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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    'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb In the dead carrion. ii. King Henry IV., iv, 4, 79-80. So work the honey bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king and officers of sorts ; Where some, like magistrates, correct at home, etc. King Henry V., i. 2, 187-204.. The commons, like an angry hive of bees, That want their leader, scatter up and down. And care not who they sting in his revenge. ii. King Henry VI., iii. 2, 125-8. Bees be cunning and busy in office of making of honey, and they dwell in their own places that are assigned to them, and challenge no place but their own. And they build and make their houses with a wonderful craft, and of divers flowers ; and they make honey-combs, wound and writhen with wax full craftily, and fill their castles with full many children. They have an host and a king, and move war and battle, and fly a^'d void smoke and wind, and make them hardy and sharp to battle with great noise. Many have assayed and found that often Bees are gendered and come of carrions of rothern [/.^., cattle]. And for to bring forth Bees, flesh of calves which be slain is beat that worms may be gendered and come of the rotted blood, the which worms after take wings and be made Bees, as shern- birds [/>,, hornets] be gendered of carrions of horses. Bees make among them a king, and ordain among them common people. And though they be put and set under a king, yet they be free and love their king that they make by kind love ; and defend him with full great defence ; and hold honour and worship to perish and be spilt for their king ; and do their king so great worship that none of them dare go out of their house, nor to get meat, but if the king pass out and take the principality of flight. And Bees choose to their king him that is most' worthy and noble in highness and fairness, and most clear in mildness, for that is chief virtue in a king. For though their king have a sting, yet he useth it not in wreak. And kindly the more huge Bees are, the more lighter they be, for the greater Bees be lighter than the less Bees. And also Bees that are unobedient to the king, they deem