Wart they then set fire on it and so burn it to ashes and by this way and order the Warts are eradicated that they never after grow again Marcellus Empiricus taketh Spiders webs that are found in the Cypresse tree mixing them with other convenient remedies so giving them to a podagrical person for the asswaging of his pain Against the pain of a hollow tooth Galen in his first Book De Compos medicam secundum loca much commendeth by testimony of Archigenes the Egges of Spiders being tempered and mixed with Oleum Nardinum and so a little of it being put into the tooth In like sort Kiramides giveth Spiders egges for the curation of a Tertian Ague Whereupon we conclude with Galen in his Book to Piso that Nature as yet never brought forth any thing so vile mean and contemptible in outward shew but that it hath manifold and most excellent and necessary uses if we would shew a greater diligence and not be so squeamish as to refuse those wholesome medicines which are easie to be had and without great charges and travail acquired I will add therefore this one note before I end this discourse that Apes Marmosets or Monkies the Serpents called Lizards the Stellion which is likewise a venomous Beast like unto a Lizard having spots in his neck like unto stars Wasps and the little beast called Ichneumon Swallows Sparrows the little Titmouse and Hedge-sparrows do often feed full favourly upon Spiders Besides if the Nightingale the Prince of all singing Birds do eat any Spiders she is clean freed and healed of all diseases whatsoever In the days of Alexander the Great there dwelled in the City of Alexandria a certain young maid which from her youth up was fed and nourished only with eating of Spiders and for the same cause the King was premonished not to come neer her lest peradventure he might be infected by her poysonous breath or by the venom evaporated by her sweating Albertus likewise hath recorded in his writings that there was a certain noble young Virgin dwelling at Colen in Germany who from her tender years was fed only with Spiders And thus much we English men have known that there was one Henry Lilgrave living not many years since being Clerk of the Kitchen to the right Noble Ambrose Dudley Earl of Warwick who would search every corner for Spiders and if a man had brought him thirty or forty at one time he would have eaten them all up very greedily such was his desirous longing after them Of the STELLION THey are much deceived that confound the green Lizard or any other vulgar Lizard for because the Stellion hath a ru 〈…〉 colour and yet as Matthiolus writeth seeing Aristotle hath left recorded that there are venomous Stellions in Italy he thinketh that the little white Beast with stars on the back found about the City of Rome in the walls and ruines of old houses and is there called Tarantula is the Stellion of which he speaketh and there it liveth upon Spiders Yet that there is another and more noble kinde of Stellion 〈…〉 iently so called of the learned shall afterward appear in the succeeding discourse This Beast or Serpent is called by the Grecians Colottes Ascalobtes and Galeotes and such a one was that which Aristophanes faigneth from the side of a house eased her belly into the mouth of Socrates as he gaped when in a Moon-shine night he observed the course of the stars and motion of the Moon The reason of this Greek name Ascalabotes is taken from Ascalos a circle because it appeareth on the back full of such circles like stars as writeth Perottus Howbeit that seemeth to be a faigned Etymologie and therefore I rather take it that Ascala signifieth impurity and that by reason of the uncleannesse of this beast it was called Ascalabates or as Suidas deriveth it of Colobates because by the help and dexterity of the fingers it climbeth up the walls even as Rats and Mice or as Kiramides will have it from Calos signifying a piece of wood because it climbeth upon wood and trees And for the same reason it is called Galeotes because it climbeth like a Weasil but at this day it is vulgarly called among the Grecians Liakoni although some are also of opinion that it is also known among them by the words Thamiamithos and Psammamythe Among the vulgar Hebrews it is sometimes called Letaah and sometimes Semmamit as Munster writeth The Arabians call it Sarnabraus and Senabras a Stellion of the Gardens And peradventure Guarill Guasemabras Alurel and Gnases And Sylvaticus also useth Epithets for a Stellion And the general Arabian word for such creeping biting things is Vasga which is also rendered a Dragon of the house In stead of Colotes Albertus hath Arcolus The Germans English and French have no words for this Serpent except the Latine word and therefore I was justly constrained to call it a Stellion in imitation of the Latine word As I have shewed some difference about the name so it now ensueth that I should do the like about the nature and place of their abode First of all therefore I must put a difference betwixt the Italian Stellion or Tarentula and the Thracian or Grecian for the stellion of the Ancients is proper to Grecia For they say this Stellion is full of Lentile spots or speckles making a sharp or shrill shrieking noise and is good to be eaten but the other in Italy are not so Also they say in Sicilia that their Stellions inflict a deadly biting but those in Italy cause no great harm by their teeth They are covered with a skin like a shell or thick bark and about their backs there are many little shining spots like eyes from whence they have their names streaming like stars or drops of bright and clear water according to this verse of Ovid Aptumque colori Nomen habet variis Stellatus corpora guttis Which may be Englished thus And like his spotted hiew so is his name The body starred over like drops of rain It moveth but slowly the back and tail being much broader then is the back and tail of a Lizard but the Italian Tarentulaes are white and in quantity like the smallest Lizards and the other Grecian Lizards called at this day among them Haconi is of bright silver colour and are very harmful and angry whereas the other are not so but so meek and gentle as a man may put his fingers into the mouth of it without danger One reason of their white bright shining colour is because they want bloud and therefore it was an error in Sylvaticus to say that they had bloud The teeth of this Serpent are very small and crooked and whensoever they bite they stick fast in the wound and are not pulled forth again except with violence The tail is not very long and yet when by any chance it is broken bitten or cut off then it groweth again They live in houses and neer unto the dores
holy Demusaris which foolish people have thought as it were bv a witchcraft to cure the evils of their Cattel But to let passe these and such like trifles let us follow a more perfect description and rule to cure all manner of diseases in this Cattel whose safegard and health next to a mans is to be preferred above all other and first of all the means whereby their sickness is discovered may be considered as all Lassitude or wearisomeness through overmuch labour which appeareth by forbearing their meat or eating after another fashion then they are wont or by their often lying down or else by holding out their tongue all which and many more signes of their diseases are manifest to them that have observed them in the time of their health and on the other side it is manifest that the health of an Ox may be known by his agility life and stirring when they are lightly touched or pricked starting and holding their ears upright fulness of their belly and many other wayes There be also herbs which increase in Cattel divers diseases as herbs bedewed with Hony bringeth the Murrain the juyce of black Chamaeleon killeth young Kie like the Chine black Hellebore Aconitum or Wolf-bane which is that grasse in Cilicia which inflameth Oxen herb Henry and others It is also reported by Aristotle that in a piece of Thracia not far from that City which is called the City of Media there is a place almost thirty furlongs in length where naturally groweth a kind of Barley which is good for men but pernicious for beasts The like may be said of Aegolothros Orobanche and Aestur but I will hasten to the particular description of their diseases In the first place is the Malis or Glaunders already spoken of in the story of the Asse which may be known by these signes the Oxes hair will be rough and hard his eyes and neck hang down matter running out of the nose his pace heavy chewing his cud little his backbone sharp and his meat loathsome unto him for remedy hereof take Sea-onions or Garlick Lupines or Cipres or else the foam of oil And if a beast eat Hogs dung they presently fall sick of the Pestilence which infecteth the herbs and grasse they breath on the waters whereof they drink and the stals and lodgings wherein they lie The humors which annoy the body of Oxen are many the first is a moist one called Malis issuing at the nose the second a dry one when nothing appeareth outwardly only the beast forsaketh his meat the third an articular when the fore or hinder legs of the beast halt and yet the hoofs appear sound the fourth is Farciminous wherein the whole body breaketh forth into mattry bunches and biles and appear healed till they break forth in other places the fifth Subtercutaneus when under the skin there runneth a humour that breaketh forth in many places of the body the sixth a Subrenal when the hinder legs halt by reason of some pain in the loins the seventh a Maungie or Leprosie and lastly a madness or Phrensie all which are contagious and if once they enter into a herd they will infect every beast if they be not separated from the sick and speedy remedy obtained The remedies against the last seven are thus described by Columella First take Oxipanum and sea-holy roots mingled with Fennel-seed and meal of beaten wheat rath-ripe put them in spring water warmed with hony nine spoonfuls at a time and with that medicine anoint the breast of the beast then take the bloud of a Sea-snail and for want thereof a common Snail and put it into wine and give the beast in at his nose and it hath been approved to work effectually It is not good at any time to stir up Oxen to running for chasing will either move them to looseness of the belly or drive them into a Feaver now the signes of a Feaver are these an immoderate heat over the whole body especially about the mouth tongue and eares tears falling out of the eyes hollowness of their eyes a heavy and stooping drowzie head matter running out of his nose a hot and difficult breath and sometime sighing and violent beating of his veins and loathing of meat for remedy whereof let the beast fast one whole day then let him be let bloud under the tail fasting and afterward make him a drink of bole-wort stalkes sod with oil and liquor of fish sauce and so let him drink it for five daies together before he eat meat afterward let him eat the tops of Lentils and young small Vine branches then keep his nose and mouth clean with a spunge and give him cold water to drink three times a day for the best means of recovery are cold meats and drinks neither must the beast be turned out of doors till he be recovered When an Ox is sick of a cold give him black wine and it will presently help him If an Ox in his meat tast of hens dung his belly will presently be tormented and swell unto death if remedy be not given for this malady take three ounces of parsley seed a pinte and a half of Cummin two pounds of honey beat these together and put it down his throat warme then drive the beast up and down as long as he can stand then let as many as can stand about him rub his belly untill the medicine work to purgation and Vegetius addeth that the ashes of Elme wood well sod in oil and put down the beasts throat cureth the inflamation of hen-dung If at any time it happen that an Ox get into his mouth and throat a horse-leech which at the first will take fast hold and suck the place she holds be it mouth or throat til she have kild the beast if you cannot take hold on her with the hand then put into the Oxes throat a Cane or little hollow pipe even to the place where the Leech sucketh and into that pipe put warm oil which as soon as the Leech feeleth she presently leaveth hold It fortuneth sometimes that an Ox is stung or bitten with a Serpent Adder Viper or other such venomous beast for that wound take sharp Trifoly which groweth in rockie places strain out the juice and beat it with salt then scarifie the wound with that ointment till it be wrought in If a field-mouse bite an Ox so as the dint of her teeth appear then take a little Cumin or soft Pitch and with that make a plaister for the wound or if you can get another field-mouse put her into oil and there let it remain till the members of it be almost rotten then bruise it and lay it to the sore and the same body shall cure whose nature gave the wound Oxen are also much troubled with a disease called the Hide-bonnd for remedy wereof when the beast is taken faom his work and panteth then let him be sprinkled over with wine and put pieces of fat into his
so long and strangely that oftentimes the Countrey men begin to flea them and on the suddain their skins half taken off and the other half on they awake braying in such horrible manner that the poor men are most dreadfully affrighted therewith Their voice is very rude and fearful as the Poet said Quirritat verres tardus rudit uncat assellus And therefore the Grecians to express the same haved faigned many new words and call it Ogkethmos as the Latins Byders that is to utter forth a voice in a base and rude manner The Poets feign that at that time when Jupiter came to war with the Gyants Bacchus and Vulcan the Satyres and Sileni assisted and attended him being carryed upon Asses When the time came that the battell began the Asses for very fear brayed most horribly whereat the Gyants not being acquainted with such strange and unknown voices and cries took them to their heels and so were overcome In the sacrifice of the Godesse Vacuna an Asse was feasted with bread and crowned with flowers hung with rich Iewels and Peytrels because as they say when Priapus would have ravished Vesta being asleep she was suddenly awaked by the braying of an Asse and so escaped that infamy And the Lampsaceni in the disgrace of Priapus did offer him an Asse But this is accounted certain that among the Scythians by reason of cold an Asse is never heard or seen and therefore when the Scythians set upon the Persians their Horses will not abide the braying of Asses wondring both at the strangeness of an Asses shape and rudeness of his cry wherefore there are certain birds resembling in their chattering the braying of Asses and are therefore termed Onacratuli When an Asse dyeth out of his body are ingendred certain Flies called Scurabees They are infested with the same diseases that Horses be and also cured by the same meanes except in letting of bloud for by reason their veins be small and their bodies cold in no case must any bloud be taken from them Asses are subject to madness when they have tasted to certain herbs growing neer Potnias as are Bears Horses Leopards and Wolves they only among all other hairy beasts are not troubled with either tikes or lice but principally they perish by a swelling about the crown of their pasterne or by a Catarrhe called Malis which falling down upon their liver they die but if it purge out of their nostrils they shall be safe and Columella writeth that if sheep be stabled where Mules or Asses have been housed they will incur the scab There is great use made of the skins of Asses for the Germanes do make thereof a substance to paint and write upon which is called Eselshut The Arabians have a cloth called Mesha made of Asses and Goates hair whereof the inhabitants of their deserts make them tents and sacks It is reported that Empedocles was called Colysancmas because when the Agrigentines were troubled with winds by hanging about their City innumerable Asse skins he safe-guarded them from the winds whereupon some have thought but falsly that there was some secret in Asses skins against outragious Tempestes The bones of Asses have been used for pipes the Artificers made more reckoning of them then of the bones of Hartes and therefore Esop in Plutarch wondereth that so grosse and dull a creature should have such shrill and musical bones and the Busirites called the Philosophers Naucratites because they played musick upon Asses bones for they cannot abide the sound of a trumpet because it resembleth the voice of an Asse who is very hateful to them for Typhons sake Maecenus allowed the flesh of young Asses to be eaten preferring it before the flesh of wilde Asses and this custome also prevailed at Athens where they did eat the flesh of old Asses which hurteth the stomach having in it no good juice or sweetness and is very hard to be digested In like sort about the coasts of Alexandria men use to eat the flesh of Asses which begetting in their body much melancholick and adusted humor causeth them to fall into the Elephantia or spotted leprosie Asses are tamed at three years old and taught for those businesses which they must be applied unto some for the mill some for husbandry and the plough some for burthens and carriage some for the wars and some for draught Merchants use Asses to carry their wine oil corn and other things to the sea-side wherefore the Countrey man maketh principal account of this beast for his carriage to and fro being fit to carry both on his neck and on his back with them they go to market with their wares and upon them bring home their houshold necessaries Tardè costas agitator aselli Vilibus aut onerat pomis lapidemque revertens Incussum aut atrae massam picis urbe reportat They grind in their mils and fetch home their corn they plough their land as in Campania Lybia and Boetia where the ground is soft and in Byzantium that fruitful Countrey which repayeth the husbandmans labor with increase of an hundred and fifty times more then the seed and where in drie weather their ground is not arable with the whole strength of Buls yet after a little rain one Asse in one end of a yoak and an old woman at the other end do easily draw the plough and open the earth to sow their seed wherefore Cato said merrily that Mules Horses and Asses keep no holy-dayes except they be such Asses as keep within doors In like sort they draw from place to place the carts of Bakers or Carts laden with any other carriage if it be not over great The people Carmani by reason they want Horses use Asses in their wars so also do the Scaracori who never use them in mils or any such base works but upon them undertake all their martial perils There was a custome amongst the Cumani that when a Woman was taken in Adultery she was led to the Market and there set upon a bare stone afterwards she was set upon a bare Asses back and so carryed throughout the City then brought back again to the former stone for a publick spectacle to all the City whereby she remained infamous all her life after and was called Onobatis that is one that had ridden an Asse and the stone whereupon she stood was accounted an unlucky and an odious place for all posterity In like sort among the Parthians it was held a disgraceful thing to ride or be carryed upon a bare Asses back The dung of Asses is pretious for a garden especially for Cabages and if an Apple tree be dying it may be recovered by washing it in Asses dung by the space of six dayes and some have used to put into Gardens the skull of a Mare or she Asse that hath been covered in copulation with perswasion that the Gardens will be the more fruitful
mouth if then you perceive no amendment then seethe some Laurel and therewith heat his back and afterward with oil and wine scarifie him all over plucking his skin up from the ribs and this must be done in the sunshine or else in a very warm place For the scabs take the juice of Garlick and rub the beast all over and with this medicine may the biting of a Wolf or a mad Dog be cured although other affirm that the hoof of any beast with Brimstone Oil Water and Vinegar is a more present remedy but there is no better thing then Butter and stale Urine When they are vexed with wormes poure cold water upon them afterward anoint them with the juice of onions mingled with Salt If an Ox be wrinched and strained in his sinews in travel or labour by stumping on any root or hard sharp thing then let the contrary foot or leg be let bloud if the sinews swell If his neck swell let him bloud or if his neck be windiug or weak as if it were broken then let him bloud in that ear to which side the head bendeth When their necks be bald grinde two tile together a new one and an old and when the yoak is taken off cast the powder upon their necks and afterward oil and so with a little rest the hair will come again When an Ox hangeth down his ears and eateth not his meat he is troubled with a Cephalalgie that is a pain in his head for which seethe Thyme in Wine with Salt and Garlick and therewith rub his tongue a good space also raw Barly steeped in Wine helpeth this disease Sometime an Ox is troubled with madness for which men burn them betwixt the horns in the forehead till they bleed sometime there is a Flie which biting them continually driveth them into madness for which they are wont to cast Brimstone and bay sprigs sod in water in the Pastures where they feed but I know not what good can come thereby When Oxen are troubled with fleam put a sprig of black Hellebore through their ears wherein let it remain till the next day at the same hour All the evils of the eyes are for the most part cured by infusion of Hony and some mingle therewith Ammoniack Salt and Boetick When the palat or roof of their mouth is so swelled that the beast forsaketh meat and bendeth on the one side let his mouth be paired with a sharpe instrument or else burned or abated some other way giving them green and soft meat till the tender sore be cured but when the cheeks swell for remedy whereof they sell them away to the Butcher for slaughter it falleth out very often that there grow certain bunches on their tongues which make them forsake their meat and for this thing they cut the tongue and afterward rub the wound with Garlick and Salt till all the fleamy matter issue forth When their veins in their cheeks and chaps swell out into ulcers they soften and wash them with Vinegar and Lees till they be cured When they are liver-sick they give them Rubarbe Mushroms and Gentian mingled together For the Cough and short breath they give them twigs of Vines or Juniper mingled with Salt and some use Betony There is a certain herb called Aâ—plenon or Citteraeh which consumeth the milts of Oxen found by this occasion in Crete there is a River called Protereus running betwixt the two Cities Gnoson and Gortina on both sides thereof there were herds of Cattel but those which fed neer to Gortina had no Spleen and the other which feed neer to Gnoson were full of Spleen when the Physitians endevoured to find out the true cause hereof they sound an herb growing on the coast of Gortina which diminished their Spleen and for that cause called it Asplenon But now to come to the diseases of their breast and stomach and first of all to begin with the Cough which if it be new may be cured by a pinte of Barley meal with a raw Egge and half a pinte of sod wine and if the Cough be old take two pounds of beaten Hysop sod in three pints of water beaten Lentils or the roots of Onions washed and baked with Wheat meal given fasting do drive away the oldest Cough For shortness of breath their Neat-herds hang about their neck Deaths-herb and Harts-wort but if their Livers or Lungs be corrupted which appeareth by a long Cough and leaness take the root of Hasell and put it through the Oxes ear then a like or equall quantity of the juyce of Onions and oil mingled and put into a pinte of Wine let it be given to the beast many dayes together If the Ox be troubled with crudity or a raw evill stomach you shall know by these signes he will often belch his belly will rumble he will forbear his meat hanging down his eyes and neither chew the cud or lick himself with his tongue for remedy whereof take two quarts of warm water thirty stalkes of Boleworts seethe them together till they be soft and then give them to the beast with Vinegar But if the crudity cause his belly to stand out and swell then pull his tail downward with all the force that you can and binde thereunto Mother-wort mingled with salt or else give them a Glyster or anoint a Womans hand with oil and let her draw out the dung from the fundament and afterward cut a vein in his tail with a sharp knife When they be distempered with choler burn their legs to the hoofs with a hot Iron and afterward let them rest upon clean and soft straw when their guts or intrails are pained they are eased with the sight of a Duck or a Drake But when the small guts are infected take fifteen Cypres Apples and so many Gauls mingle and beat them with their weight of old Cheese in four pints of the sharpest wine you can get and so divide it into four parts giving to the beast every day one quantity The excrements of the belly do deprive the body of all strength and power to labour wherefore when they are troubled with it they must rest and drink nothing for three daies together and the first day let them forbear meat the second day give them the tops of wilde Olives or in defect thereof Canes or Reeds the stalks of Lentrske and Myrtill and a third day a little water and unto this some add dryed Grapes in six pintes of sharp wine given every day in like quantity When their hinder parts are lame through congealed bloud in them whereof there is no outward appearance take a bunch of Nettles with their roots and put it into their mouths by rubbing whereof the condensate bloud will remove away When Oxen come first of all after Winter to grasse they fall grasse-sick and pisse bloud for which they seethe together in water Barly Bread and Lard and so give them all together in a drink to the beast some praise the
the gall of a black Cow one may read any writing the more plainly there is in the gall of an Ox a certain little stone like a ring which the Philosophers call Alcheron and some Guers and Nassatum which being beaten and held to ones Nose it cleareth the eyes and maketh that no humour do distil to annoy them and if one take thereof the quantity of a Lintel seed with the juice of Beets it is profitable against the Falling evill If one be deaf or thick of hearing take the gall of an Ox and the urine of a Goat or the gall of Goose likewise it easeth the headach in an Ague and applyed to the temples provoketh sleep and if the breasts of a woman be anointed therewith it keeps her milk from curdling The milt of an Ox is eaten in hony for easing the pains of the milt in a man and with the skin that a Calf cast out of his dams belly the ulcers in the face are taken away and if twenty heads of Garlick be beaten in a Oxes bladder with a pinte of Vinegar and laid to the back it will cure the milt It is likewise given against the Spleen and the Colick made like a plaister and layed to the Navel till one sweat The urine of an Ox causeth a cold stomach to recover and I have seen that the urine of a Cow taken in Gargarizing did cure intolerable ulcers in the mouth When the Bee hath tasted of the flower of the Corn-tree she presently dyeth by looseness of the belly except she tast the urine of a Man or an Ox. There are likewise many uses of the dung of Oxen made in Physick whereof Authors are full but especially against the Gowt plaistering the sick member therewith hot and newly made and against the Dropsie making a plaister thereof with Barley meal and a little Brimstone aspersed to cover the belly of a man And thus much for the natural properties of this kind now we will briefly proceed to the moral The moral uses of this beast both in labour and other things do declare the dignity and high account our forefathers made hereof both in Vintage Harvest Plowing Carriage Drawing Sacrificing and making Leagues of truce and peace in so much as that if this failed all tillage and vintage must in many places of the world be utterly put down and in truth neither the fowls of the air nor the Horse for the battle nor the Swine and Dogs could have no sustenance but by the labor of Oxen for although in some places they have Mules or Camels or Elephants which help them in this labor yet can there not be in any Nation a neglect of Oxen and their reverence was so great that in ancient time when an offender was to be fined in his Cattel as all amerciaments were in those daies the Judge might not name an Ox untill he had first named a Sheep and they fined a smal offence at two Sheep and not under and the greatest offence criminal at thirty Oxen and not above which were redeemed by giving for every Ox an hundred Asses and ten for every Sheep It is some question among the ancients who did first joyn Oxen together for plowing some affirming that Aristeus first learned it of the Nymphs in the Island Co and Diodorus affirmeth that Dionysius Son of Jupiter and Ceres or Proserpina did first of all invent the plow Some attribute it to Briges the Athenian other to Triptolemus Osiris Habides a King of Spain and Virgil affirmeth most constantly that it was Ceres as appeareth by this verse Prima Ceres ferro mortales vertere terram Instituit c. Whereunto agreeth Servius but I rather incline to Josephus Lactantius and Eusebius who affirm that long before Ceres was born or Osiris or Hercules or any of the residue their was a practise of plowing both among the Hebrews and Egyptians and therefore as the God of plowing called by the Romans Jugatinus because of yoaking Oxen was a fond aberration from the truth so are the residue of their inventions about the first man that tilled with Oxen seeing it is said of Cain and Noah that they were husbandmen and tilled the earth The Athenians had three several plow-feasts which they observed yearly one in Scirus the other in Rharia and the third under Pelintus and they call their mariage-feasts plow-seasons because then they endevoured by the seed of man to multiply the world in procreation of children as they did by the plow to encrease food in the earth The Grecians had a kind of writing called Boustraphedon which began turned and ended as the Oxen do in plowing a furrow continuing from the left hand to the right and from the right hand to the left again which no man could read but he that turned the Paper or Table at every lines end It is also certain that in ancient time the leagues of truce and peace were written in an Oxes hide as appeareth by that peace which was made by Tarquinius betwixt the Romans and the Gabli the which was hanged up in the Temple of Jupiter as Dionysius and Pompeius Sextus affirm in the likeness of a buckler or shield and the chief heads of that peace remained legible in that hide unto their time and therefore the ancients called the Oxes hide a shield in regard that by that conclusion of peace they were defended from the wars of the Gabii And there were certain people called Homolotti by Herodotus who were wont to strike up their leagues of peace after war and contention by cutting an Ox into small pieces which were divided among the people that were to be united in token of an inseparable union There be that affirm that a Team or yoak of Oxen taking six or eight to the Team wil plow every year or rather every season a hyde of ground that is as some account 20 Mansa or in English and Germane account 30 Acres which hath gotten the name Jugera from this occasion as Eustathius and Varinus report When Sychaeus the husband of Dido who was daughter of Agenor sister to Pygmalion wandered to and fro in the world with great store of treasure he was slain by Pygmalion secretly in hope to get his wealth After which time it is said that he appeared to his wife Dido bidding her to save her life from her cruell brother who more esteemed money then nature she fled into Lybia taking with her some Tyrians among whom she had dwelled and a competent sum of money who being come thither craved of Iarbas King of Nomades to give her but so much land as she could compass in with an Oxes hide which with much ado she obtained and then did cut an Oxes skin into smal and narrow thongs or lists wherewithall she compassed in so much as builded the large City of Carthage and first of all was called the New City and the Castle thereof Byrsa which signifieth a Hide Eustuthius also
reporteth another story to the building of this City namely that it was called Carthage of one of the daughters of Hercules and that when Elisa and the other companions of Dido came thither for the foundation of the City they found an Oxes head whereupon they were discouraged to build there any more supposing that Omen betokened evill unto them and a perpetual slavery in labour and misery such as Oxen live in but afterward they tryed in another corner of that ground wherein they found a Horses head which they accepted as a good signification of riches honour magnanimity and pleasure because Horses have all food and maintenance provided for them Among the Egyptians they paint a Lion for strength an Ox for labor and a Horse for magnanimity and courage and the Image of Mithra which among the Persians signifieth the Sun is pictured in the face of a Lyon holding the horns of a striving Ox in both hands whereby they signifie that the Moon doth receive light from the Sun when she beginneth to be separated from her beams There is in the Coasts of Babylon a Gem or precious stone like the heart of an Ox and there is another called Sarcites which representeth the flesh of an Ox. The ancients had likewise so great regard of this beast that they would neither sacrifice nor eat of a labouring Oxe wherefore Hercules was condemned when he had desired meat of Theodomantis in Dyâ—pia for his hungry companion the Son of Hyla because by violence he took from him one of his Oxen and slew him A crowned Oxe was also among the Romans a sign of peace for the Souldiers which kept the Castle of Anathon neer the river Euphrates against Julianus and his Army when they yeelded themselves to mercy they descended from the Castle driving before them a crowned Oxe from this manifold necessity and dignity of this beast came the Idolatrous custom of the Heathens and especially the Egyptians for they worshipped him instead of God calling him Apis and Epaphus whose choyce was on this sort He had on his right side an exceeding splendent white spot and his horns crooking together like the new Moon having a great bunch on his tongue which they call Cantharus neither do they suffer him to exceed a certain number of years or grow very big for these causes they give him not of the water of Nilus to drink but of another consecrated well which hindereth his growth and also when he is come to his full age they kill him by drowning him in another consecrated well of the Priests which being done they seek with mourning another having shaved their heads to substitute in his place wherein they are never very long but they finde one and then in a holy Ship sacred for that purpose they transport and convey him to Memphis And the Egyptians did account him a blessed and happy man out of whose fold the Priest had taken that Oxe-God He hath two Temples erected for him which they call his Chambers where he giveth forth his Augurisms answering none but children and youths playing before his Temples and refusing aged persons especially women and if any not sacred happen to enter into one of his Temples he dyeth for it and if into the other it fore-sheweth some monstrous cursed event as they fondly imagine The manner of his answers is privately to them that give him meat taking it at their hands and they observe with great religion that when Germanicus the Emperour came to ask counsel of him he turned from him and would not take meat at his hand for presently after he was slain Once in a year they shew him a Cow with such marks as he hath and alway they put him to death upon the same day of the week that he was found and in Nilus neer Memphis there was a place called Phiala where were preserved a Golden and a Silver-dish which upon the birth or Calving days of Apis they threw down into the river and those days were seaven wherein they affirm that never man was hurt by Crocodiles The Egyptians do also consecrate an Oxe to the Moon and a Cow to Vrania It is reported that Mycerinus King of Egypt fell in love with his own Daughter and by violence did ravish her she not able to endure the conscience of such a fact hanged herself whereupon the King her impure father did bury her in a wooden Oxe and so placed her in a secret place or chamber to whom daily they offer many odours but the mother of the maiden did cut off the hands of those Virgins or Women that attended on her Daughter and would not rescue her from so vile a contempt There were also many other pictures of Oxen as in Corcyra and Eretria and most famous was that of Perillus which he made and presented to Phalaris the Tyrant of Agrigent shewing him that if he would torment a man he should put him into that Oxe set over a fire and his voyce of crying should be like the loughing of a Heifer which thing being heard of the Tyrant to shew his detestation of more strange invented torments then he had formerly used he caused Perillus that presented it unto him to be put into it alive and so setting it over a fire made experiment of the work upon the workman who bellowed like a Cow and was so tormented to death for that damnable and dangerous invention which caused Ovid to write thus Et Phalaris tauro violentus membra Perilli Torruit infoelix imbuit author opus When an Oxe or Cow in ancient time did dye of themselves Viz. if it were an Oxe they buried him under the walls of some City leaving his horn sticking visibly out of the earth to signifie the place of his burial for when his flesh was consumed they took it up again and buryed the bones in the Temples of Venus in other places but the body of a dead Cow they cast into some great River neer adjoyning The Poets have faigned a certain Monster called Minotaurus having in part the form of a man and in part the form of a Bull and they say that Pasiphae the Daughter of the Sun and wife of Minos King of Crete fell in love with a Bull and by the help of Dedalus she was included in a wooden Heifer covered with a Cows hide and so had copulation with the Bull and so came that monster Minos included in a labyrinth and constrained the Athenians who had slain his son Androgeus to send every year seven young men and seven maids to be given to that Monsters to feed upon for he would eat mans flesh At last Theseus son of Aegeus King of Athens came into that labyrinth and slew that Minotaure and by the help of Ariadne escaped out of the labyrinth Other relate the story in this manner that when the Cretenstans would have expelled Minos from his Kingdom he vowed that whatsoever likeness first
right but these alter step after step so as the left foot behinde followeth the right before and the hinder foot followeth the left before Those Camels which are conceived by Bores are the strongest and fall not so quickly into the myre as other although his load be twice so heavy They stale from one side to another otherwise then any other beasts do this beast is very hot by nature and therefore want on and full of sport and wrath braying most fearfully when they are angred They engender like Elephants and Tygers that is the female lying or sitting on the ground which the male imbraceth like other males and continue in copulation a whole day together When they are to ingender they go unto the secretest places they can finde herein excelling in modesty the ancient Massagetes who were not ashamed to lie with their wives in the open field and publick view of one another where as brute beasts by instinct of nature make the procreation of their kinde to be a most secret shameful honest action At the time therefore of their lust they are most unruly and fierce yeelding to none no not to their own keepers the best time of their copulation is in September for in Arabia they begin to ingender in the third year of their age and so within ten or eleven moneths after she is delivered of young being never above one at a time for twins come not in her great belly so she goeth a year before she conceive again although her young be separated or weaned before which time they do not commonly Unto their former modesty for their copulation we may adde another divine instinct and most true observation about the same for the male will never cover his mother or his sister wherefore it is sincerely reported that when a certain Camel-keeper desirous to try this secret having the male son to a female which he also kept he so covered the female-mother-Camel in all parts of her body except her secrets that nothing could be seen of her and so brought her lustful son to cover her which according to his present rage he performed As soon as he had done it his master and owner pulled away the mask or disguise from the dam in the presence of the son whereby he instantly perceived his keepers fraud in making him unnaturally to have copulation with his own mother In revenge whereof he ran upon him and taking him in his mouth lift him up into the air presently letting him fall with noise and cry underneath his murdering and man-quelling feet where with unappeaseable wrath and blood-desiring livor he pressed and trod to pieces the incest marriage-causer twixt him and his dearest mother and yet not herewith satisfied like some reasonable creature deprived of heavenly grace and carryed with deadly revenge against such uncleanness being perswaded that the guilt of such an offence could never receive sufficient expiation by the death of the first deviser except the beguiled party suffered also some smart of penalty adjudged himself to death and no longer worthy to live by natures benefit which had so violated the womb that first conceived him and therefore running to and fro as it were to finde out a hang-man for himself at last found a steepy rock from whence he leaped down to end his life and although he could not prevent his offence yet he thought it best to cleanse away his mothers adultery with the sacrifice of that blood which was first conceived in that wombe which he had defiled These Camels are kept in herds and are as swift as Horses according to the measure of their strength not only because of their nimbleness but also because their strides and reach doth gather in more ground for which cause they are used by the Indians for race when they go to fetch the gold which is said to be kept by the Formicae Lyons which are not much bigger then Foxes yet many times do these Lyons overtake the Camels in course and tear the riders in pieces They have been also used for battel or war by the Arabians in the Persian war but their fear is so great of an Horse that as Xenophon saith in the institution of Cyrus when the Armies came to joyn neither the Camel would approach to the Horse or the Horse to the Camel whereupon it is accounted a base and unprofitable thing for a man to nourish Camels for fight yet the Persians for the fight of Cyrus in Lydia ever nourished Camels and Horses together to take away their fear one from another Therefore they are used for carriage which they will perform with great facility being taught by their keepers to kneel and lye down to take up their burthens which by reason of their height a man cannot lay on them always provided that he will never go beyond his ordinary lodging and baiting place or endure more then his usual burthen and it hath been seen that one of these Bactrian Camels hath carryed above ten Minars of corn and above that a bed with five men therein They will travel in a day above forty ordinary miles for as Pliny saith that there was from Thomna to Gaza sixty and two lodging places for Camels which was in length one thousand five hundred thirty and seven miles They are also used for the plow in Numidia and for this cause are yoaked sometimes with Horses but Heliogabalus like as the Tartarians yoaked them together not only for private spectacles and plays but also for drawing of Waggons and Chariots When they desire to have them free and strong for any labour in the field or war they use to geld both the male and the female the manner whereof is in this sort The male by taking away his stones and the female by fearing her privy parts within the brim and laps thereof with a hot iron which being so taken away they can never more join in copulation and these are more patient in labour and thirst and likewise better endure the extremity of sand in those parts having this skill that if the mists of rain or sand do never so much obscure the way from the rider yet doth she remember the same without all staggering The urine of this beast is excellent for the use of Fullers of the hair called Buber or Camels Wool is cloth made for Apparel called Camelotta or Camels hair and the hair of the Caspian Camels is so soft that it may be therein compared with the softest Milesian Wool whereof their Princes and Priests make their garments and it is very probable that the garments of Saint John Baptist was of this kinde In the City of Calacia under the great Cham and in the province of Egrigaia is cloth made of the hair of Camels and white wool called Zambilotti shewing most gloriously but the best of this kinde are in the land of Gog and Magog It is forbidden in holy Scripture to
which are very like an Asses The pace of this beast differeth from all other in the world for he doth not move his right and left foot one after another but both together and so likewise the other whereby his whole body is removed at every step or strain These beasts are plentiful in Ethiopia India and the Georgian region which was once called Media Likewise in the Province of Abasia in India it is called Surnosa and in Abasia Surnappa and the latter picture before set down was truly taken by Melchior Luorigus at Constantinople in the year of salvation 1559. by the sight of one of these sent to the great Turke for a present which picture and description was afterward sent into Germany and was imprinted at Norimberge It is a solitary beast and keepeth altogether in woods if it be not taken when it is young they are very tractable and easie to be handled so that a child may lead them with a small line or cord about their head and when any come to see them they willingly and of their own accord turn themselves round as it were of purpose to shew their soft hairs and beautiful colour being as it were proud to ravish the eyes of the beholders The skin is of great price and estimation among Merchants and Princes and it is said that underneath his belly the colourable spots are wrought in fashion of a fishers net and the whole body so admirably intercoloured with variety that it is in vain for the wit or art of man once to go about to endevour the emulous imitation thereof The tail of the beast is like the tail of an Asse and I cannot judge that it is either swift for pace or strong for labour and therefore well tearmed a wilde Sheep because the flesh hereof is good for meat and was allowed to the Jews by God himself for a clean beast Of the ALLOCAMELUS SCatiger affirmeth that in the land of the Giants there is a beast which hath the head neck and ears of a Mule but the body of a Camel wherefore it is probable that it is conceived by a Camel and a Mule the picture whereof is before set down as it was taken from the sight of the beast and imprinted with a description at Middleborough in the year 1558. which was never before seen in Germany nor yet spoken of by Pliny They said that it was an Indian Sheep out of the region of Peru and so was brought to Antwerp six thousand miles distant from that nation It was about two yards high and five foot in length the neck was as white as any Swan the colour of his other parts was yellowish and his feet like an Ostrige-Camels and although it were a male yet it did render his urine backward it was afterward given to the Emperor by Theodoric Neus a Citizen of the neather Colen It was a most gentle and meek beast like the Camtlopardal not past four year old wherefore I thought good to expresse it in this place becouse of the similitude it hath with the manners of the former beast although it want horns and differ in some other members Of another Beast called CAMPE DIodorus Siculus maketh relation that when Dionysius with his Army travelled through the desert and dry places annoyed with divers wilde beasts he came to Zambirra a City of Lybia where he slew a beast bred in those parts called Campe which had before that time destroyed many men which action did purchase him among the inhabitantes a never dying fame and that therefore there might remain a continual remembrance to all posterity of that fact he raised up there a monument of the slain beast to stand for evermore Of the CAT. ACat is a familiar and well known beast called of the Hebrews Catull and Schanar and Schunara of the Grecians Aeluros and Kattes and Katis of the Saracens Katt the Italians Gatta and Gotto the Spaniards Gata and Gato the French Chat the Germans Katz the Illyrians Kozka and Furioz which is used for a Cat by Albertus Magnus and I conjecture to be either the Persian or the Arabian word The Latins call it Feles and sometimes Murilegus and Musio because it catcheth Mise but most commonly Catus which is derived of Gautus signifying wary Ovid saith that when the Giants warred with the Gods the Gods put upon them the shapes of Beasts and the sister of Apollo lay for a spy in the likeness of a Cat for a Cat is a watchful and wary beast seldom overtaken and most attendant to her sport and prey according to that observation of Mantuan Non secus ac muricatus ille invadere pernam Nititur hic rimas ocnlis observat acutis And for this cause did the Egyptians place them for hallowed beasts and kept them in their Temples although they alleadged the use of their skins for the cover of Shields which was but an unreasonable shift for the softness of a Cats skin is not fit to defend or bear a blow It is known also that it was capital among them to kill an Ibis an Aspe a Crocodile a Dog or a Cat in so much as that in the dayes of King Ptolemie when a peace was lately made betwixt the Romans and the Egyptians and the Roman Ambassadors remaining still in Egypt it fortuned that a Roman unawares killed a Cat which being by the multitude of the Egyptians espied they presently fell upon the Ambassadors house to rase down the same except the offender might be delivered unto them to suffer death so that neither the honour of the Roman name nor the necessity of peace could have restrained them from that fury had not the King himself and his greatest Lords come in person not so much to deliver the Roman Cat-murderer as to safegard him from the peoples violence And not only the Egyptians were fools in this kind but the Arabians also who worshipped a Cat for a God and when the Cat dyed they mourned as much for her as for the father of the family shaving the hair from their eye-lids and carrying the beast to the Temple where the Priests salted it and gave it a holy funeral in Bubastum which was a burying place for Cats neer the Altar wherein may appear to all men in what miserable blindness the witest men of the world forsaking or deprived of the true knowledge of God are more then captivated so that their wretched estate cannot better be expressed then by the words of St. Paul When they thought to be wise they became fools Once Cats were all wild but afterward they retired to houses wherefore there are plenty of them in all Countries Martial in an Epigram celebrated a Pannonian Cat with this distichon I annonicas nobis nunquam dedit Vmbria Cattas Mavult haec dominae mittere dona pudens The Spanish black Cats are of most price among the Germans because they are nimblest and have the softest
rose with speed as if never before he saw his match or adversary worthy his strength and bristling at him made force upon him and the Lyon likewise at the Dog but at the last the Dog took the chaps or snowt of the Lyon into his mouth where he held him by main strength untill he strangled him do the Lyon what he could to the contrary the King desirous to save the Lyons life willed the Dog should be pulled off but the labour of men and all their strength was too little to loosen those ireful and deep biting teeth which he had fastned Then the Indian informed the King that except some violence were done unto the Dog to put him to extream pain he would sooner dye then let go his hold whereupon it was commanded to cut off a piece of the Dogs tail but the Dog would not remove his teeth for that hurt then one of his legs were likewise severed from his body whereat the Dog seemed not apalled after that another leg and so consequently all four whereby the trunck of his body fell to the ground still holding the Lyons snowt within his mouth and like the spirit of of some malicious man chusing rather to dye then spare his enemy At the last it was commanded to cut his head from the body all which the angry Beast endured and so left his bodiless head hanging fast to the Lyons jaws whereat the King was wonderfully moved and sorrowfully repented his rashness in destroying a Beast of so noble a spirit which could not be daunted with the presence of the King of Beasts chusing rather to leave his life then depart from the true strength and magnanimity of minde Which thing the Indian perceiving in the King to mitigate the Kings sorrow presented unto him four other Dogs of the same quantity and nature by the gift whereof he put away his passion and received reward with such a recompence as well beseemed the dignity of such a King and also the quality of such a present Pliny reporteth also that one of these did fight with singular courage and policy with an Elephant and having got hold on his side never left till he overthrew the Beast and perished underneath him These Dogs grow to an exceeding great stature and the next unto them are the Albanian Dogs The Arcadian Dogs are said to be generated of Lyons In Canaria one of the Fortunate Islands their Dogs are of an exceeding stature The Dogs of Creet are called Diaponi and fight with wilde Boars the Dogs of Epirus called Chaonides of a City Chaon are wonderfully great and fierce they are likewise called Molossi of the people of Epirus so tearmed these are fained to be derived of the Dog of Cephalus the first Gray-hound whom stories mention and the Poets say that this Gray-hound of Cephalus was first of all fashioned by Vulcan in Monesian brass and when he liked his proportion he also quickned him with a soul and gave him to Iupiter for a gift who gave him away again to Europa she also to Minos Minos to Procris and Procris gave it to Cephalus his nature was so resistable that he overtook all that he hunted like the Teumesian Fox Therefore Iupiter to avoid confusion turned both the incomprehensible Beasts into stones This Molos 〈…〉 or Molossus Dog is also framed to attend the folds of Sheep and doth defend them from Wolves and Theeves whereof Virgil writeth thus Veloces Spartae caetulâ—s acremque Molossum Pasce sero pingui nunquam custodibus illis Nocturnum stabulis furem incursusque luporum Aut imparatos a tergo horrebis Iberos These having taken hold will hardly be taken off again like the Indian and Persian Dogs for which cause they are called incommodestici that is modi nescii such as know no mean which caused Horace to give counsel to keep them tyed up saying Teneant acres lora molossos The people of Epirus do use to buy these Dogs when they dye and of this kinde were the Dogs of Scylla Nicomedes and Eupolides The Hircanian Dogs are the same with the Indain The Poeonian Persian and Median are called Syntheroi that is companions both of hunting and fighting as Gratius writeth Indociliis dat proelia Medus The Dogs of Loeus and Lacenâ— are also very great and fight with Bores There are also a kinde of people called Cynamolgi neer India so called because for one half of the year they live upon the milk of great Dogs which they keep to defend their Countrey from the great oppression of wilde Cattel which descend from the Woods and Mountains of India unto them yearly from the Summer solstice to the middle of Winter in great numbers or swarms liee Bees returning home to their Hives and Hony-combes These Cattel set upon the people and destroy them with their horns except their Dogs be present with them which are of great stomach and strength that they easily tear the wilde Cattel in pieces and then the people take such as be good for meat to themselves and leave the other to their Dogs to feed upon the residue of the year they not only hunt with these Dogs but also milk the females drinking it up like the milk of Sheep or Goats These great Dogs have also devouted men for when the servant of Diogenes the Cynick ran away from his master being taken again and brought to Delphos for his punishment he was torn in pieces by Dogs Euripides also is said to be slain by Dogs whereupon came the proverb Cunos dike a Dogs revenge for King Archelaus had a certain Dog which ran away from him into Thracia and the Thracians as their manner was offered the same Dog in sacrifice the King hearing thereof laid a punishment upon them for that offence that by a certain day they should pay a talent the people breaking day suborned Euripides the Poet who was a great favourite of the Kings to mediate for them for the release of that fine whereunto the King yeelded afterward as the said King returned from hunting his Dogs stragling abroad met with Euripides and tore him in pieces as if they sought revenge on him for being bribed against their fellow which was slain by the Thracians But concerning the death of this man it is more probable that the Dogs which killed him were set on by Aridaeus and Cratenas two Thessalian Poets his emulators and corrivals in Poetry which for the advancement of their own credit cared not in most savage and barbarous manner to make away a better man then themselves There were also other famous men which perished by Dogs as Actaeon Thrasus and Linus of Thrasus Ovid writeth thus Praedaque sis illis quibus est Laconia Delos Ante diem rapto non adeunda Thraso And of Linus and Actaeon in this manner Quique verecundae speculantem membra Dianae Quique Crotopiaden diripuere Linum Lucian that scoffing Apostate who was first a Christian and afterward endevoured all
maketh Childrens teeth to come forth with speed and ease and if their gums be rubd with a Dogs tooth it maketh them to have the sharper teeth and the powder of these Dogs teeth rubbed upon the gums of young or old easeth Tooth-ach and abateth swelling in the gums The tongue of a Dog is most wholesome both for the curing of his own wounds by licking as also of any other creatures The Rennet of a Puppey drunk with Wine dissolveth the Colick in the same hour wherein it is drunk iâ— and the Vomit of a Dog laid upon the belly of a Hydropick man causeth water to come forth at his stool The gall healeth all wheals and blisters after they be pricked with a Needle and mingled with Honey it cureth pain in the eyes and taketh away white spots from them likewise infused into the ears openeth all stoppings and cureth all inward pains in them The Spleen drunk in Urine cureth the Spleenetick the milt being taken from the Dog alive hath the same vertue to help the milt of man The skin of Bitches wherein they conceive their Puppies which never touched the earth is pretious against difficulty in Childe-birth and it draweth the Infant out of the womb The milk of a Bitches first whelping is an antidote against poyson and the same causeth hair never to come again if it be rubbed upon the place where hairs are newly pulled off Also infused into the eyes driveth away the whiteness of them Likewise there is no better thing to anoint the gums of young children withall before they have teeth for it maketh them to come forth with ease it easeth likewise the pain of the ears and with all speed healeth burnt mouths by any hot meat Ora ambusta cibo sanabis lacte Canino The urine of a Dog taketh away spots and warts and being mingled with Salt of Nitre wonderfully easeth the Kings Evill The dung of Dogs called by the Apothecaries Album Graecum because the white is best being ingendred by eating of bones and therefore hath no ill favour Galen affirmeth that his Masters in Physick used it against old sores Bloody flixes and the Quinsie and it is very profitable to stanch the bloud of Dogs and also against the inflamations in the breast of Women mingled with Turpentine It was well prescribed by Avicen to expell congealed bloud out of the stomach and bladder being taken thereof so much in powder as will lye upon a Golden Noble Of the Ethiopian EAL THere is bred in Ethiopia a certain strange Beast about the bigness of a Sea-horse being of colour black or brownish it hath the cheeks of a Boar the tail of an Elephant and horns above a cubit long which are moveable upon his head at his own pleasure like ears now standing one way and anon moving another way as he needeth in fighting with other Beasts for they stand not stiffe but bend flexibly and when he fighteth he alway stretcheth out the one and holdeth in the other of purpose as it may seem that if one of them be blunted and broken then he may defend himself with the other It may well be compared to a Sea-horse for above all other places it loveth best the waters Of the ELEPHANT THere is no creature among all the Beasts of the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and wisdom of Almighty God as the Elephant both for proportion of body and disposition of spirit and it is admirable to behold the industry of our ancient fore-fathers and noble desire to benefit us their posterity by searching into the qualities of every Beast to discover what benefits or harms may come by them to mankinde having never been afraid either of the wildest but they tamed them the fiercest but they ruled them and the greatest but they also set upon them Witness for this part the Elephant being like a living Mountain in quantity and outward appearance yet by them so handled as no little Dog became more serviceable and tractable Among all the Europaeans the first possessor of Elephants was Alexander Magnus and after him Antigonus and before the Macedonians came into Asia no people of the world except the Africans and the Indians had ever seen Elephants When Fabritius was sent by the Romans to King Pyrrhus in Ambassage Pyrrhus offered to him a great sum of money to prevent the War but he refused private gain and preferred the service of his Countrey the next day he brought him into his presence and thinking to terrifie him placed behinde him a great Elephant shadowed with cloth of Arras the cloth was drawn and the huge Beast instantly laid his trunk upon the head of Fabritius sending forth a terrible and direful voyce whereat Fabritius laughing perceiving the policy of the King gently made this speech Neque heri aurum neque hodie bestia me permovit I was neither tempted with thy Gold yesterday nor terrified with the sight of this Beast to day and so afterward Pyrrhus was overcome in War by the Romans and Manlius Curius Dentatus did first of all bring Elephants in Triumph to Rome calling them Lucanae Boves Oxen of the Wood about the 472. year of the City and afterward in the year of Romes building 502. when Metellus was high Priest and overthrew the Carthaginians in Sicily there were 142 Elephants brought in Ships to Rome and led in triumph which Lucius Piso afterward to take away from the people opinions of the fear of them caused them to be brought to the stage to open view and handling and so slain which thing Pompey did also by the slaughter of five hundred Lions and Elephants together so that in the time of Gordianus it was no wonder to see thirty and two of them at one time An Elephant is by the Hebrews called Behemah by way of excellency as the Latins for the same cause call him Bellua the Chaldeans for the same word Deut. 14. translate Beira the Arabians Behitz the Persians Behad and the Septuagint Ktene but the Grecians vulgarly Elephas not Quasi Elebas because they joyn copulation in the water but rather from the Hebrew word Dephil signifying the Ivory tooth of an Elephant as Munster well observeth The Hebrews also use the word Schâ—n for an Elephants tooth Moreover Hesychius called an Elephant in the Greek tongue Perissas the Latins do indifferently use Elephas and Elephantus and it is said that Elephantus in the Punick tongue signifieth Caesar whereupon when the Grandfather of Julius Caesar had slain an Elephant he had the name of Caesar put upon him The Italians call this beast Leofante or Lionfante the French Elephante the Germans Helfant the Illyrians Slon We read but of three appellative names of Elephants that is of one called by Alexander the great Ajax because he had read that the buckler of great Ajax was covered with an Elephants skin about whose neck he
had an Elephant for his rivall and this also did the Elephant manifest unto the man for on a day in the market he brought her certain Apples and put them into her bosom holding his trunk a great while therein handling and playing with her breasts Another likewise loved a Syrian woman with whose aspect he was suddenly taken and in admiration of her face stroked the same with his trunk with testification of farther love the Woman likewise failed not to frame for the Elephant amorous devices with Beads and Corrals Silver and such things as are grateful to these brute Beasts so she enjoyed his labour and dilgence to her great profit and he her love and kindeness without all offence to his contentment which caused Horat. to write this verse Quid tibi vis mulier nigris dignissima barris At last the woman dyed whom the Elephant missing like a lover distracted betwixt love and sorrow fell beside himself and so perished Neither ought any man to marvel at such a passion in this Beast who hath such a memory as is attributed unto him and understanding of his charge and business as may appear by manifold examples for Antipater affirmeth that he saw an Elephant that knew again and took acquaintaince of his Master which had nourished him in his youth after many years absence When they are hurt by any man they seldom forget a revenge and so also they remember on the contrary to recompense all benefits as it hath been manifested already They observe things done both in weight and measure especially in their own meat Agnon writeth that an Elephant was kept in a great mans house in Syria having a man appointed to be his Overseer who did dayly defraud the Beast of his allowance but on a day as his Master looked on he brought the whole measure and gave it to him the Beast seeing the same and remembring how he had served him in times times past in the presence of his Master exactly divided the Corn into two parts and so laid one of them aside by this fact shewing the fraud of the servant to his Master The like story is related by Plutarch and Aelianus of another Elephant discovering to his Master the falshood and privy theft of an unjust servant About Lycha in Africk there are certain springs of water which if at any time they dry up by the teeth of Elephants they are opened and recovered again They are most gentle and meek never fighting or striking Man or Beast except they be provoked and then being angred they will take up a man in their trunk and cast him into the air like an arrow so as many times he is dead before he come to the ground Plutarch affirmeth that in Rome a boy pricking the trunck of an Elephant with a goad the Beast caught him and lift him up into the air to shoot him away and kill him but the people and standers by seeing it made so great a noise and cry thereat that the Beast set him down again fair and softly without any harm to him at all as if he thought it sufficient to have put him in fear of such a death In the night time they seem to lament with sighs and tears their captivity and bondage but if any come to that speed like unto modest persons they refrain suddenly and are ashmed to be found either murmuring or sorrowing They live to a long age even to 200 or 300 years if sickness or wounds prevent not their life and some but to a 120 years they are in their best strength of body at threescore for then beginneth their youth Iuba King of Lybia writeth that he hath seen tame Elephants which have descended from the Father to the son by way of inheritance many generations and that Ptolemaeus Philadelphus had an Elephant which continued alive many Ages and another of Seleucus Nicanor which remained alive to the last overthrow of all the Antiochi The Inhabitants of Taxila in India affirm that they had an Elephant at the least three hundred and fifty years old for they said it was the same that fought so faithfully with Alexander for King Porus for which cause Alexander cald him Aiax and did afterward dedicate him to the Sun and put certain golden chains about his teeth with this inscription upon them Alexander filius Iovis Aiacem Soli Alexander the son of Iupiter consecrateth this Aiax to the Sun The like story is related by Iubo concrrning the age of an Elephant which had the impression of a Tower on his teeth and was taken in Atlas 400 years after the same was engraven There are certain people in the world which eat Elephants and are therefore called of the Nemades Elephantophagi Elephant-eaters as is already declared there are of these which dwell in Daraba neer the Wood Eumenes beyond the City Saba where there is a place called the hunting of Elephants The Troglodytae live also hereupon the people of Africk cald Asachae which live in Mountains do likewise eat the flesh of Elephants and the Adiabarae of Megabari The Nomades have Cities running upon Charriots and the people next under their Territory cut Elephants in pieces and both sell and eat them Some use the hard flesh of the back and other commend above all the delicates of the world the reins of the Elephants so that it is a wonder that Aelianus would write that there was nothing in an Elephant good for meat except the trunck the lips and the marrow of his horns or teeth The skin of this Beast is exceeding hard not to be pierced by any dart whereupon came the Proverb Culicem haud curat Elephas Indiâ—ns the Indian Elephant careth not for the biting of a Gnat to signifie a sufficient ability to resist all evill and Noble mindes must not revenge small injuries It cannot be but in such 〈◊〉 and vast bodies there should also be nourished some diseases and that many as Strabo saith wherefore first of all there is no creature in the world less able to endure cold or Winter for their impatiency of cold bringeth inflamation Also in Summer when the same is hottest they cool one another by casting durty and filthy water upon each other or else run into the roughest Woods of greatest shadow It hath been shewed already that they devour Chamaeleons and thereof perish except they eat a wilde Olive When they suffer inflamation and are bound in the belly either black Wine or nothing will cure them When they drink a Leach they are grievously pained for their wounds by darts or otherwise they are cured by Swines-flesh or Dittany or by Oyl or by the flower of the Olive They fall mad sometime for which I know no other cure but to tye them up fast in Iron chains When they are tyred for want of sleep they are recovered by rubbing their shoulders with Salt Oyl and Water Cows milk warmed and infused into their
Chicken and by that means stayeth his crying by cropping off the head Some of these Fitches wander and keep in the Woods and thereby live upon Birds and Mise and such things some again live by the Sea sides in Rocks and they take Fishes like Beavers and Otters and some creep into the Caves of hollow trees where they eat Frogs and most of all they delight to be near stals of Cattel Hay-houses and houses where they meet oftentimes with Egges wherein they delight above all other kindes of meat And thus much for this Beast Of the FOX A Fox is called in Hebrew Schual and in Chaldee Thaal and therefore in Psal 61. where the Hebrew readeth Schualim there the Chaldee translateth it Thealaia the Arabians call him Thaleb and Avicen calleth a Fox sometime Chabel and also Chalchail the Greek Septuagints Alopekon and vulgarly Alopex and Alopon the Latine Vulpes and Vulpecula of Volipes his tumblingpace the Italians Volpe the French Regnard and a little Fox Regnardeau the Spaniards Rapoya of ravening the Germans Fuchs the Flemings Vos and the Illyrians Lisika The Epithets expressing the nature hereof among Writers both Poets and others are these crafty wary deceitful stinking strong-smelling quick-smelling tayled warlike or contentious wicked and rough the Graecians fiery colored and subtil for slaughter and therefore Christ called Herod a Fox because he understood how by crafty means he sought to entrap and kill him and all the Ancients called such kinde of men Vulpiones which every Nation under Heaven doth imitate There are store of Foxes in the Alpine regions of Helvetia and amongst the Caspians they abound so that their multitude maketh them tame comming into the Cities and attending upon men like tame Dogs The Foxes of Sardinia are very ravenous for they kill the strongest Rams and Goats and also young Calves and in Egypt they are lesser then in Graecia and most commonly all Foxes are of stature like to a shepherds Dog Their colour is reddish and more white toward the head In Mu 〈…〉 ia are both black and white viz about the river Woga black and ash-coloured and in the Province of Vsting all black and these are of the smaller sort which are nourished to make caps of their skins and are therefore sold at twenty or thirty Florens a skin In Spain they are all white and their skins are often brought by the Merchants to be sold at Francford Mart. In the Septentrional or Northern Woods there are black white and red Foxes and such as are cald Crueigerae that is Cross-bearing Foxes for on their backs and orethwart their shoulders there is a black cross like an Asses and there are Foxes aspersed over with black spots and all these are of one and the same malignant and crafty nature and these saith George Fabritius are distinguished by their regions or habitations for it is most commonly seen that Foxes which keep and breed toward the South and West are of an ash colour and like to Wolves having loose hanging hairs as is to be seen both in Spain and Italy and these are noted by two names among the Germans from the colour of their throat One kinde of them is called Koler whose throat seemeth to be sprinkled and darkned with cole-dust upon white so as the tops of the hair appear black the foot and stalk being white The other Birkfuchse because their throat is all white and of this kinde the most splendent white is most pretious A second there is called Kreutzfuchse because of the cross it beareth upon his back and shoulders down to his fore-feet being in other parts like the former except the throat which is blacker then any of the other before spoken of and these are not bred in Germany but brought thither from other Nations A third kinde is of a bright skie-colour called Blauwfuchse and this colour hath given a different name to Horses which they call Blauwschimmel but in the Foxes it is much more mingled and these Foxes which have rougher and deeper hair are called Braudfuchse The Moscovians and Tartarians make most account of the black skins because their Princes and great Nobles wear them in their garments yet are they more easily adulterated and counterfeited by the fume or smoke of Torches made of pitch The white and blew skins are less esteemed because the hair falleth off and are also lesser then the other the red ones are most plentiful and Scaliger affirmeth that he saw skins brought into France by certain Merchants which had divers white hairs disposed in rows very elegantly upon them and in divers places they grew also single In Norvegia and Suetia as there are white Hares and Bears so there are also white Foxes In Wolocha they are black as it is affirmed by Sigismundus Liber the picture of the Cross-bearing-Fox which is less then the former is here following expressed and set down The Crucigeran FOX SErpents Apes and Foxes and all other dangerous harmful Beasts have small eyes but Sheep and Oxen which are simple very great eyes The Germans when they describe a good Horse they decipher in him the outward parts of many Beasts from whom it seemeth he partaketh his generosity and from a Fox they ascribe unto him short ears a long and bushy tail an easie and soft treading step for these belong to a Fox The male Fox hath a hard bony genital his tail is long and hairy at the end his temperament and constitution is hot as appeareth both because of his resemblance or similitude with Dogs and Weasils and also his rank and strong smelling savour for being dead his skin hath power in it of heating and his fat or oyl after a decoction is of the same force and condition The greatest occasion of his hunting is the benefit of his skin for his flesh is in all things like a Dogs and although Galen Mnesimachus and Silvius affirm that in the Autumn or latter part of the year some men use to eat the flesh of Foxes especially being Cubs that is young tender and not smelling but Aetius and Rasis affirm and that with great reason that their flesh and the flesh of Hedg-hogs and Hares is not agreeable to the nature of man But their skin retaineth the qualities of the hot Beast being pulled off by reason of the long and soft hair growing thereupon and the skins of Cubs which are preferred before the elder are of least value because their hair is apt to fall off which being thin doth not admit any deep rootings of the hair The Thracians in the time of Xenophon wore Caps of Foxes skins upon their heads and ears in the coldest and hardest Winters and from hence it cometh that in some Authors the covers of mens heads commonly called in Greek Pericephalaea are tearmed Alopecia or Alopecis and for this purpose in Germany at this day they slit asunder the skin of Foxes tails and sow it together again
otherwise there cometh no benefit by her taking With the same skin flead off brushes are made for garments so that they complain ill which affirm that there is no good or profitable condition coming to mankind by this beast Again this is to be reserved and used for dressing of flax as Massarius saith and also it is set upon a Javeline at the dore to drive away Dogs In ancient time they did not eat the flesh of Hedge-hogs but now a dayes men eat thereof of them which are of the swinish kind When the skin is off their bodies they scald it a little in Wine or Vinegar afterward lard it and put it upon a spit and there let it be roasted and afterwards eaten but if the head be not cut off at one blow the flesh is not good The Epithets belonging to this beast are not many it is called red sharp marine volible and rough whereupon Erasmus said Ex hirco in laevem nunquam mutabis Eâ—hinum And thus much for the natural and moral parts of this beast Now followeth the medicinall Ten sprigs of Lawrel seven grains of Pepper and of Opepanax as big as a Pease the skin of the ribs of a Hedge-hog dryed and beaten cast into three cups of Water and warmed so being drunk of one that hath the Colick and let rest he shall be in perfect health but with this exception that for a man it must be the membrane of a male Hedge-hog and for a woman a female The same membrane or the body of all Hedge-hogs burnt to ashes hath power in it of cleansing digesting and detracting and therefore it is used by Physitians for taking down of proud swelling wounds and also for the cleansing of Ulcers and Boyles but specially the powder of the skin hath that virtue also it being roasted with the head and afterwards beat unto powder and anointed on the head with hony cureth the Alopecias The same powder restoreth hair upon a wound if it be mingled with Pitch and if you add thereunto Bears grease it will restore unto a bald man his head of hair again if the place be rubbed untill it be ready to bleed The same powder cureth the Pistula and some mingle red Snails with this dust applying it in a plaister to Ruptures and Swellings in the cods and being mingled with oil by anointment it taketh away the burles in the face and being drunk in wine is a remedy against the pains of the reins or the water betwixt the skin and the flesh A suffumigation made of a Hedge-hogs skin under them that have their Urine stopped by Gods help saith my Author the stopping shall be removed if it proceed not from the stone nor from an impostume The flesh salted dryed and beat to powder and so drunk with sweet Vinegar helpeth the pain in the reins the beginning of Dropsies Convulsions and Leprosies and all those affections which the Grecians call Cachectae The Mountain Hedge-hog is better then the domestical having prickles like Needles points but legs like to the other the meat is of better taste and doth more help to the stomach softning the belly and provoking the Urine more effectually and all this which is attributed to Hedge-hogs is much more powerful in the Porcupine The Hedge-hog salted and eaten is good against the Leprosie the Cramp and all sickness in the Nerves and Ptisick and pain in the belly rising of windiness and difficulty of digestion the powder anointed on Women with childe alwayes keepeth them from abortment The flesh being stale given to a mad Man cureth him and being eaten keepeth one from the Strangury also being drunk in wine expelleth the stone in the bladder and is good against the Quotidian Feaver and the bitings of Serpents The fat of a Hedge-hog stayeth the flux of the bowels If the fat with warm water and hony be gargarized it amendeth a broken and hoarse voice the left eye being fryed with Oil yeeldeth a liquor which causeth sleep if it be infused into the ears with a quill The gall with the brain of a Bat and the milk of a Dog cureth the reins likewise the said gall doth not suffer uncomely hairs to grow again upon the eye-browes where once they have been pulled up It maketh also a good eye salve Warts of all sorts are likewise taken away by the same the milt fod and eaten with meat it healeth all pains in the milt and the reins dryed are good against a Leprosie or Ptisick coming by Ulcer or the difficulty of Urine the Bloudy flux and the Cough The dung of a Hedge-hog fresh and Sandaracha with Vinegar and liquid pitch being layed to the head stayeth the falling away of the hair When a man is bitten with a mad Dog or pricked with prickles of a Hedge-hog his own Urine laid thereunto with a spunge or wool is the best cure or if the thornes stick in the wound of his foot let him hold it in the warm Urine of a Man and it shall easily shake them forth and Albertus and Rasis affirm that if the right eye of a Hedge-hog be fryed with the oil of Alderne or Linseed and put in a vessel of red brasse and afterward anoint his eyes therewith as with an eye-salve he shall see as well in the dark as in the light And thus I will conclude this discourse with one story that a Hedge-hog of the earth was dedicated to the good God among the foolish Pagans and the water Hedge-hog to the evill and that once in the City of Phrygia called Azanium when a great famine troubled the inhabitants and no sacrifice could remove it one Euphorbus sacrificed a Hedge-hog whereupon the famine removed and he was made Priest and the City was called Traganos upon the occasion of that sacrifice Of the HORSE WHen I consider the wonderful work of God in the creation of this Beast enduing it with a singular body and a noble spirit the principal whereof is a loving and dutiful inclination to the service of Man wherein he never faileth in Peace nor War being every way more neer unto him for labour and travel and therefore more dear the food of man only excepted we must needs account it the most noble and necessary creature of all four-footed Beasts before whom no one for multitude and generality of good qualities is to be preferred compared or equalled whose commendations shall appear in the whole discourse following It is called in Hebrew Sus and a Mare Susah the which word some derive from Sis signifying Joy the Syrians call it Rekesh and Sousias the Arabians Ranica and the Caldeans Ramakâ—n Susuatha the Arabians Bagel the Persians Asbaca the Grecians Hippos and at this day Alogo the Latins Equus and Caballus the Italians and Spaniards Cavallo the French Chevall the Germans Kossz the Bohemians Kun the Illyrians Kobyla the Polonians Konii Optat ephippia bos piger optat arare
Lib. 5. Aethiopia as it is reported breedeth Horses having wings and horns Varro commendeth the Apulian Horses and Volatteranus writeth that they and the Horses of Rosea are most fit for war he meaneth above all the Horses of Italy There have been very fruitful pastures in Arcadia for cattel especially for breeding Horses and Asses that are Stallions for the procreation of Mules and the breed of the Arcadian Horses excelleth The same man preferreth the Horses of Thessalia and the Greekish Horses for they are sound of their feet and head but not of comely Buttocks they have their back bone whole great and short The latter two I might have referred to the whole body of the Horse The Horses of Armenia are very necessary and convenient for war for they and the Capadocians do breed of the Parthian Horses saving their heads are somewhat bigger Of the Hackney or common Horses I will say more afterward where I touch the difference of Horses and of their pace The Barbarian Horses are the same as the Lybian Horses Vegetius commendeth the Horses of Toringa and Burgundia after them of Vonusci Britain breedeth little Horses and Amblers Of Horses that are celebrate of the Calpian Mountain See in the Spanish The Horses of Cappadocia and Armenia have the breed of the Parthians but their heads are bigger and are of a most famous Nobility for that Countrey before any other land is most commodious for the nourishing of Horses according to the verses of Nemesian Cappadocumque notas referat generosa propago Armata palmas nuper grex omnis avorum The Cappadocians do pay to the Persians every year beside silver a thousand and five hundred Horses c. The Medes have the double of these and they sur-name the Cappadocians Horses famous and swift for he saith that whiles these are young they are accounted weak by reason of their young teeth and their body feeding on milk but the older they grow so much the swifter they are being very couragious and apt for war and hunting for they are not afraid of weapons neither to encounter with wilde Beasts Mazaca is a City of Cappadocia situate under the Mountain Argaeus now called Caesarea as Eusebius remembreth in his Chronicles and from that City cometh the Mazacenian Horse for the Cappadocian Horse And not only the Countrey but the City it self sometime was called Cappadocia from this City or walled Town I suppose the Horses of Mazaca were so called which Oppianus calleth Mazaci of these also and more I will set down these verses of Nemesian Sit tibi praeterea sonipes Maurusia tellus Quem mittit modo sit gentili sanguine firmus Quemque coloratus Mizan deserta per arva Pavit assiduos docuit tolerare labores Ne pigeat quod turpe caput deformis alvus Est illis quodque infrenes quod liber uterque Quodque jubis pronos carvix diverberet armos Nam flecti facilis lasci vaque colla secutus Paret in obsequium lentae moderamine virgae Verbera sunt praecepta sugae sunt verbera fieni Quin promissi spatiosa per aequora campi Cursibus acquirunt commoto sanguine vires Paulatimque avidos comites pâ—st terga relinquunt Hand secus effusis Nerei per caertaa ventis Cum se Threicius Boreas super extulit anâ—â—o c. Horum tarda venit longi fiducia cursus His etiam emerito vigor est juvenilis in aevo Nam quaecunque suis virtus bene florius annis Non priut est animo quam corpore passa ruina And peradventure Nem sianus understood certain Horses of Lybia by the name of the Mazacian Horses when as he joyns them with the Maurasian Horses and calls them painted Mauzacian Horses which agreeth not with Cappadocian writing also that they are ruled with a stroke of air in stead of a bridle which thing we have read in Authors writing of the Massâ—lian Horses in the Countrey of Lybia and whereof we will speak when we discourse of the Lybian Horses But the Cappadocian Horses are swift and lusty in their old age as it is related by Oppianus Again if Mazacian Horses be the same that the Cappadocian are what is the reason why Oppianus doth name them apt unless peradventure every Mazacian Horse is a Cappadocian and not otherwise The Horses of Chalambria are so named of a place in Lybia the Chaonian Horses are the same with the Aprirolan Horses The Colophonians and Magnetians do bestow great labour in breeding of Horses for the Colophonians dwell in a plain as I have read in a certain Greek Author Strabo lib. 14. writeth that the Colophonians in times past did abound with Sea-forces and have much excelled in Horse-men that wheresoever in any Nation there was waged war they hired and required the aid of the Colophonian Horse-men and so it was made a common Proverb Colophonem addidit Erasmus The Horses of Crete are commended by Oppianus and elsewhere From their loins upward they are as big as the Cyrenian Horses with well set thighes excellent for the soundness of their feet and holding their breath a long time in riding and therefore fit for single races or in Chariots The Epean Horses are remembred of Oppianus and the Epeans are a people of Achaia and the Achaian Horses are commended of the same The Lipidanean kinde of Horses is more excellent and he preferreth the Thessalian Horses before those of Epidauria but the Epieotian Horses are biting and stubborn Absyrtus saith that the Epieotian Horses and the Samerican and Dalmatian although they are stubborn and will not abide the bridle and besides are base and contemptible yet they are bold in war and combates and therefore the Epieotian Horses and the Sioilian despise not if their qualities and comely parts be apparent in them although sometime he hath run away from the enemy as the Poet saith Quamvis saepe fuga versos ille egerit hostes Et patria Epirum referat Epiria and Chaonia is also a part of Epirus Alpestrian although sometimes it be taken for the whole Countrey of Epirus The Horses of Chaonia are commended as Gratius remembreth writing of the Sicilian Horses in these verses to this effect that no man hath presumed to strive with the Chaonians and the Achaian hand doth not express their deserts Queis Chaonias contendere contra Ausit vix merita quas signat Achaia palma There are people of Arabia called Erembi which some call Ichthyophagans and Troglodytans Vegetius in the third place commendeth the Frysian Horses for swiftness and long continuance of course after the Hunnian Burgundians The French Horse is the fame that the Menapians and S. Hierom writeth that worldly men are delighted with the French Geldings but Zachartes Ass loosed from his bands rejoyceth good men Lucius Apuleius hath commended the French Beasts for if the young fole be derived of a generous kinde it is an argument it will prove a
stop suddenly for there are Horses so instructed that they can stay themselves in their speediest course upon an instant without any circumambulation shaking off the violence of their course like an ordinary trotting Nag by mounting up a little with their forefeet And alway it is to be remembred that after the mounting on horse-back you must first of al begin on the left hand bending your hand that way and also to the right hand when you would have your Horse to turn on that side And above all other things Horses are delighted with crooked bending and round courses such as are in circles and Rings and he must be accustomed to run from other Horses leaving them behind him and likewise turning toward them and making at them with his face to them but hâ—adlong and precipitate courses such as hunters make without guiding body hand or Horse are evermore to be avoided for many men have perished from theis Horses as the Poets witness of Nipheus Leucaguâ— Liger Clonius Remulus 〈◊〉 And also among the Historiographers Agenor Fulco of Jerusalem Philip son of Ludovicus Crassus King of France and Bela King of Pa 〈…〉 nia Of Horse-men and the orders of Chivalry and Knighthood THe principal Horse-men of the world celebrated in stories for training ruling and guiding their Horses according to the art of War may for the dignity of Knighthood wherewithal they are honoured and from whom that Equestrial order is derived be recited in this place It is manifest by Sipontinus that the Roman Equestrial order was in the middle betwixt the Senatours and the common people for at the first there was no difference betwixt Equites and Judices for both of them had for a badge cognisance or note of their honour power to wear a ring of gold and in the Consulship of Marcus Cicero the title was turned to Equestrial or name of a Knight or man at Armes by that means reconciling himself to the Senate and affirming that he was derived from that order and from that time came the Equester ordo being as is said before the people and recorded after the people because of the latter creation thereof yet had they not their beginning at this time but only now they first came into the orders of the Common-wealth for they were called Celeres under Romulus of one Celer who at the command of Romulus slew Remus and he was made the chief Judge of three hundred They were afterward called Flexanimes either because they swayed the minds of them whom they judged or else which is more probable because of martialling and instructing their Horses for war afterward because they took a great company of horse-men without all and of footmen at the City Trossulum in Thuscia they were called Trossulani and Trossuli and yet some ignorant persons honoured with the title of Trossuli in remembrance of that victory were ashamed thereof as unworthy their dignities They were forbidden to wear purple like as were the Senatours and their golden Ring was a badge both of Peace and War The Master of the Horse among the Romans called by the Grecians Hipparchus and by the Latins Magister Equitum was a degree of honour next to the 〈◊〉 and Marcius the Dictator made the first Master of horse-men who was called Spurius and set him in place next to himself These Equestrial men or Knights of State were wont to be publicans at the least and it was ordained that no man should be called into that order except both he his Father and Grandfather were free men and were worth in value twenty thousand pound Turon and Tiberius made this law but afterward it grew remisse and not observed whereby both Bondmen and Scribes were rewarded with this dignity from the Emperour for Orations and preasing speeches yet were the Decurial Judges chosen out of this rank for indeed by primary institution they were the flower and seminary of the Roman Gentry Pliny complaineth that this dignity which was wont to be a reward for Military men who had adventured their lives for the honour of their Countrey was now bestowed corruptly and for money upon mean bribing persons It should seem they had every one a Horse of honour given to him for his note for if one of them had grown fat and unweeldy not able to manage and govern this Horse it was taken from him And Cato took away the Horse from Scipio Asiaticus because he had intercepted money and from hence came the terms of their allowance as Equestre aes for that money which was paid for a Horse to one Knight and Pararium aes for a double fee to an Equestrial man Among the Athenians the highest order was of them which were called Pentacosiomedy 〈…〉 which had plowed so much sand as had sowed an 100 bushels of Corn and the next degree were their Equites Knights or Horse-men because for the defence of their City they were able every one to nourish a Horse of war There were of these in ancient time but 600 and afterward they were increased unto 1200. and the sacrifices which were made for their pomps and triumphs were called Hippades and they had liberty to nourish their long hair which was forbidden to other men and their tax to the sacrifice was at the least half a talent which is at the least 300 Crowns and this sacrifice was made for the health of their Horses There were two Masters created over these to wage and order war and ten inferiour Governours or Wardens to look to the provision and nourishing of Horses Among the Lacedemonians they had four Governments the Monarchy for the Kings the Aristocraty for the Old-men the Oligarchie for their Ephori or Commissioners the Democratie for their Young-men which governed managed and instructed Horses Nestor that ancient Knight was commended for his skill and had therefore given him the title of Hippotes Among the Calcidensians there was not a rich man but they took him into this Order and the Cretians likewise did ever highly account hereof and made it their highest degree of honour for even the Romans did sometime govern whole Provinces with no other then these and Egypt had this in peculiar that no other Order no not a Senator might be President or Govern among them The Achaeans had this degree in high estimate like as the Germans their Batavi or States The Citizens of Capua were and are disguised with a perpetuity of this honour because in the Latins war they did not revolt from the Romans and among all other the Gaditan were most honoured herewith for at one time and for one battle they created 400. This title hath spred and adorned it self with many more degrees as that among the French Caballarii and Equites aurati and such as are Knights of Jerusalem and divers others some for Religion and some for feats of Armes whereas the Persians used a certain kind of garment in War called Manduas from hence cometh the
in the porch of Jupiters Temple by the Romans and were appointed to be fashioned in earth by the hand of a cunning Potter the which being wrought in earth and put into the furnace they grew so great that they could not be taken out whole at the sight of these the Horses of Ratumena stood still but first of all their master was slain in the course by falling off The Horses of Tartaris are so incredibly swift that they will go twenty German miles in one day There was a race of Horses at Venice called Lupiferae which were exceeding swift and the common same is that they came upon this occasion There was a certain merry fellow which would become surety for every man for which he was commonly jested at in the whole City It fortuned on a day as he travelled abroad in the Woods that he met with certain Hunters that had taken a Wolf they seeing him asked him merrily if he would be surety for the Wolf and make good all his damages that he had done to their flocks and foals who instantly confessed he would undertake for the Wolf if they would set him at liberty the Hunters took his word and gave the Wolf his life where-upon he departed without thanks to the Hunters Afterward in remembrance of this good turn he brought to the house of his surety a great company of Mares without mark or brand which he received and branded them with the Images of a Wolf and they were therefore called Lupiforae from whom descended that gallant race of swift Horses among the Veneti upon these ride the posts carrying the letters of Kings and Emperors to the appointed places and these are said to refuse copulation with any other Horses that are not of their own kinde and linage The Persian Horses are also exceeding swift which indeed have given name unto all others The messengers of the great Cam King of Tartaria have their posts so appointed at every five and twenty miles end of these running light Horses that they ride upon them two or three hundred miles a day And the Pegasarian coursers of France by the like change of Horses run from Lyons to Rome in five or six days The Epithets of a swift running courser are these winged or wing-bearing Lark-footed breathing speedy light stirred covetous of race flying sweating not slow victorious rash violent and Pegasaean Virgil also describeth a swift and sluggish Horse most excellently in these verses sending one of them to the Ring and victory of running without respect of Countrey or food they are to be praised for enriching his master and the other for his dulness to the mill the verses are these following Nempe volucrem Sic laudamus equum facili cui plurima palma Fervet exultat rauco victoria Circo Nobilis hic quocunque venit de gramine cujus Clara fuga ante alios primus in aequore pulvis Sed venale pecus Corithae posteritas Hirpini si rara jugo victoria sedit Nil tibi majorum respectus gratia nulla Vmbrarum dominos pretiis mutare jubentur Exiguis tritoque trahunt Epithediâ— collo Segnipedes dignique molam versare Nepoâ—â—s One of these swift light Horses is not to be admitted to race or course untill he be past three year old and then may he be safely brought to the ring and put to the stretching of his legs in a composed or violent pace as Virgil saith Carpere mox gyrum incipiat gredibusque sonare Compositis sinuetque alterna volumina crurum Pliny affirmeth that if the teeth of Wolves be tyed to these Horses it will make them never to give over in race and when the Sarmatians were to take long journeys the day before they gave their Horses very little drink and no meat at all and so would they ride them an hundred and fifty miles out right The Arabians also in many regions use to ride upon Mares upon whom they perform great journeys and King Darius did also fight his battails upon Mares which had foals for if at any time their affairs went to rack and they in danger the Mares in remembrance of their foals at home would carry them away more speedily then any other Horse and thus much for the light or swift Horses Of the Gelding THey have used to lib their Horses and take away their stones and such an one is called in Latine Canterius or Cantherius which is drived of Cauterium because they were seared with hot irons or else from the stronger boughs or branches of Vines so called because they were pruned In French Cheval Ogre Cantier Cheuron and Soppa doth interpret the Spanish Janetto to be a Gelding It is said of Cato Censorius that he was carryed and rode upon a Gelding and of these the Turkish Horses receive the greatest commendations Forasmuch as many Horses by their seed and stones are made very fierce truculent and unruly by taking away of them they are made serviceable and quiet which before yeelded unto man very little profit and this invention may seem first of all to be taken from them which fed divers together in one herd being taught the intolerable rage of their stoned Horses towards their Colleagues and guides for abating whereof they took from them their male parts Of the manner hereof you may read plentifully in Rusius and he affirmeth that the Scythians and Sarmatians who keep all their Horses in herds were the first devisers thereof For these people using to rob and forrage were many times by the neighing of their unruly Horses discovered for their property is to neigh not only at Mares but also at every stranger that they see or winde and for males they were so head-strong that they would divers times carry away the Rider perforce and against his will to his own destruction in the rage of their natural lust If they he gelded under their dams when they suck it is reported by some that from such their teeth never fall away and beside in the heat of their course their nerves are not hardned for which cause they are the best of all to run withall They use to geld them in March in the beginning of the Spring afterward being well nourished they are no less strong able and couragious then other unlibbed also there is a pretty proverb Cantherius in Fossa a Gelding in a Ditch which is then to be used when a man undertaketh a business which he is not able to manage for a Horse can do much in a plain but nothing at all in a Ditch It is reported that Jubellius Taurea and C. Assellius fought a combate on Horse-back near the City Capua and when one had provoked another a good while in the plain fields Taurea descended into a hollow way telling his fellow combatant that except he came down unto him it would be a fight of Horses and not of Horse-men whereunto Assellius yeelded and came down unto the Ditch
doth also very well drive away the corruption in mens body which doth cause the bloud to stinke if it be well and justly applyed unto the corrupt place The same also being mingled with Oyl of Roses and new made and so applyed unto the ears doth not only drive away the pain but also doth very much help for hearing There is another remedy also for the hearing which is this to take the dung of a Horse which is new made and to make it hot in a furnace and then to 〈◊〉 it on the middle of the head against the Vvâ—â—a and afterward to 〈◊〉 the aforesaid dung 〈…〉 woollen cloth unto the top of the head in the night time The dung of a young Asse when he is first foaled given in Wine to the quantity or magnitude of a Bean is a present remedy for either man or woman who is troubled with the Jaundice or the over-flowing of the gall and the same property hath the dung of a young Horse or Cost when he is new foaled But the dung of an old Horse being boiled in fair w 〈…〉 and afterward strained and so given to the party to drink who is troubled with Water in his belly or stomach doth presently make vent for the â—ame There is also an excellent remedy against the Colick and Stone which is this to â—ake a handfull of the dung of a Horse which hath been fed with 〈◊〉 and Barly and not with grasse and mingle very well it with half a pinte of Wine all which I do 〈◊〉 will amount unto the weight of eight 〈…〉 ounces and then boyl them all together untill half of them be boyled or consumed away and then drink the same by little and little until it be all drunk up but it will be much better for the party that is troubled to drink it up all together if he be able There is moreover a very good and easie way by Horse dung to cure the Ague or 〈…〉 which is thus to burn the foresaid dung and to mingle the very 〈◊〉 it self thereof in old wine and then beat it unto small powder and so give it 〈◊〉 the party who is 〈…〉 bled therewith to drink or suck without any water in it and this will very speedily procure ease and help â—f that a woman supposeth her childe which is in her womb to be dead let her drink the milt or spleen of a Horse in some sweet water not to the smell but to the taste and she will presently cast the childe The same virtue are in the persume which is made of a Horses hoof as also in the dry dung of a Horse There is some which do use this means against the falling sickness or the sickness called Saint Johns evill that is to mingle the water or urine which a Horse doth make with the water which cometh from the Smiths trough and so to give it the party in a potion There is a very good help for Cattel which do avoid bloud through their Nostrils or secret parts which is this to make a paste of Wheat flowre and beat it and mingle it together with â—utter and Egges in the urine of a Horse which hath lately drunk and afterward to give that paste or 〈…〉 tess baked even to ashes to the beast so grieved To provoke urine when a mans yard is stopt there is nothing so excellent as the dung or filth which proceedeth from the urine which a Horse hath made being mingled with wine and then strained and afterwards poured into the Nostrils of the party so vexed There are certain Tetters or Ring-wormes in the knees of Horses and a little above the hoofs in the bending of these parts there are indurate and hardned thick skins which being beaten into small powder and mingled with Vinegar and so drunk are an exceeding good preservative against the Falling-sickness the samé is also a very good remedy for them which are bitten with any wilde Beast whatsoever By the Tetter or Ring-worm which groweth in a Horses knees or above the hoofs beaten and mingled with Oyle and so poured in the ears the teeth of either man or woman which were weak and loose will be made very strong and fast The aforesaid Tetter without any mingling with Oyl doth also heal and cure the head-ache and Falling-sickness in either man or woman The same also being drunk out of Clarret Wine or Muscadel for forty dayes together doth quite expell and drive away the Colick and Stone If that any man do get and put up the shooe of a Horse being struck from his hoof as he travelleth in his pace which doth many times happen it will be an excellent remedy for him against the sobbing in the stomach called the Hicket Of the HYAENA and the divers kinds thereof WE are now to discourse of a Beast whereof it is doubtful whether the names or the kinds thereof be more in number and therefore to begin with the names it seemeth to me in general that it is the same Beast which is spoken of in Holy Scripture and called Zeeb-ereb and Araboth Zephan 3. Principes urbis Hierosolymae velut Leones Iâ—gientes judices ejus similes sunt lupis Vesper 〈…〉 is qui ossa non relinquunt ad diluculum Their Princes are roaring Lions and their Judges are like to night-wolves which leave not the bones till the morning as it is vulgarly translated In like sort Jer. 5. calleth them Zeeb-Araboath Wolves of the wilderness and the Prophet Habakkuk Cap. 1. useth the word Zeeb-ereb Wolves of the evening By which it is made easie to consider and discusse what kinde of Beasts this Hyaena may be deemed for the Hyaena as I shall shew afterward is a Greek word And first of all I utterly seclude all their opinions which translate this word Arabian Wolves for the Hebrew notes cannot admit such a version or exposition But seeing we read in Oppianus and Tzetzes that there are kinds of Wolves which are called Harpages more hungry then the residue living in Mountains very swift of foot and in the Winter time coming to the gates of Cities and devouring both flesh and bones of every living creature they can lay hold on especially Dogs and men and in the morning go away again from their prey I take them to be the same Beasts which the Grecians call Hyaenae which is also the name of a Fish much like in nature hereunto It is also called Glanos and by the Phrygians and Bythinians Ganos and from one of these came the Illyrian or Sclavonian word San and it seemeth that the Grecians have given it a name from Swine because of the gristles growing on the back for an Hyaena can have no better derivation then from Hus or Hyn. Julius Capitolinus calleth it Belbus in Latin in the same place where he recordeth that there were decem Belbi sub Gordiano ten Hyaenaes in the days of
entred scaled or ruinated Afterwards in the reign of Cresus the City was taken in that place by Darius There are no Lions bred in Europe except in one part of Thracia for the Nemaean or Celonear Lion is but a fable yet in Aristotles time there were more famous and valiant Lions in that part of Europe lying betwixt the Rivers Achelous and Nessus then in all Africa and Asia For when Xerxes led his Army through Paeonia over the River Chidorus the Lions came and devoured his Camels in the night time But beyond Nessus towards the East or Achelous towards the West there was never man saw a Lion in Europe but in the region betwixt them which was once called the Countrey of the Abderites there were such store that they wandered into Olympus Macedonia and Thessalia but yet of purpose Princes in Castles and Towers for their pleasures sake do nourish and keep Lions in Europe where sometimes also they breed as hath been seen both in England and Florence Peloponnesus also hath no Lions and therefore when Homer maketh mention of Dianâ—ts hunting in the mountains of Erimanthus and Taygetus he speaketh not of Lions but of Harts and Boars Ethiopia also breedeth Lions being black coloured having great heads long hair rough feet firy eyes and their mouth betwixt red and yellow Cilicia Armenia and Parthia about the mouth of Ister breed many fearful Lions having great heads thick and rough necks and cheeks bright eyes and eye-lids hanging down to their noses There are also plenty of Lions in Arabia so that a man cannot travel neer the City Aden over the mountains with any security of life except he have a hundred men in his company The Lions also of Hircania are very bold and hurtful and India the mother of all kinde of beasts hath most black fierce and cruell Lions In Tartaria also and the Kingdom of Narsinga and the Province of Abasia are many Lions greater then those of Babylon and Syria of divers and sundry intermingled colours both white black and red There be many Lions also in the Province of Gingui so that for fear of them men dare not sleep out of their own houses in the night time For whomsoever they finde they devour and tear in pieces The ships also which go up and down the River are not tyed to the bank side for fear of these Lions because in the night time they come down to the waterside and if they can finde any passage into the barks they enter in and destroy every living creature wherefore they ride at Ancor in the middle of the River The colour of Lions is generally yellow for these before spoken of black white and red are exorbitant Their hair some of them is curled and some of them long shaggy and thin not standing upright but falling flat longer before and shorter behind and although the curling of his hair be a token of sluggish timidity yet if the hair be long and curled at the top only it portendeth generous animosity So also if the hair be hard for beasts that have soft hair as the Hart the Hare and the Sheep are timorous but they which are harder haired as the Boar and the Lion are more audacious and fearless There is no four footed beast that hath hairs on his neather eye-lids like a man but in stead thereof either their face is rough all over as in a Dog or else they have a foretop as a Horse and an Asse or a mane like a Lion The Lionesse hath no mane at all for it is proper to the male and as long hairs are an ornament to a Horses mane so are they to the neck and shoulders of a Lion neither are they eminent but in their full age and therefore Pliny said Turrigeros elephantorum miramur humeros leonum jubas We wonder at the Tower-bearing shoulders of Elephants and the long hanging manes of Lions And Aelianus Rationis expertibus mari praestantiam quandam natura largita est juba Leo antecellit foeminam serpens crista Nature hath honoured the Male even in creatures without reason to be distinguished from the female as the mane of the male Lion and the comb of the male Serpent do from their females Martial writeth thus of the Lions mane O quantum per colla decus quem sparsit honorem Aurea lunatae cum stetit unda jubae A Lion hath a most valiant and strong head and for this occasion when the Nymphes were terrified by the Lions and fled into Carystus the Promontory wherein they dwelled was called Coleon that is the Lions-head where afterwards was built a goodly City It fortuned as Themistocles went thither to manage the affairs of the Grecians Epiries the Persian president of Phrygia intended his destruction and therefore committed the business unto one Pisis with charge that he should behead Themistocles who came thither to execute that murder but it happened as Themistecles slept at the noon day he heard a voice crying out unto him O Themistocles effuge leonum caput ne ipse in leonem incurras that is to say O Themistocles get thee out of the Lions head lest thou fall into the Lions teeth whereupon he arose and saved his life The face of a Lion is not round as some have imagined and therefore compared it unto the Sun because in the compasse thereof the hairs stand out eminent like Sunbeams but rather it is square figured like as his forehead which Aristotle saith you may chuse whether you will call it a forehead or Epipedon frontis that is the superficies of a forehead for like a cloud it seemeth to hang over his eyes and nose and therefore the Germans call a man that looketh with such a countenance Niblen of Nubilare to be cloudy and it betokeneth either anger or sorrow also it is called Scythicus aspectus because the Scythians were alwayes wont to look as though they were ready to fight The eyes of a Lion are red firy and hollow not very round nor long looking for the most part awry wherefore the Poets style the Lioness Torva leaena The pupils or apples of the eye shine exceedingly insomuch as beholding of them a man would think he looked upon fire His upper eye-lid is exceeding great his Nose thick and his upper chap doth not hang over the neather but meet it just his mouth very great gaping wide his lips thin so that the upper parts fall in the neather which is a token of his fortitude his teeth like a Wolves and a Dogs like sawes losing or changing only his canine teeth the tongue like a Cats or Leopards as sharp as a file wearing through the skin of a man by licking his neck very stiffe because it consisteth but of one bone without joynts like as in a Wolfe and on Hyaena the flesh is so hard as if it were all a sinew There are no knuckles or turning joynts in it called Spondyli and
near the way and place of his harm perceiving a return of the Army went furiously among them and found out the man whose hand had wounded him and could not by any help of his associates be stayed from a revenge but tore the young souldier in pieces and departed away safe for the residue seeing his rage ran all away thinking him to be some Devil in the likeness of a Lion After the taking of Lions it followeth that we should intreat of their taming and first of all they which are tamed in their infancy while they are whelps are most meek and gentle full of sport and play especially being filled with meat so that without danger a stranger may meet with them but being hungry they return again to their own nature for as it is true which Seneca saith Leonibus manus magister inserit osculatur Tigrim suus custos that is to say The Master of a Lion may put his hand in his mouth and the Keeper of a Tyger may kiss him yet is it also to be feared Tigres Leonesque nunquam feritatem exuunt aliquando submittunt cum minime expectaveris torvitas maligna redibit Lions and Tygers do never leave off their wildeness although sometimes they yeeld and seem to be submiss yet upon a sudden when a man expecteth not their malignant wrath breaketh forth and they are exasperated Wherefore after they grow to be old it is impossible to make them utterly tame yet we read in divers stories of tame Lions whether made so from their littering or else constrained by the Art of man such are these which follow Hanno had a certain Lion which in his expeditions of war carryed his baggage and for that cause the Carthaginians condemned him to banishment for said they Male credi libertas ei cui in tantum cessit etiam seritas It is not safe to trust such a man with the government of the Common-wealth who by wit policy or strength was able to overcome and utterly to alter the wilde nature of a Lion for they thought he would prove a Tyrant that could bring the Lion to such meekness as to wait on him at Table to lick his face with his tongue to smooth his hand on his back and to live in his presence like a little Dog The Indians tame Lions and Elephants and set them to plough Onomarchus the Tyrant of Cattana had Lions with whom he did ordinarily converse In the Countrey of Elymis there was a Temple of Adonis wherein were kept many tame Lions which were so far from wildeness and fierceness that they would imbrace and salute the people that came in there to offer Also if any one called them to give them meat they would take it gently and depart from them with quietness Likewise in the Kingdom of Fes in a plain called Adecsen there are certain Forrests wherein live tame and gentle Lions which if a man meet he may drive away with a small stick or wand without receiving any harm And in another region of Africk the Lions are so tame that they come daily into Cities and go from one street to another gathering and eating bones from whose presence neither women nor children run away Likewise in many parts of India they have Lions so tame that they lead them up and down in learns and accustom them to the hunting of Boars Bulls and wilde Asses like Dogs for their noses are as well fitted for that purpose as the best Hounds as we have shewed before of the King of Tartary And the best means of taming them is the rule of Apollonius which he said was the precept of Phareotes which is that they be neither handled too roughly nor too mildely for if they be beaten with stripes they grow over stubborn and if they be kept in continual flatteries and used over kindely they grow over proud For they held opinion that by an equal commixtion of threatning and fair speaking or gentle usage by which means they are more easily brought to good desired conditions and this wisdom the Ancients did not only use in the taming of Lions but also in restraining of Tyrants putting it as a bridle to their mouths and a hook in their nostrils to restrain them from fury and madness Albertus saith that the best way to tame Lions is to bring up with them a little Dog and oftentimes to beat the same Dog in their presence by which discipline the Lion is made more tractable to the will of his Keeper It is said of Heliogabalus that he nourished many tame Lions and Tygers and other such noisome beasts calling himself their great mother and when he had made any of his friends drunk in the night time he shut them up together who quickly fell asleep through the heaviness of their heads who being so asleep he turned in amongst them some of his foresaid children both Lions Bears Tygers and such like at whose presence in the morning his drunken friends grew so amazed that oft-times some of them fell dead for fear and to conclude there is a story in a certain Epigram of a Lion wandering abroad in the night time for the avoiding of frost and cold came into a fold of Goats at the sight whereof the Goat-heards were much afraid calling in question not only the lives of the flock but also their own because every one of them thought himself bound to fight unto death in defence hereof whereupon according to the manner of men in extremity they all made their prayers desiring God to be delivered from the Lion and according to their wishes so it came to pass for after the Lion had lodged in the warm fold of Goats a whole night he departed in the morning without doing any harm to man or beast wherefore I take this Lion to be of the tame kinde and as in all beasts there are differences both of natures and inclinations as we may see in Dogs some of them being more apt after the manners of men and to be ruled by them then others so also I see no reason but that in the fierce and royal nature of Lions some of them should be more inclinable to obedience subjection and submission whereunto being once won they never afterwards utterly shake off their vassasage and yoke of them which overcome them From hence it came that there were so many spectacles at Rome as first of all Lucius Sylla in the office of his aedility or oversight of the Temple brought into the Roman circle or ring one hundred great maned Lions loose which always before that time were turned in bound or muffled And King Bochus sent so many valiant Archers and Dart-casters to fight with them and destroy them After him Pompey the great in the same place brought in a combate consisting of six hundred great Lions and among them there were three hundred fifty maned Lions Also he instituted hunting of Lions at Rome wherein were slain five hundred
taken out and tyed or bound to the teeth of any who is grieved therein is commended by the Magi or Wise-men to be an excellent remedy and cure for the same The heart of a Mole being eaten nine days together doth very speedily and effectually cure either him or her which shall so eat it of that pestiferous disease call'd the Kings Evil if it be so that it hath not been of too long continuance with them The same is also very good and profitable for the asswaging of Wens being used in the aforesaid manner The liver of a Mole being beaten between the hands of him that is troubled with bunches or swellings in his back and afterwards put upon the same is a present help and cure The same effect hath the right foot of a Mole for the asswaging of bunches and swellings arising in the flesh Of the vulgar little MOUSE AS we have handled the natures and delivered the figures of the great beasts so also must we not disdain in a perfect History to touch the smallest For Almighty God which hath made them all hath disseminated in every kinde both of great and small beasts seeds of his Wisdom Majesty and glory The little Mouse therefore is justly tearmed Incola domus nostrae an inhabitant in our own houses Et rosor omnium rerum and a gnawer of all things And therefore from the sound of her teeth which she maketh in gnawing she is called Sorex Although we shall shew you afterwards that Sorex is a special kinde and not the name of the general Wherefore seeing there be many kindes of Mise and every one of them desireth a particular tractate I thought good to begin with the Vulgar little Mouse and so to descend to the several species and kindes of all according to the method of the Philosopher A notioribus ad minus nota from things that are most known to them that are less known In Hebrew it is called Achar Levit. 11. where the Septuagints translate it Muys the Chaldee Acbera the Arabians Fer or Phar from whence cometh the Saracen word Fara The Persians An Mus the Latines Mus the Italians Topo or Sorice Alsorgio O Rato Di cas◠although Rato signifieth a Rat both among the Germans French and English The Spaniards cal the little Mouse Ra 〈…〉 and the great Rat Ratz the French the little Mouse Souris which word seems to be derived from the Latine Sorex and the great Mouse they call Ra 〈…〉 The Germans the great ones Raiz and the little one Muss the Illyrians and Polonians Myss which is the Greek word and the great one they call Sczurcz the Venetians call the Rat Pantegana of Pontis the vulgar Greek name and the Romans Sourco Now the dignity of this little beast may appear by the name which hath spread it self both to beasts fishes men herbs and Cities To beasts as we have shewed before in the Ichneumon which is vulgarly called the Indian Mouse or Pharaohs Mouse And to fishes for there is a little fish called Musculus and in Greek Mystocetos the Whale-mouse because it leadeth the way and sheweth the Whale whither soever she swimmeth for the avoiding of Rocks according to Pliny although Rondoletius affirmeth otherwise namely that that guide of the Whale is called Egemon and Egetur and Mystocetus he saith is a shell-fish Generally most kinde of Oysters are also called Myss because sometimes they gape and make a noise like a Mouse and close their shels again The purple fishes be also called Myss there is likewise a kinde of pretious stone called Mya about Bosphorus Thracius and many other such dignities hath the the name of this beast attained There was one Mys the servant of that famous Philosopher Epicurus likewise the name of a Champion or Challenger in Suidas and Varinus and there was another called Mus of excel-cellent skill for ingraving in Silver and therefore did draw upon the shield of Min 〈…〉 a the fight betwixt the Lapithae and the Centaurs and many other things Whereupon Martial made this verse Quis labor in Phiala docti Myos anne Myronis There was a Consul of Rome whose name was Mus and therefore Camerarius made this Riddle of the Mouse Parva mihi domus est sed janua semper aperta Acciduo sumptu furtive vivo sagina Quod mihi nemen inest Romae quoque Consul habebat The Thracians call'd Argilus a Mouse and the City which he builded Argelus Myes was a City of Ionia and a Citizen of that City was called Myetius Myon a City of Locri in Epirus and the people thereof are called Myones Myon sus a little Region betwixt Teon and Lebedon and according to Stephanus an Island near Ephesus the first Port or Haven of Egypt opening to the Red Sea is called Muos armos the Mouses haven and Mysia also seemeth to be derived from their stem There is an Island under the Equinoctial line called Insuia Murium the Mouse Island because of the abundance of Mice therein and to conclude even the herbs and plants of the earth have received names from this little beast as Hordeum Murinum Myacantha Sperage Myopteton Myuoos Myortocon Mouse-ear Mouse-foot and such like There have been also Comedies made of Myss as that of Carsinus called Myes wherein the Weasil strangleth the night-wandering Myss And another Greek called Galeomyomachia that is a fight betwixt Cats and Mice wherein the Poet doth most pleasantly faign names of Mice as their King he calleth Greilius that is a flesh-eater and his eldest son Psicarpax a corn-eater and his second son Psitodarpes bread-eater and his eldest daughter Lyenogluphe candle-eater and all his Ancestors Carpodaptai that is fruit-eaters And then he bringeth other Mice in as Turolicos Psicolices Cholecoclophos Homer in his Batrachomyomachia that is a fight betwixt Frogs and Mice doth very elegantly describe divers proper names of Mice As Piscarpax whose father was Tuoxaties and his mother Lychomile daughter of Pternotrocta the King and then other Mice as Lychopinax Terogliphus Embaschitrus Lychenor Troglodites Artophagus Ptermogliphus Pternophagus Cnissodioctet Sitophagus Artophilus Meridarpax and Thulacotrox all which are not only out of the abundance of the Authors wit but invented for the expressing of the Mouses nature The Epithets of Mice are these short small fearful peaceable ridiculous rustick or Country Mouse urbane or City Mouse greedy wary unhappy harmful black obscene little whiner biter and earthly And the Greek ones are expressed before in the proper names and thus much may suffice for the names of Mice Now to come to their several nature and significations First of all concerning their colour It is divers for although Color murinus be a common tearm for a Mouse colour of Asses yet notwithstanding Mice are sometimes blackish sometimes white sometimes yellow sometimes brown and sometime ash colour There are white Mice among the people of Savoy and Dauphin in France called
Persia a female Mouse being slit asunder alive all the young females within her belly are also found pregnant conceived with young It is very certain that for the time they go with young and for the number they bring forth they exceed all other beasts conceiving every fourteen or sixteen days so that it hath been found by good experience that a female Mouse having free liberty to litter in a vessel of millet-seed within less compass then half a year she hath brought forth one hundred and twenty young ones They live very long if they be not prevented of their natural course and dying naturally they perish not all at once but by little and little first one member and then another Pliny saith Evolucirbus hirundines sunt indociles 〈…〉 terrestribus Mures among the Fowls of the air the Swallows are undocible and among the creatures of the earth a Mouse Athertus writeth that he saw in upper Germany a Mouse hold a burning Candle in her feet at the commandment of her Master all the time his guests were at Supper Now the only cause why they grow not tame is their natural fear such as is in Conies Hares and Deer For how can any man or beast love or hearken unto him who they are perswaded lyeth in wait for their life and such is the perswasion of all them that fear which perswasion being once removed by continual familiarity there is no cause in nature but that a Mouse may be docible as well as a Hare or Cony which we have shewed heretofore in their stories It is also very certain that Mice which live in a House if they perceive by the age of it it be ready to fall down or subject to any other ruin they foreknow it and depart out of it as may appear by this notable story which happened in a Town called Helice in Greece wherein the Inhabitants committed this abominable act against their neighbours the Greeks For they slew them and sacrificed them upon their Altars Whereupon followed the ruine of the City which was premonstrated by this prodigious event For five days before the destruction thereof all the Mice Weesils and Serpents and other reptile creatures went out of the same in the presence of the Inhabitants every one assembling to his own rank and company whereat the people wondered much for they could not conceive any true cause of their departure and no marvail For God which had appointed to to take vengeance on them for their wickedness did not give them so much knowledge nor make them so wise as the beasts to avoid his judgement and their own destruction and therefore mark what followed For these beasts were no sooner out of the City but suddenly in the night time came such a lamentable Earth-quake and strong tempest that all the houses did not only fall down and not one of them stood upright to the slaughter of men women and children contained in them but lest any of them should escape the strokes of the timber and house tops God sent also such a great floud of waters by reason of the tempestuous winde which drove the waters out of the Sea upon the Town that swept them all away leaving no more behinde then naked and bare significations of former buildings And not only the City and Citizens perished but also there was ten ships of the Lacedemonians in their port all drowned at that instant The wisdom of the Mouse appeareth in the preparation of her house for considering she hath many enemies and therefore many means to be hunted from place to place she committeth not her self to one lodging alone but provideth many holes so that when she is hunted in one place she may more safely repose her self in another Which thing Plautus expresseth in these words Sed tamen cogitato Mus pusillus quam sapiens sit bestia aetatem qui uni cubili nunquam committit suam cum unum obsidetur aliunde perfugium quaerit that is to say it is good to consider the little Mouse how wise a beast she is for she will not commit her life to one lodging but provideth many harbors that being molested in one place she may have another refuge to flie unto And as their wisdom is admirable in this provision so also is their love to be commended one to another for falling into a vessel of water or other deep thing out of which they cannot ascend again of themselves they help one another by letting down their tails and if their tails be too short then they lengthen them by this means they take one anothers tail in their mouth and so hang two or three in length until the Mouse which was fallen down take hold on the neathermost which being performed they all of them draw her out Even so Wolves holding one another by their tails do swim over great Rivers and thus hath nature granted that to them which is denyed to many men namely to love and to be wise together But concerning their manners they are evil apt to steal insidious and deceitful and men also which are of the same disposition with these beasts fearing to do any thing publickly and yet privately enterprise many deceits are justly reproved in imitation of such beasts For this cause was it forbidden in Gods Law unto the Jews not only to eat but to touch Mice and the Prophet Esai ch 66. saith Comedentes carnem suillam abominationem atque murem simul consumentur inquit Dominus that is they which eat Swines flesh abomination and the Mouse shall be destroyed together saith the Lord wherein the Prophet threatneth a curse unto the people that broke the first Law of God in eating flesh forbidden and the Physitians also say that the eating of the flesh of Mice engendereth forgetfulness abomination and corruption in the stomach The eating of bread or other meat which is bitten by Mice doth encrease in men and children a certain disease in their face and in the flesh at the roots of the nails of their fingers certain hard bunches called by the Venetians Spelli and by the Germans Leidspyssen and by the Latines Dentes Muris yet it is affirmed that the flesh of Mice is good for Hawks to by given them every day or every each other day together with the skin for it helpeth their intrails purgeth fleam and choler restraineth the fluxions of the belly driveth out stones and gravel stayeth the distillation of the head to the eyes and finally corroborateth the stomach Yet we have heard that in the Kingdom of Calecut they do eat Mice and Fishes roasted in the Sun And it is said by some Physitians and Magicians that the flesh is good against melancholy and the pain of the teeth but the medicinal vertues we reserve it to its proper place Pliny affirmeth a strange wonder worthy to be remembred and recorded that when Hannibal besieged Casselinum there was a
Cheisthai to proceed out of their middle because the true liquor cometh out of the navel as we shall shew but I rather think they derive it from the Arabian words Mesch and Misch and Almisch The Italians French and Spaniards use Musci and Muschi which is derived from the later Latines and beside the Italians call it Capriolo del Musco and the French Cheureul du musch the Musk it self is called in Italy Muschio of the Latine Muschum and Muscatum the Illyrians Pizmo and the Germans Bisem The Arabians were the first that wrote any discovery of this Beast and therefore it ought not to seeme strange that all the Graecians and Latines derive the name from them And although there be an unreconcilable difference amongst Writers about this matter yet is it certain that they come neerest unto the truth that make it a kinde of Roe for the figure colour stature and horns seem to admit no other similitude except the teeth which are like a Dogs whereof two are like a Boars teeth very white and straight And there be some as Simeon Seiâ—â—t and Aetins which say he hath also one horn but herein is a manifest error because no man that ever saw one of these Beasts doth so much as make mention thereof and therefore the original of this error came from the words of Avicen who writeth that his teeth bend inward like two horns Cardan writeth that he saw one of these dead at Millain which in greatness fashion and hair resembled a Roe except that the hair was more thick and the colour more gray Now the variety of the hair may arise from the Region wherein it was bred It hath two teeth above and two beneath not differing absolutely from a Roe in any thing except in the savour It is called Gazella they are lesser thinner and more elegant creatures then the Roes are Paulus Venetus writeth thus of this Beast The creature out of whom the Musk is gathered is about the bigness of a Cat he should say a Roe having gross thick hair like a Hart and hoofs upon his feet It is found in the province of Cathay and the Kingdom of Cergoth which is subject to the great King of Tartars Likewise there was a most odoriferous Musk-cat at Venice which a Merchant there had to be seen brought as he said out of Cathay and for proof whereof he shewed the way that he went namely through the Euxine Sea Colchis Iberia and Albania even to the entrance of Scythia For the Countrey Cathay is a part of Scythia beyond Imaus neither ought this to seem wonderful for in that place there was a Region called by Ptolemeus Randa marcostra wherein he placeth the eleventh Table of Asia This Region is watered by the River Sotus and therein aboundeth Spikenard and the Inhabitants call the Countrey wherein the best Musk-cats are bred Ergimul and the greatest City of that Countrey Singuy The same Author writeth also that Musk-cats are brought out of Egypt and out of many places of Africk In Thebeth also there are many Cities and Beasts about those Cities called Gadery which do bring forth the Musk and the Inhabitants hunt them with Dogs The Province of Canicluet doth also yeeld many of these Beasts and likewise Syria S. Jerom also writeth thus Muscus Oenanthe peregrini muris pellicula by which skin of the strange Mouse he meaneth the little bag or skin wherein the Musk of the Musk-cat is included The Princes of Europe do nourish these tame being brought out of the New-found World and many other rich men especially in Italy be delighted with the odoriferous savour which cometh from it Brassavolus saith that he saw a Merchant offer one of these to be sold unto Alphonsus Dake of Ferrara which had the Navel full of Musk. And Catherinus Zenus an ancient Nobleman of Venice had a Roe of this kinde which he left after his death unto his heirs and by this it doth plainly appear that the Musk-cat is neither like a Cat nor a Mouse and that all those which have affirmed so much thereof have been deceived of their own conjectural derivation of Moscus or Muscus or by the errour of some Writer of the ancient Books which instead of Magnitudo Capreoli a Roe have inserted Catti a Cat. And thus much shall suffice for the description of this Beast and for the Regions where it is bred except I may adde the Relation of Ludovicus Romanus who affirmeth that the Musk-cats of Calecut are brought out of the Countrey Pegus These Roes of the New-found-land are wonderful nimble and quick and so swift that they are seldom taken alive but after they are taken by pulling out their longer teeth they wax tame When they are prosecuted with the Hunters and with Dogs they defend themselves with their teeth In some places they take them in snares and in ditches also kill them with darts and so having killed them they cut off the little bag wherein the Musk groweth for that Musk doth exceed in sweetness of odor all things that were ever made by the art of man and therefore the use of it is more plentiful then of any other thing for they carry it about in Garments They make perfume of it they anoint Beads whereupon they tell their prayers they also make Bals of it and include it in Gold or Silver carrying it about either to be seen or because they are delicate and wanton or to shew their riches and abundance or to preserve themselves from putrified and stinking airs or else against cold and moist diseases of the brain With this the luxurious women perfume themselves to entrap the love of their Wooers for as the thing it self is a vice or sickness of the Breast so also by men it is used to vice and wickedness yet the Venetian Matrons will never use it and he that beareth it about him shall never perceive it himself We haye shewed already that it groweth in the navâ—l â—or in a little bag neer unto it and it is true by Gyraldus and Varinus that when the Beast beginneth to be luxurious and prone to the rage of venery and carnal copulation then the bloud floweth to the navel and there putteth the Beast to pain because it swelleth above measure The Beast then abstaineth from all meat and drink and rowleth himself upon the ground and so by the waight of his body presseth forth the humor that troubled him which after a certain time doth coagulate and congeal together and then rendereth such an acceptable savour as you see it hath The relation whereof you shall hear out of the words of Serapion The wilde Roes saith he which wander to and fro in the Mountains freely without the government of man have in a little bag certain putrified matter or bloud which of it self groweth to be ripe whereunto when it is come the Beast itcheth and is pained as it were with launcing therefore
it is natural to Pea-cocks and Panthers to have divers colours in them for there are in Hircania Panthers with little round spots like eyes both black white blew and green as both Solinus and Claudius testifie which caused Martial to write thus Picto quod juga delicata collo Pardus sustinet There is a land called Terra eremborum inhabited by the Troglodytes and Sarazens in Lybia where the upper face of the earth is compared unto the Panthers skin because through the heat of the Sun it is burned and died as it were into divers colours so that ye shall see divers spots of white black and green earth as if it were done of purpose by the hand of man The teeth of the Panther are like saws as are also a Dogs and a Lions their tongue of such incredible sharpness that in licking it grateth like a file The females have four udders in the midst of their belly the heart is great in proportion because he is a violent Beast terrifying man There are many fissures in their feet Their former feet have five distinct claws or fingers and their hinder-feet but four for little ones among four-footed beasts have five fingers upon their hinder-feet when they go they hide their nails within the skin of their feet as it were in sheaths never bringing them forth but when they are in their prey to the intent they should never be broken nor dulled Their tails have no long hairs at the end like a Lions or Oxes and the Leopard hath a wider mouth then the Pardal The female is oftener times taken then the male the reason is given by Volaterran because she is inforced to seek abroad for her own meat and her young ones The place of their aboad is among the Mountains and Woods and especially they delight in the tree Camphory They raven upon flesh both Birds and Beasts for which cause they hide themselves in trees especially in Mauritania where they are not very swift of foot and therefore they give themselves to take Apes which they attain by this policy when they see the Apes they make after them who at their first approaching climbe up into the tops of trees and there sit to avoid the Panthers teeth for she is not able to follow them so high but yet she is more cunning then the Apes and therefore deviseth more shifts to take them that where nature hath denyed her bodily power there she might supply that want by the gifts of the minde Forth therefore she goeth and under the tree where the Apes are lodged she lyeth down as though she were dead stretching out her limbs and restraining her breath shutting her eyes and shewing all other tokens of expiration The Apes that sit on the tops of the tree behold from on high the behaviour of their adversary and because all of them wish her dead they more easily believe that which so much they desire and yet dare not descend to make tryal Then to end their doubts they chuse out one from among them all whom they think to be of the best courage and him they send down as it were for an espy to certifie all the residue forth then he goeth with a thousand fears in his minde and leapeth from bough to bough with no great hast for dread of an ill bargain yet being come down dareth not approach high but having taken a view of the counterfeit and repressed his own fear returneth back again After a little space he descendeth the second time and cometh nearer the Panther then before yet returneth without touching him Then he descendeth the third time looking into his eyes and maketh trial whether he draweth breath or no but the Panther keepeth both breath and limbs immoveable by that means imâ—oldning the Apes to their own destruction for the Spie-ape sitteth down beside the Panther and stirreth not now when those which are above in the tree see how their intelligencer abideth constantly beside their adversary without harm they gather their spirits together and descend down in great multitudes running about the Panther first of all going upon him and afterwards leaping with great joy and exultation mocking this their adversary with all their apish toys and testifying their joy for her supposed death and in this sort the Panther suffereth them to continue a great season till he perceiveth they are throughly wearied and then upon a sudden he leapeth up alive again taking some of them in his claws destroying and killing them with teeth and nails till he have prepared for himself a rich dinner out of his adversaries flesh And like as Vlysses endured all the contumelies and reproaches both of his maids and Wives suiters until he had a just occasion given him of revenge so doth the Panther the disdainful dealing of the Apes whereupon came the proverb Pardi mortâ—ni dissimulat Thanaton Pardaleos hypoâ—rinetai against a cunning dissembling fellow such a one as Brutuâ— was who counterfeited madness that he might get the Empire So great is the love of this Beast to all Spices and Aromatical trees that they come over all the Mountain Taurus through Armenia and Silia when the windes bring the savour of the sweet gum unto them out of Pamphilia from the tree Storax whereupon lyeth this story There was a certain Panther which was taken by King Arsaces and a golden collar put upon his neck with this inscription Rex Arsaces Deo Nisaeo that is King Arsaces to the God Bacchus for Bacchus was called Nisaeuâ— of a City Nisae in India This Beast grew very tame and would suffer himself to be handled and stroked by the hands of men until the Spring time that he winded the savour of the Aromatical trees and then he would run away from all his acquaintance according to his kinde and so at last was taken in the neather part of the Mountain Taurus which was many hundred miles distant from the Kings Court of Armenia We have shewed already how they love the gum of Camphory watching that tree to the end to preserve it for their own use and indeed as Aelianus saith Admirabâ—lem quantam odâ—ris suavitatem oâ—et Pardalis quam bene olendi praestantiam divino munere donatam cum sibi propriam plane tenet tam 〈◊〉 â—â—tera animalia ejus hanc vim praeclare sentiunt that is to say The Panther or Pardal smelleth most sweetly which savour he hath received from a divine gift and doth only feel the benefit of it himself but also bewray it unto other Beasts for when he feeleth himself to be hungry and stand in need of meat then doth he get up into some rough tree and by his savour or sweet smell draweth unto him an innumerable company of wilde Goats Harts Roes and Hindes and such other Beasts and so upon a sudden leapeth down upon them when he espyeth his convenient time And Solinus saith that the sweetness of his savour worketh the same effect
procure favour unto him and that he might be reckoned an inventer of some things for requital whereof Bacchus gave him the land of Thebes in Egypt to keep his Sheep and Cattel and afterward for that invention he was pictured with Rams horas on his head for remembrance that he brought the first Sheep into Egypt and Bacchus also placed the sign of the Ram in Heaven These and such like fictions there are about all the signes of Heaven but the truer observation and reason we have shewed before out of the Egyptians learning and therefore I will cease from any farther prosecution of these fables They ought to be two year old at least before you suffer them to joyn in copulation with the Ewes and for two months before to be separate and fed more plentifully then at other times that so at their return they may more eagerly and perfectly fill the Ewes and then also before copulation and at the time that they are permitted in some Countries they give them Barly and mix Onions with their meat and feed them with the herb Salomons seal for all these are vertuous to stir up and incease their nature And likewise one kinde of the Satyrium and salt water as we have said in the discourse aforegoing Now at the time of their copulation they have a peculiar voice to draw and allure their females differing from the common bleating whereof the Poet speaketh Blaterat hinc aries pia balat ovis This Beast may continue in copulation and be preserved for the generation of Lambs till he be eight year old and it is their nature the older they be to seek out for their fellows the elder Ewes or females forsaking the younger by a kinde of natural wisdom Now concerning the time of their admission to copulation although we have touched it in the former Treatise yet we must add somewhat more in this place In some places they suffer them in April and some in June that so they may be past danger before Winter and be brought forth in the Autumn when the grass after harvest is sweet but the best is in October for then the Winter will be over-passed before the Lamb come forth of his dams belly Great is the rage of these Beasts at their copulation for they fight irefully till one of them have the victory and for this cause Arictare among the Writers is a word to express singular violence Arietat in portas duros objice poster And Silvis of Dioxippâ—â— Arietat in primos objieitque immania membra And so Seneca in his book of Anger Magno imperatori antequam actes inter se ariâ—tarent cor exiluit And indeed great is the violence of Rams for it is reported that many times in Rhetiâ— to try their violence they hold betwixt the fighting of Rams a stick or bat of Corn-tree which in a bout or two they utterly diminish and bruise in pieces There is a known fable in Abstenius of the Wolf that found a couple of Rams and told them that he must have one of them to his dinner and bad them agree betwixt themselves to whose lot that death should happen for one of them must die the two Rams agreed together that the Wolf should stand in the middle of the close and that they twain should part one into one corner and the other into the other corner of the field and so come running to the Wolf and he that came last should lose his life to the Wolfs mercy the Wolf agreed to this their device and chose his standing while the Rams consented with their horns when they came upon him to make him sure enough from hurting any more Sheep forth therefore went the Rams each of them unto his quarter one into the East and the other into the West the Wolf standing joyfully in the midst laughing at the Rams destruction then began the two Rams to set forward with all their violence one of them so attending and observing the other as that they might both meet together upon the Woolf and so they did with vengeance to their enemy for having him betwixt their horns they crushed his ribs in pieces and he fell down without stomach to Rams flesh This invention although it have another moral yet it is material to be inserted into this place to shew the violence of Rams and from this came so many warlike inventions called Arietes wherewithal they push down the walls of Cities as the Readers may see in Vitruvius Valturnis and Ammianus for they say that the warlike Ram was made of wood and covered over with shels of Tortoyses to the intent it should not be burned when it was set to a wall and it was also covered with the skins of sack-cloth by rows artificially contrived within the same was a beam which was pointed with a crooked Iron and therefore called a Ram or rather because the front was so hard that it overthrew walls when by the violent strength of men it was forced upon them and whereas it was shaped over with Tortoise shels it was for the true resemblance it bare therewith for like as a Tortoise doth sometime put forth his head and again sometime pull it in so also doth the Ram sometime put forth the sicle and sometime pull it in and hide it within the frame so that by this engine they did not over-turn the walls but also they caused the stones to 〈…〉 ie upon the enemies like thunder-bolts striking them down on every side and wounding with their fall or stroke like the blows of an armed man and against these forces there were counter-forces devised on the part of the besieged for because the greatness thereof was such as it could not be moved without singular note and ostentation it gave the besieged time to oppose against it their instruments of war for their safeguard such were called Culcitrae Laquei Lupi ferrum made like a pair of tongs whereby as Polyaenus writeth many times it came to pass that when the wall was overthrown the enemies durst not enter saying Ceâ—â—e hostes sponte ab obsessis destructa moenia meâ—uentes ingredi in urbem non audebam And thus much for the force of Rams both their true and natural strength and also their artificial imitation by men Now on the other side the wise shepheards want not devises to restrain the wrath of these impetuous Beasts For Epicharmus the Syracusan saith if there be a hole bored in the backer part of his crooked horn neer his ear it is very profitable to be followed for seeing that he is a Captain of the flock and that he leadeth all the residue it is most necessary that his health and safe-guard be principally regarded and therefore the ancient shepheards were wont to appoint the Captain of the flock from the prime and first appearance of his horns and to give him him his name whereof he took knowledge and would lead and go before them at
for us to adde something also to the discourse before recited in the story of the Sheep The Gentiles when they sacrificed a Ram they roasted his intrails upon a spit or broach and there were certain days of Sacrifice called Dies Agonales wherein the principal Ram of every flock after combate or fighting was slain and sacrificed for the safegard of the residue to Janus and others by the King Ita rex placare sacrorum Numina lanigerae conjuge debet Ovis There was at Tanagrum a statue of Mercury carrying a Ram and therefore he is called the Kriophoros Hermes and by that name was worshipped of all the Tanagreans Now there was a cunning workman of Calamis that made that statue for they say that when the City was grievously afflicted with a pestilence Mercury by carrying a Ram about the walls delivered the same and therefore they did not only procure that statue for Mercury but also ordained that every year one of their most beautiful young men should carry a Sheep on his shoulder round about the walls In January they sacrificed to Jupiter a Ram and in February a Weather Pliny writeth a strange Riddle which is this Cinnamomum in Aethiopia gignitur neque metitur nisi permiserit Deus There is Cinamon growing in Aethiopia and yet it is not reaped by men except the God thereof gave permission or leave whereby some understand Jupiter whom they called Sabin and the Latines Assabinus Now Pliny saith that if they had sacrificed forty and four Oxen Buck-goats and Rams with their intrails they purchased leave to gather that Cinamon When the Romans observed their Soli-Taurilia they sacrificed a Bull a Goat a Ram and a Bore but unto Jupiter they held it not lawful to offer a Ram. Ulysses offered to Neptune a Ram a Bull and a Boar and to conclude this discourse of the Rams sacrifices I finde a story worthy the nothing recorded by Paulus Venetus although it be altogether superstitious and full of humane blindeness and error There is a City of Tartary called Sachion the Inhabitants whereof are Mahometans and Idolaters assoon as any of them have a son born be presently commendeth him to one Idols tuition and protection or other and that year together with his young Son he nourisheth a Ram camed in his own house at the years end he offereth his Son and the Ram at the next festival day of that Idoll which he hath chosen that is he presenteth his childe and killeth his Ram with great solemnity and ceremony in the presence of all his kindred friends neighbours and acquaintance and maketh earnest request to that Idoll to protect his son and to guide and govern him all the time of his life and therefore he hangeth up the flesh of that Ram in his presence and afterward they take away again the same flesh and carry it to another private place wherewith the said Father and all the Kindred assembled do make a great and rich feast reserving the bones for religions sake And thus we see how miserable men beguiled with error do not only make shew of false Religion but also play the hypocrites in that which is erroneous thinking it an easie thing to deceive Almighty God Concerning other things of Rams they concur with that which is said already of Sheep in general except their medicinal parts which I will reserve to the due place And herein adde one thing more of the horns of the Rhaetian Rams and in some places of Italy namely that after they be five six or seaven year old they bring forth under their great horns two other little horns and that these Rams are weak of body and have but rough and course wooll In other places if at any time they chance to bear moe horns then two it is prodigious and unnatural And thus much of the Ram. Of the WEATHER-SHEEP ALthough this Beast have all things in common with the Ram aforesaid for he is a male-sheep and in nature differeth not from him but only by the art of man I might very well have confounded and conjoyned his story with the precedent but seeing that all Nations do distinguish him from the Ram because of one property or defect of him for that he is not fit for generation I will follow the stream and not strive against my Authors nor swarve from their method Therefore in Latine it is call'd Vervex quasi versa natura for that his natural seed is changed and turn'd in him for his stones are taken away and so he remaineth libbed and gelded being an Eunuch among Beasts The Grecians call him Krion Tomian that is a gelded Ram for they have not one word to express him The Latines do also call him Sectarius and Festus rendreth this reason thereof Quia eum sequantur agni because the little Lambs love his company and follow him and indeed by reason of his unaptness to generation the Ewes forsake his company and the Rams cannot endure him therefore in stead of other he associateth himself with the Lambs In some parts of Germany they call him Frischling and also Hammel which word seemeth to be derived from the Arabian word Lesan Alhamel a Rams tongue The Italians call him Castrone Castrato and Montone the French Mouton and the Illyrians Beram Concerning the gelding of Rams or making of Weathers I have not much more to say then that which is already expressed in the general tractate of the Sheep and for the manner I do refer the Reader not only to that part but also to the discourse of the Calf and Oxe wherein I trust he shall finde satisfaction for this point whether he will do it by a knife by reed by finger or by hammer for all those ways are in differently proponed The best time for the gelding of Rams ought to be in the wane or decrease of the Moon at five months old so as he may neither be troubled with extremity of cold or heat And if it be not libbed at that age but prolonged till two three or four year old we have shewed already the English manner for knitting of Rams Being thus libbed or knit their horns grow not so great as the other males ungelded but their flesh and lard or sewet is more acceptable then of any other Sheep whatsoever except they be over old for that it is neither so moist as a Lambs nor yet so ranck as a Rams or Ewes whence Baptista Fiera made these verses Anniculus placeat vel si sine testibus agnus Pinguior est haedo quin calet â—lla vores Hunc amo si duri per pascua montis anhelat Maluero si auri vellere dives erit Platina also writeth thus of the flesh of Weathers Vervecum caro satis salubris est melior quam agnina calida enim humida habetur ad temperamentum tendens illa vero plus humiditatis quam caliditâ—tis habet That is to say The flesh of Weathers is wholesome enough
any man do begin to follow after either of them it will be but labour lost for he is not able to comprehend or attain them with a Horse except he may take them being wearied by longitude of time But if any Hunters shall finde a young Calf spare the life thereof and shall not presently kill it he shall reap a double profit by it and first it doth bring profit to it self and doth induce or lead his Dam into captivity For after that the Hunter hath bound the Calf with a rope she being inflamed by the love or affection which she beareth to her Calf returneth back again unto it coveting with an ardent desire to loosen and take away her Calf out of the bond or halter therefore she thrusteth in her horn that she may loosen the cord and pluck her young one away whereby she is kept â—ast bound with her Calf her horns being intangled in the rope Then cometh the Hunter and killeth her and taketh forth her liver and also cuttech off her dugs or udder and doth likewise pluck off her skin and leaveth her flesh for the Birds and wilde Beasts to feed upon There is another kinde of Oxin Lybia whose horns do bend downward and for that cause they are â—â—in to seed going backwards Of the sayings of Herodotus and Aelianus I have spoken before Philes doth write that they are called Oxen going backward because the broadnesse of their horns doth cover their eye sight so that it standeth them in no use to go forward but is very commodious to go backward There is an Oxe which liveth in the Woods of Africk which doth resemble a domesticall Oxe yet lesse in stature of a brown or russet colour and also most swift of foot This beast is found in the deserts or in the Marches or limits of the deserts Their flesh is also of a perfect or absolute savour and taste good for the nourishment of men Of the Indian wilde OXEN THe horns of the Oxen of the Garamantons do grow downwards toward the earth and therefore when they feed they bow the hinder part of the neck as Solinus writeth and as we have spoken before in the diversities of wilde Oxen. The Woods also in India are filled with wilde Oxen. In the Province of India where the Gy 〈…〉 its inhabit are great multitudes of Oxen which live in the Forrests or Woods In the Kingdoms which are upon the borders or confines of India in the mid of the day are many fair and great Oxen which live in the Woods There are Mountains in the inmost Regions of India which are very hard to come unto where they say live those beasts wilde which are among us domesticall and tame as Sheep Goats Oxen and so forth The great King of India doth elect or choose a day every year for the runnings and combats of men and also fightings of Beasts who setting their horns one against another do fight irefully with admirable rage untill they overcome their adversaries They do also labour and strive with all their nerves and sinewes even as if they were Champions or fought for some great reward or should get honour by their battell Wilde Bulls tame Rams Asses with one horn Hyenaes and lastly Elephants as if they were capable of reason they wound them among themselves and the one doth oftentimes overcome and kill the other and sometimes fall down together being both wounded I have also recited before in another place of the intreaty of Oxen those Indian Oxen which are said to be most swift in their joynts in running to and fro when they are at combate because there we had not distinguished whether these were wilde Oxen or not but it doth appear in this place that they are wholly taken for wilde Oxen and the thing it self doth manifest that domesticall Oxen are not so swift nor so strong The Oxen in India have altogether whole hoofs and also but one horn Aethiopia also doth breed Indian Oxen that is to say Oxen that are like to those of India for some have but one horn and other some three Solinus saith that there are found in India some Oxen which have but one horn and othersome which have three horns with whole hoofs and not cloven The Indian Oxen are said to be as high as a Camel and their horn four foot broad Ptolemeus doth report that he saw a horn of an Indian Oxe which did hold in the breadth of it thirty gallons There are also Oxen which are bred in India which in greatnesse are no bigger then a Buck or Goat they do run yoaked together very swift nor do end their race with lesse speed then the Goat land Horses and I did not take them to be Oxen living in the Woods for our Rangifer and Oxen which live in the Woods are the swiftest of all beasts in this kinde and most apt to combats and runnings and they may partly be called Oxen having one horn and partly Oxen having three horns neither are they found in Scandinavia but also in other Regions and Dominions of Asia as we beleeve that Indian Oxen are of the same kinde Solinus doth not rightly call those Indian Oxen which Aelianus calleth Aethiopicos as I have declared above in the story of the Aethiopian Oxen for their horns are moveable Ctesias doth write that there are sprung up among the same beasts that beast which is called Mantichora which is manifested by Aristotle in his History of Four-footed beasts Hermolaus also and others have not considered this error Among the Arachotans there are Oxen which live in the Woods which do differ from those that are bred in the City as much as wilde Swine from tame Their colour is black bending a little downwards and their horns broad and upright There is a City in India called Arachotus taking the name from the River Arachotus which doth flow out of Causâ—ous what those beasts are which do bend their horns upward I have declared in the story of the Bison for as there may be spoken something concerning the difference of the Plants of the Woods so also concerning the beasts that are bred in the City and those that are bred in the Woods Of the WEASEL THere are divers kindes of Weasels but in this place we do intreat of the least kinde whose form and shape we have also here set down It is likewise properly named of the Latines Mustela a Weasel for so we were wont plainly to name those which were common and domesticall and to adde names to those which are more seldome seen or live in the Woods for difference sake The word Cholâ—d in Levit. 11. is translated a Weasel of all Interpreters The Rabbins do call them Chuldah and commonly Mustela as David Kimhi writeth The Chaldeans do translate it Chulda the Arabians Caldah the Persians Gurba and Hieron Mustela Oach is an Hebrew word where-upon it was once called Ochim plurally in Isai 13. Babylon subvertetur
in the said manner The dung of Mice or of a Weasel being anoynted upon the head is an excellent remedy for the falling off of the hair on the head or any other part of mans body and doth also cure the disease called by some the Foxes evil The biting of a Weasel is reported by some to be very venemous and in his ravening or madnesse not to be lesse hurtfull then the bitings of mad Dogs For Weasels and Foxes are very often mad But Arnoldus is of a contrary opinion and affirmeth that the Weasel doth more hurt by his biting then by any venom he can put forth Others also do affirm that there is venom in Weasels for this cause that in all kinde of Weasels when they are angry the force of their smell is so rank and strong The best way to drive away Mice is by scattering the powder of Weasels or Cats dung up and down the savour whereof Mice cannot abide but the same being made into some certain kinde of bread will smell more strongly That the bites of a Weasel are venemous and deadly there is an example written by Aristides of a certain man who being bitten by a Weasel and ready to die gave a great sigh and said that if he had died by a Lyon or Panther it would never have grieved him but to die by the biting of such an ignoble beast it grieved him worse then his death The biting of a Weasel doth bring very quick and grievous pain which is only known by the colour being dusky or blewish and it is cured by Onions and Garlick either applyed outward or taken in drink so that the party drink sweet wine thereon Unripe Figs also mingled with the flour of the grain called Orobos doth much profit the same Treacle in like manner being applyed in the manner of a plaister speedily cureth them Garlick being mingled with Fig-tree leaves and Cinamon and so beaten together are very well applyed to the said bites It cometh also to passe that sometimes the Weasel biteth some Cattell which presently killeth them except there be some instant remedy The remedy for it is this to rub the wounded place with a piece of a Weasels skin well dryed untill it waxe hot and in the mean time give the best Treacle to drink in the manner of an antidote The Weasel usually biteth Cowes dugs which when they are swollen if they be rubbed with a Weasels skin they are instantly healed Of the WOLF A Wolf is called in Hebrew Zeeb as it is said in Gen. 49. and among the Chaldeans Deeba and Deba among the Arabians Dib The female is called Zebah a she-Wolf and the masculine Zeebim but in Ezek. 22. it is called Zebeth that is to say a Wolf Alsebha saith And. Bellun is a common name for all Four-footed beasts which do set on men killing and tearing them in pieces devouring them with their teeth and clawes as a Lyon a Wolf a Tiger and such like whereon they are said to have the behaviour of Alsebha that is wilde beasts which are fierce and cruel From hence happily cometh it that not only Albertus but also some ignorant Writers do attribute unto a Wolf many things which Aristotle hath uttered concerning a Lyon Oppianus among the other kinde of Wolves hath demonstrated one which is bred in Cilicia And also he doth write that it is called in the mountains of Taurus and Amanus Chryseon that is to say Aureum but I conjecture that in those places it was called after the language of the Hebrewes or Syrians which do call Sahab or Schab aurum and Seeb Lupum for a Wolf or Dahab or Debah for Aurum They also do call Deeb or Deeba for a Wolf Dib othertherwise Dijb is an Arabian or Saracenican word Also the translation of this word in the book of medicines is divers as Adib Adep Adbip and Aldip but I have preferred the last translation which also Bellunensis doth use Aldip Alambat doth signifie a mad or furious Wolf The Wolf which Oppianus doth call Aureum as I have said even now doth seem to agree to this kinde both by signification of the name Aurum and also by the nature because it doth go under a Dog close to the earth to eschew the heat of the Summer which Oppianus doth write doth seek his food out of hollow places as a Hyena or Dabh doth out of graves where the dead men are buryed The golden coloured Wolf is also more rough and hairy then the residue even as the Hyena is said to be rough and maned And also these Wolves necks in India are maned but it differeth according to the nation and colour where there are any Wolves at all Lycos a Wolf among the Grecians and Lugos and Lucania and Lycos among some of the Arabican Writers is borrowed from them as Munster hath noted in his Lexicon of three languages In Italy it is called Lupo In French Loup in Spain Lobo in Germany Vulff in England Wolf In Illyria Vulk as it were by a transposition of the letters of the Greek word Now because both men women Cities places Mountains Villages and many artificiall instruments have their names from the Latine and Greek words of this beast it is not vain or idle to touch both them and the derivation of them before we proceed to the naturall story of this beast Lupus as some say in Latine is Quasi Leopos Lyon-footed because that it resembleth a Lyon in his feet and therefore Isidorus writeth that nothing liveth that it presseth or treadeth upon in wrath Other derive it from Lukes the light because in the twilight of the evening or morning it devoureth his prey avoiding both extreme light as the noon day and also extreme darknesse as the night The Grecians do also call them Nycterinoi canes dogs of the night Lupa and lupula were the names of noble devouring Harlots and from thenceforth cometh Lupanar for the stewes It is doubtfull whether the nurse of Romulus and Remus were a Harlot or she-wolf I rather think it was a Harlot then a Wolf that nursed those children For we read of the wife of Fostulus which was called Laurentia after she had played the whore with certain Shepherds was called Lupa In all Nations there are some mens names derived from Wolves therefore we read of Lupus a Roman Poet Lupus Servatus a Priest or Elder of Lupus de Oliveto a Spanish Monk of Fulvus Lupinus a Roman and the Germans have Vulf Vulfe Hart Vulfegang The Grecians have Lycambes of whom it is reported he had a daughter called Neobole which he promised in marriage to Archilochus the Poet yet afterwards he repented and would not perform his promise for which cause the Poet wrote against him many bitter Verses and therefore Lycambes when he came to knowledge of them dyed for grief Lycaon was a common name among the Grecians for many men as Lycaon Gnotius an excellent maker
as well as a Serpents but surely that old Serpent knew very well better then all they which speak the contrary that he could not have so fit a subject in all the World as the shape wit and cunning of a Serpent And that this came not into the Serpent at that time when the Devil framed his tongue to speak may appear by the precept of our Saviour Christ where he saith Be wise as Serpents be innocent as Doves For if there had not been naturally some extraordinary faculty of understanding in this beast as there is of meekness in a Dove his wisdome would never have sent us to a Serpent possest with a Devil but rather to some other ingenious Beast whereof there were great store in the World And therefore I conclude that subtilty and prudence came not to the Serpent as speaking into Balaams Ass but rather by nature or creation And yet concerning this last sentence of our most blessed Saviour I cannot but express the words of Tzetzes who writeth thus upon it Servate capita vestra quemadmodum Serpens qui insidiis petitus vapulansque ad mortem omnimodò caput suum abscondit sicves à â—tyrannis impiis cruciati caput servate mihi fidem vestram ne Deum neget is usque ad ipsam mortem That is it is as much as if our Saviour Christ should say Even as when a Serpent is set upon and stroken by all the means she can she hideth her head and exposeth all her other parts to blows reserving that sound so you when you are persecuted by Tyrants preserve your head that is your faith and deny not your God to death And this thing is affirmed by all Writers both divine and humane which have ever touched this point that above all the parts of the body the Serpent preserveth his For Pliny saith that if his body be cut off but two fingers length from his head he will go away as if he had no harm at all and live longer Paulus Fagius writing upon Genesis saith It is the opinion of some Hebrews that the Serpent at the beginning did go upright and was indued with all the affections of men but this Jewish fable is not worthy to be confuted because humane affection cannot proceed but from a reasonable foul which to ascribe to the Serpent were blasphemous and absurd Besides that then the soul might die and that God had created such a soul otherwise then by breathing into the body the breath of life Serpents have many Epithets given unto them as illiberal perfidious treacherous venomous poysonful stinging implacable surious savage merciless devourer and such like And indeed the holy Writers by a Serpent do understand implacable fury For they are immitissimum animalium genus a most ungentle and barbarous kinde of all creatures as may appear by the rage of a little Snake one of the least of Serpents kinde for when he perceiveth that he is hurt or wounded he never ceaseth casting out his poyson until he have done harm or die for madness Two things I finde to be notable in Serpents the first is proper to their kinde the second is common to them with Swine Rats and Mice First they are above measure kinde not only to their young ones but also to their Egges For Funckius confidently sweareth that at Lostorfium he saw a Serpents Egge taken and cast into a hot furnace and when it began to fry in the same whether by natural instinct or by smell thereof the old Serpent came and would have run into the fire to fetch it out but that he and other strangers hindered her by killing her And so likewise if in a Wood one of them be set on fire all the Serpents that are within the savour thereof or within the hearing of the hissing will instantly gather unto it even as beasts when they hear one another roar And so great is their love one toward another as Pliny and Textor write that it was a vulgar saying Serpentium morsus non petit Serpentes one Serpent will not bite another And Juvenal writeth Sed jam Serpentum major concordia Scilicet quam hominum inter se That is to say Better do Serpents with Serpents accord Then Man with Man who should be their Lord. I cannot conceal a most memorable History as ever was any in the World of a fight betwixt the Serpents of the Land and the Water This History is taken out of a Book of Schiltbergerus a Bavarian who knew the same as he writeth while he was a captive in Turky his words are these Is the Kingdom called Genycke there is a City called Sampson about which while I was prisoner with Baiazeta King of Turkes there pitched or arrived an innumerable company of Land and Water Serpents compassing the said City a mile about The Land-serpents came out of the woods of Trienick which are great and many and the water Serpents came out of the bordering Set. These were nine days together assembling in that place and for fear of them there was not any that durst go out of the City although it was not observed that they hurt any man or living creature thereabouts Wherefore the Prince also commanded that no man should trouble them or do them any harm wisely judging that such an accident came not but by Divine miracle and that also to siguifie some notable event Upon the tenth day these two valiant Troops joyned battel early in the morning before the Sun-rising so continuing in fight until the Sun-set at which time the Prince with some Horse-men went out of the City to see the battel and it appeared to him and his associates that the Water Serpents gave place to the Land Serpents So the Prince and his company returned into the City again and the next day went forth again but found not a Serpent alive for there were slain above eight thousand all which he caused presently to be covered with earth in ditches and afterward declared the whole matter to Baiazeta by Letters after he had gotten that City whereat the great Turk rejoyced for he thereby interpreted happiness to himself But I have been too long in this first and proper affection of Serpents namely their mutual concord and this example of the Land and Water Serpents doth not break the common promised rule because it is to be understood of Serpents that live in the same element The second property is to presage Pestilence rottenness of air famine floods and ruine of those places wherein they are commorant and have their abiding so do they know to chuse a good air and fore-know fertility of fruits earth-quakes and great tempests When Helice was destroyed five days before the Serpents Snakes Rats Mice and Weasels departed all out thereof being wiser then Men that misdeeming no harm although they saw and wondered at these removals yet stood it out to their own utter ruine overthrow and destruction Of the friendship and enmity which Serpents keep with
tettereth and reeleth that the violent beast taketh a man out of it or else clean over-turneth it to the destruction of all that are in it Aelianus saith that among the Ombitae which are in Arsinoe the Crocodiles are harmlesse and having several names when they are called do put their heads out of the water and take meat gently which meat is the head and garbage of such sacrifices as are brought thither But in another place he writeth that among the Ombitae or Coptitae it is not safe for a man to fetch water from the River or to wash their feet or walk on the Rivers side but with great caution and warinesse For even those beasts which are most kindely used by men do rage against their Benefactors as namely the Crocodile the Ichneumon the Wilde-cats and such like And yet Plutarch in his Book Vtra animalium saith that the Priests by the custom of meat-giving have made some of them so tame that they will suffer their mouths and teeth to be cleansed by men And it is further said that during the seven Ceremonial days of the nativity of Apis there is none of them that sheweth any wilde trick or cruel part but as it were by compact betwixt them and the Priests they lay aside all cruelty and rage during that time And therefore Cicero writeth most excellently saying Aegyptiorum morem quis ignoret quorum imbutaementes pravitatum erroribus quamvis carnificinam potius subierint quam ibim aut aspidem aut Crocodil 〈…〉 violent That is to say Who is ignorant of the custom of the Egyptians whose mindes are so seasoned and indued with erroneous wickednesse that they had rather undergo any torment then offer violence to an Ibis an Asp or a holy Crocodile For in divers places all these and Cats also were worshipped by the people according to the saying of Juvenal Crocodilon adorat pars haec Aegypti Illa pavet saturam Serpentibus Ibim Which may be Englished thus This part of Egypt Crocodiles adore That the Ibis fed with Serpents store But the reason of divine worship or honour given to the Crocodiles are worth the noting that the diligent Reader may the better have some taste of that ancient blindenesse whereby our fore-fathers were misted and seduced to forsake the most glorious and ever-blessed principles of Divinity for arguments of no weight First therefore the Idolatrous Priests thought there was some divine power in the Crocodile because it wanted a tongue for the Deity or Divine speech hath no need of a voyce to expresse his meaning according to the saying of the Grecians Kai di apsophon bainoon keleuthon kai dikes ta thueta agrikata diken For by a mute and silent way it ascendeth and bringeth all things mortal to a vocal justice which speaketh in action though not in in voyce even as all that is in the Crocodile is action and not voyce Secondly by reason of a certain thin smooth skin coming from the midst of his fore-head wherewithall it covereth his eyes so that when it is thought to be blinde yet it seeth even so is it with the Divine power for even then when it is not seen yet doth it see perfectly all mortal things Again by their egges and nests they usually fore-shew the over-flowing of Nilus to the infinite benefit of their Countrey wherein they live for thereby the husband-men know when to till their land and when not when to sow and plant and lead forth their flocks and when not which benefit is also ascribed to Divinity and therefore the Crocodile is honoured with divine power Again it layeth threescore egges and liveth threescore years which number of threescore was in ancient time the first dimension of heaven and heavenly things Cicero also speaking against this Egyptian vanity saith that they never consecrated a beast for a God but for some apparent utility as the Ibis for devouring of Serpents and the Crocodile for being a terror to theeves and therefore the Arabian and Lybian theeves durst not come over the River Nilus to rob the Egyptians for fear of the Crocodiles There is a tale in Diodorus Siculus of the original of a Crocodiles divine worship which although it cannot be but fabulous yet I have thought good to insert it in this place to shew the vanity of superstition and Idolatry There was a King of Egypt called Minas or as Herodotus calleth him Menes who following his Hounds in hunting into a certain marish of Moeris fell in with his Horse and there stuck fast none of his followers daring to come after him to release him so that he had there perished had not a Crocodile come and taken him up upon his back and set him safe upon the dry land For which miracle the said King built there a City and caused a Crocodile to be worshipped which was called Sychus by all the Inhabitants of that City and also gave all the said Marish of Moeris for the sustenance of the same It was nourished with bread flesh and Wine Cakes sod slesh and sweet new Wine so that when any man came to the Lake wherein it was kept the Priests would presently call the beast out of the water and being come to the land one of them opened his mouth and the other put in meat delicacies and Wine This Crocodile of Moeris is the same that is called Arsinoe and like to that at Thebes about which they did hang jewels of gold silver and jems of ear-rings bracelets and such other things of price When it dyed they did season the body thereof with salt and buryed it in the holy Tombes or burying Pots The same also are called Ombitae I mean the people of that Egypt which dwell in Arsinoe and for the love of the Crocodiles they abandon all manner of Hawks their enemies insomuch that many times they take them and hang them up in publique upon gallows for that purpose erected And further they keep certain days of triumphs like the Olympiades and games of honour and so far they were blinded with that superstition that they thought themselves exceedingly blessed if they lost their children by them and thought themselves much honoured if they saw them with their eyes fetched out of the streets and playing places by Crocodiles Again all the Egyptians hold opinion that the Crocodile is a Divinator which they prove by the testimony of Ptolomeus who calling one of the sacred Crocodiles which was the oldest and best of all he would not answer him and afterward offering him meat he also refused it whereat many wondered and some of the Priests said it was some prognostical sign either of the Kings death or his own and so it fell out shortly after for the same Crocodile dyed As though a Swine might not as well be accounted divine seeing it also refuseth all meat and provocation at the time of their sicknesse and before death There is a City in Egypt called Apollinopolis the City of Apollo
fulfild And let it dry before Grashoppers green Thus made is good for Sinews cold Or nummed fingers whose force hath been By heat extending what cold band did hold The wounds that come by the biting or stinging of this Serpent are not great but very small and scarcely to be discerned outwardly yet the accidents that follow are like to those which ensue the bitings of Vipers namely inflamation and a lingering death The cure thereof must be the same which is applyed unto the sting of Vipers And peculiarly I finde not any medicine serving for the cure of this poyson alone except that which Pliny speaketh of namely Coriander drunk by the patient or laid to the sore It is reported by Galen and Grevinus that if a woman with childe do chance to go over one of these Double-headed Serpents dead she shall suffer abortment and yet that they may keep them in their pockets alive without danger in boxes The reason of this is given by Grevinus because of the vapour ascending from the dead Serpent by a secret antipathy against humane nature which suffocateth the childe in the mothers womb And thus much for this Serpent Of the DRAGON AMong all the kindes of Serpents there is none comparable to the Dragon or that affordeth and yeeldeth so much plentiful matter in History for the ample discovery of the nature thereof and therefore herein I must borrow more time from the residue then peradventure the Reader would be willing to spare from reading the particular stories of many other But such is the necessity hereof that I can omit nothing making to the purpose either for the nature or mortality of this Serpent therefore I will strive to make the description pleasant with variable history seeing I may not avoid the length hereof that so the sweetnesse of the one if my pen could so expresse it may countervail the tediousnesse of the other The Hebrews call it Thanin and Wolphius translateth Oach a Dragon in his Commentaries upon Nehemiah The Chaldees call it Darken and it seemeth that the Greek word Dracon is derived of the Chaldâ—â— We read of Albedisimon or Ahedysimon for a kinde of Dragon and also Alhatraf and Hauden Haren carnâ—m and such other terms that may be referred to this place The Grecians at this day call it Drakos the Germans Trach Lindtwarm the French Vn Dragon the Italians Drago and Dragone The derivation of the Greek word beside the conjecture afore expressed some think to be derived from Derkein because of their vigilant eye-sight and therefore it is faigned that they had the custody not only of the Golden-fleece but also of many other treasures And among other things Alciatus hath an emblem of their vigilancy standing by an unmarried Virgin Vera haec effigies innuptae est Palladis ejus Hic Draco qui dominae constitit ante pedes Cur Divae comes hoc animal custadia rerum Huic data sic lucos sâ—craque templa colit Innuptas opus est cura asservare puellas Pervigili laqueos undique tendit amor Which may be Englished thus This Dragon great which Lady Pallas stands before Is the true picture of unmarried Maids But why a consort to the Goddesse is this and more Then other beasts more meek who never fades Because the safegard of all things belong to this â—et Wherefore his house in Groves and sacred Temples Vnmarried Maids of guards must never misse Which watchful are to void loves snares and net For this cause the Egyptians did picture Serapis their God with three heads that is to say of a Lyon in the middle on the right hand a meek fawning Dog and on the left hand a ravening Wolf all which forms are joyned together by the winding body of a Dragon turning his head to the right hand of the God which three heads are interpreted to signifie three times that is to say by the Lyon the present time by the Wolf the time past and by the fawning Dog the time to come all which are guarded by the vigilancy of the Dragon For this cause also among the fixed Stars of the North there is one called Draco a Dragon all of them ending their course with the Sun and Moon and they are in this Sphear called by Astronomers the Intersections of the Circles the superior of these ascending is called the head of the Dragon and the inferior descending is called the tail of the Dragon And some think that GOD in the 38. of Job by the word Gneish meaneth this Sign or Constellation To conclude the ancient Romans as Vegetius writeth carryed in all their Bands the Escutchion of a Dragon to signifie their fortitude and vigilancy which were born up by certain men called for that purpose Draconarii And therefore when Constantius the Emperor entered into the City of Rome his souldiers are said to bear up upon the tops of their spears Dragons gaping with wide mouths and made fast with golden chains and pearl the winde whistling in their throats as if they had been alive threatning destruction and their tails hanging loose in the air were likewise by the winde tossed to and fro as though they strove to come off from the spears but when the winde was laid all their motion was ended whereupon the Poet saith Mansuescunt varii vento cessante Dracones In English thus When whistling winde in air ceast The Dragons tamed then did rest The tale also of the Golden-fleece if it be worth any place in this story deserveth to be inserted here as it is reported by Diodorus Siculus When Aetes reigned in Pontus he received an answer from the Oracle that he should then dye when strangers should come thither with ships and fetch away the Golden-fleece Upon which occasion he shewed himself to be of a cruel nature for he did not only make Proclamation that he would sacrifice all strangers which came within his Dominions but did also perform the same that by the fame and report of such cruelty he might terrifie all other Nations from having accesse unto that Temple Not contented herewith he raised a great strong wall round about the Temple wherein the Fleece was kept and caused a sure watch or guard to attend the same day and night of whom the Grecians tell many strange fables For they say there were Bulls breathing out fire and a Dragon warding the Temple and defending the Fleece but the truth is that these watchmen because of their strength were called Bulls because of their cruelty were said to breath out fire and because of their vigilancy cruelty strength and terror to be Dragons Some affirm again that in the Gardens of Hesperides in Lybia there were golden Apples which were kept by a terrible Dragon which Dragon was afterward slain by Hercules and the Apples taken away by him and so brought to Eurystheus Others affirm that Hesperides had certain flocks of sheep the colour of whose wooll was like gold and they were kept by a valiant shepheard
thereof And thus much for the Hydra whether it be true or fabulous Of innocent SERPENTS I Doe read of two kindes of innocent Serpents one called Lybies because they are only in Africk and never do hurt unto men and therefore Nicander was deceived which maketh this kinde of Serpent to be the same with the Amâ—dyte whose sting or teeth are very mortall and deadly There be also other kindes of harmlesse Serpents as that called Molurus Mustaca and Mylacris which is said to go upon the tail and it hath no notable property except that one thing which giveth it the name for Molurus is derived from Molis Ourâ—n that is hardly making water There be also domesticall innocent Serpents Myagrus Orophia and Spathiurus which whether they be one kinde or many I will not stand upon for they are all termed by the Germans Hussunck and Husschlang that is a House-snake They live by hunting of Mice and Weasels and upon their heads they have two little ears like to the ears of a Mouse and because they be as black as coals the Italians call them Serpe nero and Carbon and Garabonazzo and the French-men Anguille de Hay that is a Snake of hedges There be some that nourish them in Glasses with branne and when they are at liberty they live in Dung-hills also wherein they breed sometimes they have been seen to suck a Cow for then they twist their tails about the Cowes legs Matthiolus writeth that the flesh of this Snake when the head tail intrails fat and gall are cut off and cast away to be a speciall remedy a-against the French-pox There are are also other kindes of Innocent Serpents as that called Parea and in Italy Baron and Pagerina which are brought out of the East where these are bred There be no other harmfull Serpents in that Countrey They are of a yellow colour like Gold and about four spans long upon either side they have two lines or strakes which begin about a hand breadth from their neck and end at their tail They are without poyson as may appear by the report of Gesner for he did see a man hold the head alive in his hand And thus much shall suffice to have spoken of Innocent Serpents Of the LIZARD ALthough there be many kinds of Lizards yet in this place I will intreat first of the vulgar Lizard called in the Hebrew Letaah Lanigermâ—sha Lyserda Carbo Pelipah and Eglose the Chaldeans Haltetha and Humeta the Arabians Ataia Albathaie or Albadaie Hardun Atab Samabras Saambras the Grecians in ancient time Sauros and Saura and vulgarly at this day Kolisaura the Italians in some places Liguro â—â—eguro Lucerta and Lucertula about Trent Racani and Ramarri and yet Remarro is also used for a Toad the Spaniards Lagarto Lacerta Lagartisa and Lagardixa the French Lisarde the Germans Adax and when they distinguish the male from the female they expresse the male Ein Egochs and the female Egles in Hessia Lydetstch in Flanders and Illyria Gessierka and Gesstier the Latines Lacertus and Lacerta because it hath arms and shoulders like a man and for this cause also the Salamander the Stellion the Crocodile and Scorpions are also called sometimes Lacerti Lizards And thus much shall suffice for the name The vulgar Lizard is described on this sort the skin is hard and full of scales according to this saying of Virgil Absint picti squalentia terga Lacerti In English thus Those put away And painted Lizards with their scalie backs The colour of it is pale and distinguished with certain rusty spots as Pliny writeth with long strakes or lines to the tail but generally they are of many colours but the green with the white belly living in bushes bedges and is the most beautifull and most respected and of this we shall peculiarly intreat hereafter There have been some Lizards taken in the beginning of September whose colour was like Brasse yet dark and dusky and their belly partly white and partly of an earthy colour but upon either side they had certain little pricks or spots like printed Scarres their length was not past four fingers their eyes looked backward and the holes and passages of their ears were round the fingers of their feet were very small being five in number both before and behind with small nails and behind that was the longest which standeth in the place of a mans fore-finger and one of them standeth different from the other as the thumb doth upon a mans hand but on the forefeet all of them stand equall not one behinde or before another These little Lizards do differ from the Stellions in this that they have bloud in their veins and they are covered with a hard skin winking with the upper eye-lid All manner of Lizards have a cloven tongue and the top thereof is somewhat hairy or at the least wise divided like the fashion and figure of hair Their teeth are also as small as hair being black and very sharp and it seemeth also they are very weak because when they bite they leave them in the wound Their lungs are small and dry yet apt to swell and receive windâ— by inflamation their belly is uniform and simple their intrails long their Milt round round and small and their stones cleave inwardly to their loyns their tail is like the tail of a Serpent and it is the opinion of Aristotle that the same being cut off groweth again The reason whereof is given by Cardan because imperfect creatures are full of moystnesse and therefore the parts cut off do easily grow again And Pliny reporteth that in his dayes he saw Lizards with double tails whereunto Americus Vespusius agreeth for he saith that he saw in a certain Island not far from Lisbon a Lizard with a double tail They have four feet two behinde and two before and the former feet bend backward and the hinder feet forward like to the knees of a man Now concerning the different kinds of Lizards I must speak as briefly as I can in this place wherein I shall comprehend both the Countreys wherein they breed and also their severall kinds with some other accidents necessary to be known There is a kinde of Lizard called Guarell or Vâ—ell and Alguarill with the dung whereof the Physitians do cure little pimples and spots in the face and yet Belâ—unensis maketh a question whether this be to be referred to the Lizards or not because Lizards are not found but in the Countrey out of Cities and these are found every where There is also another kinde of Lizard called Lacertus Martensis which being salted with the head and purple Wooll Oyl of Cedar and the powder of burnt Paper so put into a linnen cloth and rubbed upon a bald place do cause the hair that is fallen off to come again There be other Lizards called by the Grecians Arurae and by the Latines Lacertae Pâ—ssininae which continually abide in green corn these burned to powder and the same
and upon the ridge of his back all along to the tail and underneath upon the rine or brim of his belly are certain hairs growing or at the least thin small things like hairs the tail being shut up in one undivided fine Of this kind no doubt are those which Bellonius saith he saw by the lake Abydus which live in the waters and come not to the land but for sleep for he affirmeth that they are like land Serpents but in their colour they are red spotted with some small and dusky spots Gillius also saith that among the multitude of Sea Serpents some are like Congers and I cannot tell whether that of Virgil be of this kinde or not spoken of by Laocoon the Priest of Neptune Solennes taurum ingentem mactabat adaras Ecce autem gemini à Tenedo tranquilli per alta Horreico referens immensis orbibus angues Incumbunt peiago pariterque adlittora tendunt Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta jubaeque Sanguineae exuperant andas pars caetera pontum Pone legit sinuatque immensa volumine terga Fit sonitus spurnante salo c. Which may be Englished thus 〈◊〉 be a Bull at Alâ—ars solemn sacrifice 〈◊〉 I fear to tell two monstrom Snakes appeared Out of Tenedus shore both calm and deep did rise One pâ—â—t in Sea the other on Land was reared Their 〈◊〉 and red bloud manes on waters mounted But back and tail on Land from foaming Sea thus sounded Of the SALAMANDER I Will not contrary their opinion which reckon the Salamander among the kindes of Lizards but leave the assertion as somewhat tolerable yet they are not to be followed or to be believed which would make it a kinde of Worm for there is not in that opinion either reason or resemblance What this Beast is called among the Hebrews I cannot learn and therefore I judge that the Jews like many other Nations did not acknowledge that there was any such kinde of creature for ignorance bringeth infidelity in strange things and propositions The Grecians call it Salamandra which word or term is retained almost in all languages especially in the Latine and therefore Isidore had more boldnesse and wit then reason to derive the Latine Salamandra quasi Valincendram resisting burning for being a Greek word it needeth not a Latine notation The Arabians call it Saambras and Samabras which may well be thought to be derived or rather corrupted from the former word Salamandra or else from the Hebrew word Semamit which signifieth a Stellion Among the Italians and Rhaetians it retaineth the Latine word and sometimes in Rhaetia it is called Rosada In the Dukedom of Savoy Pluvina In France Sourd Blande Albrenne and Arrassade according to the divers Provinces in that Kingdom In Spain it is called Salamamegua In Germany it is called by divers names as Maall and Punter maall Olm Moll and Molch because of a kinde of liquor in it like milk as the Greek word Molge from amelgein to suck milk Some in the Countrey of Helvetia do call it Quatiertesh And in Albertus it is likewise called Rimatrix And thus much may suffice for the name thereof The description of their several parts followeth which as Avioâ—n and other Authors write is very like small and vulgar Lizard except in their quantity which is greater their legs taller and their tail longer They are also thicker and fuller then a Lizard having a pale white belly and one part of their skin exceeding black the other yellow like Verdigrease both of them very splendent and glistering with a black line going all along their back having upon it many little spots like eyes And from hence it cometh to be called a Stellion or Animal stellatum a creature full of stars and the skin is rough and bald especially upon the back where those spots are out of which as writeth the Scholiast issueth a certain liquor or humor which quencheth the heat of the fire when it is in the same This Salamander is also four-footed like a Lizard and all the body over it is set with spots of black and yellow yet is the sight of it abominable and fearful to man The head of it is great and some-times they have yellowish bellies and tails and sometimes earthy It is some question among the learned whether there be any discretion of sex as whether there be in this kinde a male and a female Pliny affirmeth that they never engender and that there is not among them either male or female no more then there are among Eeles But this thing is justly crossed both by Bellonius and Agricola for they affirm upon their own knowledge that the Salamander engendereth her young ones in her belly like unto the Viper but first conceiveth egs and she bringeth forth forty and fifty at a time which are fully perfected in her womb and are able to run or go so soon as ever they be littered and therefore there must be among them both male and female The Countries wherein are found Salamanders are the Region about Trent and in the Alpes and sometime also in Germany They most commonly frequent the coldest and moistest places as in the shadow of Woods in hedges neer Fountains and Rivers and sometimes they are found among Corn and Thorns and among Rocks They are seldom seen except it be either in the Spring-time or against rain and for this cause it is called Animal vernale and Pluviosum a Spring or rainy creature And yet there were many of them found together in a hole neer unto the City Sneberg in Germany in the month of February for they love to live in flocks and troups together and at another time in November a living Salamander was found in a Fountain How beit if at any time it be seen forraging out of his den or lodging place it is held for an assured presage of rain But if the Spring-time fortune to be cold or frosty then they keep home and go not visibly abroad Some do affirm that it is as cold as Ice and that it therefore quencheth heat or fire like a piece of Ice which if it be true then is the old Philosophical Maxime utterly false namely that all living creatures are hot and moist being compared to creatures without life and sense for there is not any dead or senselesse body that so quencheth fire as Ice doth But the truth is that the Salamander is cold and colder then any Serpent yet not without his natural heat which being compared to Armans may truly be said to be hot and therefore the venom of the Salamander is reckoned among Septicks or corroding things It naturally loveth milk and therefore sometimes in the Woods or neer hedges it sucketh a Cow that is laid but afterwards that Cows udder or stock dryeth up and never more yeeldeth any milk It also greatly loveth the Honey-combe and some Authors have affirmed that they use to gape after air or fresh breath like the Chamaeleon yet
of all Controversie and Rhodiginus thinketh it a very significant word derived from the people Marsi because they carryed about Vipers The Mountebanks do also call Suffili from Sibila the hissing voyce which it maketh Some will have Nepa to be also a Viper yet we have shewed that already to signifie a Scorpion The Grecians say that the Viper is called Echidna para to echein in eaute ten gonen achri thanaton because to her own death she beareth her young one in her belly and therefore the Latines do also call it Vipera quasi Vi pariat because it dyeth by violence of her birth or young and they attribute unto it venom and pestilence and generally there are few Epithets which are ascribed to the Serpent but they also belong unto this There is a precious stone Echites greenish in colour which seemeth to be like a Viper and therefore taketh name from it Also an herb Echite like Scammony and Echidmon or Viperina In Cyrene there are Mice which from the similitude of Vipers are called Echenatae Echâ—on was the name of a man and â—châ—onidae and Echionii of people and Echidnon a City beside the Sea Aegeum Also the Eagle which by the Poets is faigned to eat the heart of Pâ—omeâ—heus is likewise by them said to be begotten betwixt Typhon and Echidna and the same Echidna to be also the Mother of Chimaera which from the Navel upward was like a Virgin and downward like a Viper of which also Diodorus Siculus and Herodotus telleth this story When Hercules was driving away the Oxen of Geryon he came into Scythia and there fell asleep leaving his Mares feeding on his right hand in his Chariot and so it happened by divine accident that whiles he slept they were removed out of his sight and strayed away from him Afterward he awaked and missing them sought all over the Countrey for them at last he came unto a certain place where in a Cave he found a Virgin of a double natured proportion in one part resembling a Maid and in the other a Serpent whereat he wondered much but she told him that if he would lie with her in carnal copulation she would shew him where his Mares and Chariot were whereunto he consented and begat upon her three Sons famous among Poetical Writers Namely Agathyrsus Gelonus and Scythus but I will not prosecute either the names or these fables any further and so I will proceed to the description of Vipers The colour of Vipers is somewhat yellowish having upon their skin many round spots their length about a cubit or at the most three palms The tail curled at the end very small and sharp but not falling into that proportion equally by even attenuation growing by little and little but unevenly sharped on the sudden from thicknesse to thinnesse It is also without flesh consisting of skin and bone and very sharp The head is very broad compared with the body and the neck much narrower then the head the eyes very red and flaming the belly winding upon which it goeth all in length even to the tail and it goeth quickly and nimbly some affirm that it hath two canine teeth and some four And there is some difference betwixt the male and female the female hath a broader head the neck is not so eminent a shorter and thicker body a more extended tail and a softer pace and four canine teeth Again the male hath a narrower head a neck swelling or standing up a longer and thinner body and a swifter pace or motion so that in the Pictures proposed in this discourse the first of them are for the male and the last for the female this is the peculiar outward difference betwixt the male and the female Vipers Avicen saith besides that the tails of Vipers make a noise when they go or move Those are taken to be the most generous and lively that have the broadest and hollowest head like a Turbot quick and lively eyes two canine teeth and a gristle or claw in the nose or tail a short body or tail a pale colour a swift motion and bearing the head upward For the further description of their several parts Their teeth are very long upon the upper chap and in number upon either side four and those which are upon the neather gum are so small as they can scarce be discerned until they be rubbed and pressed but also it is to be noted that while they live or when they be dead the length of their teeth cannot appear except you take from them a little bladder in which they lie concealed In that bladder they carry poyson which they infuse into the wound they make with their teeth they have no ears yet all other living creatures that generate their like and bring forth out of their bellies have ears except this the Sea-calf and the Dolphin yet in stead hereof they have a certain gristly cave or hollownesse in the same place where ears should stand The womb and place of conception saith Pliny is double but the meaning is that it is cloven as it is in all females especially Women and Cows They conceive Egges and those Egges are contained neer their reins or loins Their skin is soft yeelding also to any stroke and when it is fleyed off from the body it stretcheth twice so big as it appeared while it covered the living Serpent To conclude Phyliologus writeth that their face is somewhat like the face of a man and from the Navel it resembleth a Crocodile by reason of the small passage it hath for his egestion which exceedeth not the eye of a Needle It conceiveth at the mouth And thus much for the description in general There is some difference among this kind also according to the distinction of place wherein they live for the Vipers in Aethiopia are all over black like the men and in othes Countreys they differ in colour as in England France Italy Greece Asia and Aegypt as writeth Bellonius There is scarce any Nation in the World wherein there are not found some Vipers The people of Amyctae which were of the Grecian bloud drove away all kind of Serpents from among them yet they had Vipers which did bite mortally and therefore could never be cured being shorter then all other kinds of Vipers in the World Likewise in Arabia in Syagrus the sweet Promontory of Frankincense the Europaean Mountaines Seiron Pannonia Aselenus Corax and Riphaeus the Mountaines of Asta Aegages Bucarteron and Cercaphus abound with Vipers Likewise Aegypt and in all Africa they are found also and the Africans affirm in detestation hereof that it is not so much Animal as Malum naturae that is A living Creature as evill of Nature To conclude they are found in all Europe Some have taken exceptions to Crete because Aristotle writeth that they are not found there but Bellonius affirmeth that in Crete also he saw Vipers which the Inhabitants call by the name of Cheudra which seemeth
Gordianus And the reason of this name is not improbably derived from Belba a City of Egypt Pincianus a learned man calleth it Grabâ—hier because it hunteth the Scpulchres of the dead Albertus in stead of Hyaena calleth it Iona. The Arabians call it Kabo and Zabo or Ziba and Azaro I take it also to be the same Beast which is called Lacta and Ana and Zilio because that which is reported of these is true in the Hyaena they frequent graves having sharp teeth and long nails being very fierce living together in herds and flocks and loving their own kinde most tenderly but most pernicious and hateful to all other being very crafty to set upon a fit prey defending it self from the rage of stronger Beasts by their teeth and nails or else by flight or running away Wherefore we having thus expressed the name we will handle the kinds which I finde to be three the first Hyaena the second Papio or Dabuâ— the third Crocuta and Leucrocuta whereunto by conjecture we may add a fourth called Mantichora The Figure of the first HYAENA THis first and vulgar kinde of Hyaena is bred in Africk and Arabia being in quantity of body like a Wolfe but much rougher haired for it hath bristles like a Horses mane all along his back and in the middle of his back it is a little crooked or dented the colour yellowish but bespeckled on the sides with blew spots which make him look more terrible as if it had so many eyes The eyes change their colour at the pleasure of the beast a thousand times a day for which cause many ignorant writers have affirmed the same of the whole body yet can he not see one quarter so perfectly in the day as in the night and therefore he is called Lupus vespertinus a Wolf of the night The skilful Lapidarists of Germany affirm that this beast hath a stone in his eyes or rather in his head called Hyaena or Hyaenâ—us but the Ancients say that the apple or puple of the eye is turned into such a stone and that it is indued with this admirable quality that if a man lay it under his tongue he shall be able to foretel and prophesie of things to come the truth hereof I leave to the reporters Their back-bone stretcheth it self out to the head so as the neck cannot bend except the whole body be turned about and therefore whensoever he hath occasion to wry his neck he must supply that quality by removing of his whole body This Beast hath a very great heart as all other Beasts have which are hurtful by reason of their fear The genital member is like a Dogs or Wolfs and I marvail upon what occasion the writers have been so possessed with opinion that they change sexes and are some-time male and another female that is to say male one year and female another according to these Verses Si tamen est aliquid mirae novitatis in istis Alternate vices quae modo foemina tergo Passa marem est nunc esse marem miremur Hyaenam Both kindes have under their tails a double note or passage in the male there is a scissure like the secrets of a female and in the female a bunch like the stones of the male but neither one nor other inward but only outward and except this hath given cause of this opinion I cannot learn the ground thereof only Orus writeth that there is a Fish of this name which turneth sex and peradventure some men hearing so much of the Fish might mistake it more easily for the four footed Beast and apply it thereunto These engender not only among themselves but also with Dogs Lions Tygers and Wolves for the Ethiopian Lion being covered with an Hyaena beareth the Crocuta The Thoes of whom we shall speak more afterward are generated betwixt this Beast and a Wolf and indeed it is not without reason that God himself in holy Scripture calleth it by the name of a Vesperti 〈…〉 Wolfe seeing it resembleth a Wolf in the quantity colour in voracity and gluttoning in of flesh in subtilty to overcome Dogs and Men even as a Wolf doth silly Sheep Their teeth are in both Beasts like sawes their genitals alike and both of them being hungry range and prey in the night season This is accounted a most subtill and crafty beast according to the allusive saying of Mantuan Est in â—iâ— Pietas Crocodili asturia Hyaenâ— And the female is far more subtill then the male and therefore more seldom taken for they are afraid of their own company It was constantly affirmed that among eleven Hyaenaes there was found but one female it hath been believed in ancient time that there is in this beast a Magical or enchanting power for they write that about what creature so ever he goeth round three times it shall stand stone-still and not be able to move out of the place and if Dogs do but come within the compasse of their shadow and touch it they presently lose their voice and that this she doth most naturally in the full moon for although the swiftness or other opportunity of the Dogs helpeth them to flie away from her yet if she can but cast her shadow upon them she easily obtaineth her prey She can also counterfeit a mans voice vomit cough and whistle by which means in the night time she cometh to Houses or folds where Dogs are lodged and so making as though she vomited or else whistling draweth the Dogs out of doors to her and devoureth them Likewise her nature is if she finde a Man or a Dog on sleep she considereth whether she or he have the greater body if she then she falleth on him and either with her weight or some secret work of nature by stretching her body upon him killeth him or maketh him senselesse whereby without resistance she eateth off his hands but if she finde her body to be shorter and lesser then his then she taketh her heels and flyeth away If a Man meet with this Beast he must not set upon it on the right hand but on the left for it hath been often seen that when in haste it did run by the Hunter on the right hand he presently fell off from his Horse senseless and therefore they that secure themselves from this beast must be careful to receive him on the left side that so he may with more facility be taken especially saith Pliny if the cords wherein he is to be ensnared be fastened with seven knots Aelianus reporteth of them that one of these coming to a Man asleep in a Sheep-cot by laying her left hand or fore-foot to his mouth made or cast him into a deed-sleep and afterward digged about him such a hole like a grave as she covered all his body over with earth except his throat and head whereupon she sat untill she suffocated and stifled him yet Philes
forsook the Mountains and Woods to come and live in fruitful and fertil soils it did fore-shew some great drought and the like divination did Agarista the Mother of Pericles make upon her dream when she was with childe for she thought she brought forth a Lion and so in short time after she brought forth Pericles who was a valiant man and a great Conqueror in Graecia The sight also of a Lion as a man travelleth by the high ways is very ominous and taken for an evil signe There was also a Prophesie given out by Pythias concerning Cypselus the son of Action which said in this manner Concipit in petris aquila enixura Leonem Robustum saevum genua qui multa resolvet Haec bene nunc animis versate Corinthia proles Qui colitis pulchram Pallenem altamque Corinthum In the year of our Lord 1274 there was a certain Noble woman in the Bishoprick of Kostnizer which brought forth a childe like to a Lioness in all parts but it had the skin of a man Unto this discourse I may add the Images of Lions both in Temples and also upon shields and first of all in the Temple where the shield of Agamenmon hung up as Paucennius writeth there was the picture Fear drawn with a Lions head because as the Lion sleepeth little and in his sleep his eyes be open so is the condition of Fear for we have shewed already that the Lion when he sleepeth hath his eyes open and when he waketh he shutteth them and therefore the Ancients did symbolically picture of a Lion upon the doors of their Temples and upon the Ships also in the fore-part of them they ingraved the figure of Lions according to this saying of Virgil Aeneia puppis Prima tenet rostro Phrygios subjecta Leones It was also a usual custom to picture Lions about Fountains and Conduits especially among the Egyptians that the water might spring forth of their mouths Quoniam Nilus arvS◠Aegypti novam uquam invehit sole transeunte Leonem because that Nilus did ove◠flow the fields of Egypt at what time the Sun passed through the sign Leo. Therefore also the River Alpheus was called Leontios poros the Lions fountain because at the heads thereof there were dedicated the pictures of many Lions There was a noble Harlot called Leaena which was acquainted with the tyrannies of Harmodius and Aristogiton for which cause she was apprehended and put to grievous torments to the intent she should disclose them but she endured all unto death never bewraying any part of their counsel After her death the Athenians devising how to honour that vertue and because she was a Harlot or common Curtizan they were not willing to make a statue for her in the likeness of a Woman but as her name was Leaena that signifieth a Lioness so they erected for her the picture of a Lioness and that they might express the vertue of her secresie they caused it to be framed without a tongue Upon the grave of Lais there was a covering containing the picture of a Lion holding a Ram in his fore-feet by the buttocks with an inscription that a Lion held the Ram so do Harlots hold their lovers which Alciatus turned into this Epigram Quid scalptus sibi vult aries quem parte Leaena Vnguibus apprensum posteriore tenet Non aliter captos quod ipsa teneret amantes Vir gregis est aries clune tenetur amans There was also a Lion at Delphos which weighed ten talents of gold and at the entrance of Thermopylae upon the Tombe of Leonides the Captain of the Spartans there stood a Lion of stone Upon the steps of the Capitol of Rome there were two Lions of black Marble touch-stone And the Cyziceni ingraved upon one side of their money the picture of a Lion and on the other side the face of a woman King Solomon built his Ivory Throne upon two Lions of Brass and upon the steps or stairs ascending up to that Throne were placed twelve Lions here and there And from hence it came that many Kings and States gave in their Arms the Lion Rampant Passant and Regardant distinguished in divers colours in the fields of Or Argent Azure and Sables with such other terms of Art The Earth it self was wont to be expressed by the figure of a Lion and therefore the Image of Atergas was supported with Lions Cybele the faigned Goddess of the Mountains was carryed upon Lions And it is faigned that the Curetes which nourished Jupiter in Creet who was committed to them by his mother Rhea by the anger of Saturn were turned into Lions who afterwards by Jupiter when he reigned were made the Kings of beasts and by him enjoyned to draw the Chariot of his Mother Rhea according to this verse Ei junctae currum Domina subiere Leones There is a constellation in Heaven called the Lion of whom Germanicus writeth in this sort that he is the greatest and most notable amongst the signes of the Zodiack containing three stars in his head and one clear one in his breast and that when the Sun cometh to that signe which happeneth in the month of July at which time the vehement heat of Summer burneth the earth and dryeth up the Rivers And therefore because the Lion is also of a hot nature and seemeth to partake of the substance and quantity of the Sun he hath that place in the Heavens For in heat and force he excelleth all other beasts as the Sun doth all other stars In his breasts and fore-part he is most strong and in his hinder-part more weak so is the Sun encreasing until the noon or fore-part of the year until the Summer and afterwards seemeth to languish towards the setting or later part of the year called the Winter And the Lion also seemeth always to look up with a fiery eye even as the Sun which is patent with the perpetual and infatigal sight upon the earth The Lion also is a signification of the Sun for the hairs of his m 〈…〉 e do resemble the streaming beams of the Sun and therefore this constellation is styled with the same Epithets that the Lion and the Sun are as heat-bearing aestive ardent arent calent hot flammant burning Herculean mad horrible dreadful cruel and terrible It is feigned of the Poets that this Lion was the Nemaean Lion slain by Hercules which at the commandment of Juno was fostered in Arcadia and that in anger against Hercules after his death she placed him in the heavens To conclude this story of the Lions it is reported of the Davils called Onosceli that they slew themselves sometimes in the shapes of Lions and Dogs and the Dog of Serapis which was feigned to have three heads on the left side a Wolfs on the right side a Dogs and in the middle a Lions We have shewed already that the people called Ampraciotae did worship a Lioness because she killed
a Tyrant And the Egyptians builded a City to the honor of Lions calling it Leontopolis and dedicating Temples to Vulcan for their honor And in the porches of Heliopolis there were common stipends for the nourishing of Lions As in other places where they are fed daliy with Beef and have also windowes in their lodgings with great Parkes and spaces allotted unto them for their recreation and exercises with an opinion that the people that came unto them to offer and worship them should see a speedy revenge through divine judgement upon all those that had wronged them by perjury or broken the oath of fidelity To conclude in holy Scripture we finde that our Saviour Christ is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah for as he is a Lamb in his innocency so is he a Lion in his fortitude The Devil also is called a roaring Lion because Lions in their hunger are most of all full of fury and wrath And so I will conclude and end this story of Lions with that Emblem of Alciatus describing how little Hares did rejoyce and leap upon dead Lions Aeacidae moriens percussu cuspidis Hector Qui tâ—ties hostes vicerat ante suos Comprimere haud potuit vocem insult antibus illis Dum curru pedibus nectere vincla parant Distrahite ut libitum est sic cossi luce leonis Convellant barbam vel timidi Lepores The medicines of the Lion The bloud of a Lion being rubbed or spred upon a Canker or upon a sore which is swelled about the veins will presently and without any pain cure and ease the grief thereof Whosoever doth anoint his body all over with the bloud of a Lion may safely and without any danger travel amongst any wilde beasts whatsoever The flesh of a Lion being eaten either by a Man or Woman which is troubled with dreames and fantasies in the night time will very speedily and effectually work him ease and quietness The same also being boyled or baked and given to them which are distraught of their wits to eat doth bring them ease and comfort and renew their wits again it is also very good for the pains of deafness or the ears And being taken in drink it helpeth those which are troubled with the shaking of the joynts or the Palsie Whosoever shall have shooes made of the hide or skin of a Lion or Wolf and wear them upon his feet he shall never have any pain or ach in them They will also defend him that useth them from the Gowt or swelling in the feet or legs The skin or hide of a Lion is also very good for either Man or Woman which are troubled with the piles or swelling of the veins if they shall but at some several times sit upon it The fat of a Lion is reported to be contrary to poison and venemous drinks and being taken in Wine it will by the sent expell all wilde Beasts from any one and it doth also resist and drive away the sent or smell of Serpents by which they follow men to destroy them Whosoever doth anoint his body all over with the tallow or fewet of the reins or kidney of a Lion shall by the sent and savour thereof expell and drive away from him all Wolves how greedy and ravenous soever they be A Man being throughly anointed with the grease of a Lion being melted doth drive away from him and put to flight any living creature whatsoever and also venemous and poisonous Serpents themselves If any wilde Beast be anointed with the tallow or sewet of a Lion which is dissolved and clarified he shall neither be troubled with the stinging of Flies or Bees The fat or grease of a Lion being mingled with Oyl of Roses doth keep the skin of the face free from all blastings and blemishes being annointed thereupon and doth also preserve the whiteness thereof and being mingled with Snow-water doth heal any flesh which is burnt or scorched upon a man and doth also cure the swelling of the joynts The sewet or fat of a Lion being mingled with other ointments and anointed upon the places of either Man or Woman who have any blemishes in any part of their bodies doth presently expell the same The same virtue hath the dung or dirt of a Lion being mixed with the aforesaid unguent The grease of a Lion being dissolved and presently again conglutinated together and so being anointed upon the body of those who are heavie and sad it will speedily extirpate all sorrow and grief from their hearts The same also being mixed with the marrow of a Hart and with Lettice and so beaten and bruised and afterwards mingled all together is an excellent remedy against the shrinking of the Nerves and sinews and the aches of the bones and knuckles about the legs being anointed thereon The grease of a Lion by it self only mixed with a certain ointment is also very profitable to expell the Gowt The same being mingled with Oyl of Roses doth ease and help those which are troubled dayly with Agues and Quartern Fevers The I same also being dissolved and powred into the ears of any one which is troubled with any pain in them will presently free him from the same There is also in this Lions grease another excellent virtue which is this that if the jawbone of any one be swelled and anointed over with this grease being melted it will very speedily avoid the pain thereof The fat or sewet of a Lion being melted and mixed with certain other things and so ministred unto any one that is troubled with the wringing of the bowels and bloudy flux in the same manner as a glyster is used is commended for an excellent remedy for the same The same also being mingled with a certain Oyl and warmed together and anointed upon the head of any one whose hair doth shed or is troubled with the Foxes evill doth immediately help and cure the 〈…〉 The seed of a Hare being mixed with the fat of a Lion and anointed upon the privie 〈◊〉 of any one will stir and incitate them up to lust how chast soever they shall be The fat of a Lion mingled with the fat of a Bear and melted together being anointed upon the belly doth allay and asswage the hardness thereof as also any other pain or grief in the same The brains of a Lion as also of a Cat being taken in drink doth make him and unto whom it is given The same being mingled with some small quantity of Oyl of Spike and powred or distilled into the eares of any one which is deaf or thick of hearing will very effectually cure the deafness If the eye teeth of a Lion be hung about the neck of a young childe before that he cast his teeth and the beginning of his second or new teeth they will keep him for ever from having any ach or pain in them The heart of a Lion being beaten into small powder
so strange proportion But this unkinde and ravening Beast despising their amity society and fellowship maketh but a bait of his golden outside and colour to draw unto him his convenient prey and beguile the innocent fishes for he snatcheth at the nearest and devoureth them tarrying no longer in the water then his belly is filled and yet these simple foolish fishes seeing their fellows devoured before their faces have not the power or wit to avoid this devourers society but still accompany him and weary him out of the waters till he can eat no more never hating him or leaving him but as men which delight to be hanged in silken halters or stabbed with silver and golden bodkins so do the fishes by this golden-coloured-devouring-monster But such impious cruelty is not left unrevenged in nature for as she gathereth the fishes together to destroy them so the Fishermen watching that concourse do entrap both it and them rendering the same measure to the ravener that it had done to his innocent companions And thus much shall suffice for the Subus or Water-sheep Of the SWINE in general The Grecians do also use Sus or Zus Choiros and Suagros The wilde Hog is called Kapron from hence I conjecture is derived the Latine word Apex the Italians do vulgarly call it Porco and the Florentines peculiarly Ciacco and also the Italians call a Sow with Pig Scrofa and Troiata or Porco fattrice The reason why that they call a Sow that is great with Pig Trojata or Trojaria is for the similitude with the Trojan Horse because as that in the belly thereof did include many armed men so doth a Sow in her belly many young Pigs which afterward come to the table and dishes of men A Barrow hog is called Mâ—jalis in Latine and the Italians Porco castrato and Lo Majale The French call a Swine Porceau a Sow Trâ—ye Coche a Bore Verrat a Pig Cochon Porcelet and about Lyons Ca 〈…〉 The barrow Hog they call Por-chastre The Spaniards call Swine Puerco the Germans Saw or Suw Su chwin Schwâ—in a Sow they call Mâ—r and Looss a Bore Aeber which seemeth to be derived from Aper a Barrow Hog Barg a splayed Sow Gultz a Pig Faerle and Scuwle and a sucking Pig Sâ—anfoerle In little Brittain they call a Hog Houch and thereof they call a Dolphin Merhouch The Illyrians call Swine Swinye and Prase the Latines Sus Porcus and Porcelius and Scrofa and these are the common and most vulgar tearms of Swines If there be any other they are either devised or new made or else derived from some of these Concerning the Latine word Sus Isidorus deriveth it from Sub because these Beasts tread under-foot grass and grain and indeed for this cause the Egyptians kept their Swine in the hills all the year long till their seed time for when their corn was sowen they drove them over their new plowed lands to tread in the grain that the Fowls and Birds might not root it or scrape it forth again and for this cause also they spared Swine from Sacrificing But in mine opinion it is better derived from Hus the Greek word For the Latine Porcus is thought to be f 〈…〉 from Porrectus because his snowt is alway stretched forth and so he feedeth digging with it in the earth and turning up the root of trees but I better approve the notation of Isidorus Porâ—us quasi spurcus quia â—oeno limo sevolutat That is because it rowleth and walloweth in the mire Porcâ—tra or Porceta for a Sow that hath had but one farrow and Sc 〈…〉 ppa for a Sow that hath had many The Grecians Hus is derived from Thuein which signifieth to kill in sacrifice for great was the use of sacrificing this beast among the Paynims as we shall shew afterward The ancient Grecians did also tearm Swine Sika and when the Swine-herds did call the Beasts to their meats they cryed Sig Sig as in our Countrey their feeders cry Tig Tig Ch 〈…〉 ros of their feeding and nursing their young ones And indeed from Swine we finde that many men have also received names as cipio Suarius and Tremellius Scrosa whereupon lyeth this history as he writeth when Licinus Nerva was 〈…〉 tor his great Uncle was left Questor in his absence for Macedonia untill the Praetor returned The enemies thinking that now they had gotten opportunity and advantage against their besiegers or assaylants caused an onset to be made and a fight to be offered then his Uncle exhorting the Roman Souldiers to arms told them Seceleriter hostes diljecturum ut Scrofa porcellas That he would as easily cast them off and scatter them as a Sow doth her Pigs sucking her belly which he performed accordingly and so obtained a great victory for which Nerva was made Emperor and he was always evermore afterward called Scrofa Macrobius telleth the occasion of the name of the family of Scrofa somewhat otherwise yet pertaining to this discourse Tremellius saith he was with his family and children dwelling in a certain Village and his servants seeing a stray Sow come among them the owner whereof they did not know presently they slew her and brought her home The neighbour that did owe the Sow called for witnesses of the fact or theft and came with them to Tremellius demanding his Scrofa or Sow again Tremellius having understood by one of his servants the deed laid it up in his Wives bed and covering it over with the clothes caused her to lie upon the Sows carkase and therefore told his neighbour he should come in and take the Scrofa and so had brought him where his wife lay and swore he had no other Sow of his but that shewing him the bed and so the poor man was deceived by a dissembling oath for which cause he saith the name of Scrofa was given to that family There was one Pope Sergius whose christen and first name was Os porci Hogs face and therefore he being elected Pope changed his name into Sergius which custom of alteration of names as that was the beginning so it hath continued ever since that time among all his successors Likewise we read of Porcellus a Grammarian of Porcellius a Poet of Naples who made a Chronicle of the affairs of Frederick Duke of Vrbine Porcius Suillus Verres the Praetor of Sicilia Syadra Sybotas Hyas Hyagnis Gryllus Porcilla and many such other give sufficient testimony of the original of their names to be drawn from Swine and not only men but people and places as Hyatae Suales Chorreatae three names of the Dori in Greece Hyia a City of Locris Hyamena a City of Mesene Hyamajon a City of Troy Hyampolis a City of Phocis whereby to all posterity it appeareth that they were Swineherds at the beginning Exul Hyantaenos invenit regna per agros Hyape Hyops a City in Iberia Hysia a City of Boeotia and Pliny calleth the tall people of Ethiop which were eight cubits
in height Sybotae and the like I might adde of many places Cities People Fountains Plants Engins and devises plentiful in many Authors but I will not trouble the Reader any longer with that which may be but thought to be unnecessary Only I cannot contain my self from the fiction of a Swines name and Testament or last Will for the mirth and wit thereof as it is remembred in Coelius and before in S. Jerom and lastly by Alexander Brassicanus and Geo Fabritius I will express both in Latine and English in this place M. Grunnius Corocotta Porcellus testamentum feai quod quoniam manu men propria scribere non potui scribendum dictavi Magirus cocus dixit veni huc eversor domi soliversor fugitive porcelle ego bodie tibi vitam adimo Corocotta porcellus dixit si qua feci si qua peccavi si qua vascula pedibus meis confregi rogo domine coque veniam peto roganti concede Magirus coquus dixit transipuer adfer mihi de culina cultrum ut hunc porcellum cruentum faciam Porcellus comprehenditur à famulis ductus sub die 16. Cal. Lucern 〈…〉 ubi abundant cymae Clibanato Piperato consulibus ut vidit se moriturum esse horae spacium petiit coquum rogavit ut testamentum facere posset Inclamavit ad se sues parentes ut de cihariis suis aliquid dimitteret eis qui ait Patri nes Verrino Lardino do lego dati glandis madios 30. matri mee Veturrina Scrofe do lego dari Laconteae siliginis modios 40. sorori meae Quirinae in cujus votum intercesse non potui do logo dari hordei modios 30. de meâ—â— visceribus dabâ— donabo sutoribus setas rixatoribus capitinas surdis auriculas causidicis verbosis lingüam bubulariis intestina esiciariis femora mulieribus lumbulos pueris vesicam pueris caudam cinaedis musculos cursoribus venâ—tâ—tibus talos latronibus ungulos neo nominando coquo do lego ac dimino popam pistitlam quae mecum detuleram à querceto usque ad haram liget sibi collum de reste Velo mihi fieri monumentam ex literis aureis scriptum M. Grunnius Corocetta porcellus vixit annos OCCC xâ— 9. quod si semis vixisset mille annos complevisset Optimi amatores mei vel consutes vitae rogo vos ut corpori meo beneficiatis bene condiatis de bonis condimentis nuclei piperis mellis ut nomen meum in sempiternum nâ—â—inetur Mel domini consobrini mel qui huic testamento interfuistis jubete signari Testes Lucanicus signavit Tergillus signavit Nuptialieus sig Celsanus sign Lardio sign Offelicus sign Cymatus sign In English without offence I may translate it thus I M. Grunter Hog-son little Pig have made this my last Will and Testament which because I could not write with my own hand I have caused it to be endited by other Magirus the Cook said unto me come hither thou underminer of houses thou rooter up of land fearful fugitive little Pig I must this day take away thy life To whom Hog-son made this answer If I have done any harm if I have offended if I have trod in pieces any vessels of worth under my feet then Iintreat thee good M. Cook pardon me and grant me my request But Magâ—rus the Cook said Run sir Kitchin-boy and bring me a knife out of the Kitchin that I may let this little Pig bleed presently I the little Pig was taken by the servants and by them led the xvi day of the Calends of Torch-light into the place of Cool-worts when Fiery-furnace and Pepper-spice were Consuls and when I saw no remedy but that I must die I entreated the Cook but an hours space to make my Will Which when I had obtained I call'd my Parents and Friends about me and made my Will in manner following Of all my meat and provision left behinde me first I give unto Bore-brown my father 30 bushels of Buck-mast Item I give to my mother Townsow 40 bushels of the best Wheat Item I give my sister Whine-pig 30 bushels of Barly and for my bowels I bestow them in manner following I bequeath my bristles to the Coblers and Shoomakers my brains to Wranglers my ears to the leaf my tongue to Lawyers and Pratlers my intrails to the Tripe-makers my thighes to the Pye-makers my loins to women my bladder to boys my tail to young maids my muscles to shameless Dancers my anckle-bones to Lackyes and Hunters my hoofs to Thieves Item I give unto this unworthy to be named Cook the Knife and the Pestle that I brought out of the spinny of an Oak into my stye and so let him tie his neck with a halter Also my Will is that there be made for me a monument wherein shall be ingraven in Golden Letters this inscription or title M. Grunter Hog-son Little-pig lived nine hundred ninty nine years and a half and if he had lived but one half year longer he had lived a thousand years And you my Lovers and best Counsellors of my life I beseech you do good to my dead carkase salt it well with the best season of Nutmegs Pepper and Hony that so my name and memory may remain for evermore And you my Masters and Kindred which have been present at the making of my Will I pray you cause your marks to be put thereunto Witnesses Wood-hogs mark Bristle-backs mark Town-boars mark Mountain-hogs mark Bacon-hogs mark Swill-hogs mark Marsh-hogs mark I have expressed this discourse for no other purpose but to shew the Reader what proper feigned names have been or may be given to Swine and so not to hold him any longer in this discourse I will proceed from the names to the natures of this Beast And first of all to begin with the common and vulgar epithets which are as so many short definitions as they are words as that of Horace Amica sus luto a dirt-lover cloven-footed beastly clamorous Acron-eater rough horrible fearful sluggish filthy unclean impatient loud glad of food miry fat wet follower moist greedy tender and milk-sucker according to the Poets sayings Lacte mero pascum pigrae mihi matris alumnum Ponat Aetolo de sue dives edat Swine are in the most Countries of the world Yet Aristotle and Aelian report that there are none in India and Arabia Scein and moreover there is in the people of those countries such a detestation of them that they cannot endure to eat their flesh which is not wrought in them by any instinct or opinion of Religion as it is in the Jews but rather by a natural inclination of the place and Region wherein they live for it is said also that if Swine be brought thither from any other place they die within short space Pliny affirmeth that there are Boars among some of the Indians which have horns and the like is affirmed of the Aethiopians The Swine of Sicily are accounted