Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging.

  • Seager, H. W. (Herbert West), 1848-
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    SIREN.] Siren. NATURAL HISTORY. CoMEDV OF Errors, iii. 2, 47. 289 The mermaiden hight Siren, and is a sea-beast wonderly shapen, and draweth shipmen to peril by sweetness of song. And some men say that they arc fishes of the sea in likeness of women. Sirens be great dragons flying with crests, as some men trow. And some men feign that there are three Sirens somedeal maidens, and somedeal fowls with claws and wings, but the sooth is, that they were strong whores, that drew men that passed by them to poverty and to mischief. And in Arabia be serpents with wings, that be called Sirens, and run more swiftly than horses, and do fly with wings, and their venom is so strong that death is felt sooner than ache or sore. And Siren is a beast of the sea, wonderly shapen as a maid from the navel upward, and a fish from the navel downward, and this wonderful beast is glad and merry in tempest, and sad and heavy in fair weather. With sweetness of song this beast maketh shipmen to sleep, and when she seeth that they be asleep, she goeth into the ship, and ravisheth which she may take with her, and bringeth him into a dry place, and [the rest is indecent]. Bartholomezv {Berthelet\ bk. xviii. § 97. 19