dollers!” exclaimed the Yankee. “By gauly, what a price! Why they axed me only a quarter of a dollar to see the Elephant and the whole Caravan in New York.”
George Wilkins Kendall gives a full explanation of the phrase and his first encounter with it in his 1844 Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition:
There is a cant expression, “I’ve seen the elephant,” in very common use in Texas, although I had never heard it until we entered the Cross Timbers, or rather the first evening after we had encamped in that noted strip of forest land. I had already seen “sights” of almost every kind, animals of almost every species, reptiles until I was more than satisfied with the number and variety, and felt ready and willing to believe almost anything I might hear as to what I was yet to see; but I knew very well that we were not in elephant range, and when I first heard one of our men say that he had seen the animal in question I was utterly at a loss to fathom his meaning. I knew that the phrase had some conventional signification, but farther I was ignorant. A youngster, however was “caught” by the expression and quite a laugh was raised around a camp fire at his expense.
A small party of us were half sitting, half reclining around some blazing fagots, telling stories of the past and speculating upon our prospects for the future, when an old member of the spy company entered our circle and quietly took a seat upon the ground. After a long breath, and a preparatory clearing of his throat, the veteran hunter exclaimed, “Well, I’ve seen the elephant.”
“The what?” said a youngster close by, partially turning round so as to get a view of the speaker’s face, and then giving him a look which was made up in equal parts incredulity and inquiry.
“I’ve seen the elephant,” coolly replied the old campaigner.
“But not a real, sure-enough elephant, have you?” queried the younger speaker, with that look and tone which indicate the existence of a doubt and the wish to have it promptly and plainly removed.
This was too much; for all within hearing, many of whom understood and could fully appreciate the joke, burst out in an inordinate fit of laughter as they saw how easily the young man had walked into a trap, which, although not set for that purpose, had fairly caught him; and I, too, joined in the merry outbreak, yet in all frankness I must say that I did not fully understand what I was laughing at. The meaning of the expression I will explain. When a man is disappointed in anything he undertakes, when he has seen enough, when he gets sick and tired of any job he may have set himself about, he has “seen the elephant.” We had been buffeting about during the day, cutting away trees, crossing deep ravines and gullies, and turning and twisting some fifteen or twenty miles to gain five—we had finally to encamp by a mud-hole of miserable water, and the spies had been unable to find any beyond—this combination of ills induced the old hunter to remark, “I’ve seen the elephant,” and upon the same principle I will here state that I had by this time obtained something more than a glimpse of the animal myself.
One of the joys of researching word origins is that while we may see many metaphorical elephants, there is a constant joy of discovery that keeps us from becoming jaded and world weary.
Sources:
Elmwood, Elnathan (a.k.a. Asa Greene). A Yankee Among the Nullifiers. New York: William Stodart, 1833, 31. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Greene, Robert. Greenes Neuer Too Late. London: Thomas Orwin for Nicholas Ling and John Busbie, 1590, 40. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. elephant, n., see, v.
Kendall, George Wilkins. Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition, vol. 1 of 2. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1844, 108–10. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. elephant, n., lion, n.
Smith, John. The True Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captaine Iohn Smith. London: John Haviland for Thomas Slater, 1630, 37. Early English Books Online (EEBO).