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

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.

38/376 (page 26)

$is venomous and deadly. With hissing he slayeth, or he biteth or stingeth. And he presseth not his body with much bowing, but his course of way is forthright, and goeth in mean [the middle]. He dryeth and burneth leaves and herbs, not only with touch, but also by hissing and blast he rotteth and corrupteth all thing about him. And he is of so great venom and perilous, that he slayeth and wasteth him that nigheth him by the length of a spear, without tarrying; and yet the weasel taketh and overcometh him. And though the Cockatrice be venomous without remedy while he is alive, yet he loseth all the malice when he is burnt to ashes. Bartholomew {Berthelet), bk. xviii. § 8. Its head is very pointed, its eyes red, its colour inclining to black and yellow ; it has' a tail like a viper, but the rest ot its body is like a cock. The Basilisk is sometimes gendered from a cock ; for towards the end of summer a cock lays an egg from which the Basilisk is hatched. But many things must concur to this gendering, for it lays the egg in much warm dung, and there sits on it. And those who have seen its creation say that there is no shell to the egg, but a very strong skin which can resist the hardest blows. Also the opinion of some is that a viper or toad sits on that cock's egg—but this is doubtful. llortus Sanitatis, part iii. (Of Birds) ch. xiii. Basle was built in the year 382, having the name of a Basilisk slain by a knight covered with crystal. Fynes Morysor:\< Itinerary, part i. ch. ii. p. 27. Even as a lion is afraid of a cock, so is the Basilisk, for he is not only afraid at his sight, but almost dead when he heareth him crow. It is a question whether the Cockatrice die by the sight of himself. Once our nation was full of Cockatrices, and a certain man did destroy them by going up and down in glass, whereby their own shapes were reflected upon their own faces, and so they died. But this fable is not worth refuting, for it is more likely that the man should first have died bv the corruption of the air from the Cockatrices. Topsell, History of Serpents, pp. 679, 681.$