touching the generation of Bees and how they multiply and increase much dispute there hath bin among the learned and a nice question this is For first and foremost bees were neuer seen to ingender one with another and therfore most men haue bin of opinion that yong bees must needs be made of floures fitly and hand somely laid together and composed according to Natures lore Others say that one master Bee which is the king in euery swarme doth beget them all and that he forsooth is the only male bigger also than the rest and more strong because he should not faint and faile in the action for without such an one we see there is no breed and him all the other bees attend vpon not as their leader and captain but as the female follow the male Certes this were a good coniectural opinion and sounding to a truth but that the breed of these Drone-bees aforesaid doth checke and ouerthrow it cleare for what reason is there that one and the same maner of procreation should bring forth some perfect others vnperfect The former opinion yet might seeme more probable but for another difficulty and inconuenience that crosseth it too for otherwhiles in the vtmost edges and sides of the combs there are seen to breed the bigger kind of bees which chase and driue the others away and this vermin is called Oestrus i. the gad-bee or horse flie Now if those little wormes or grubs from whence the bees come were made of floures which they themselues formed and brought into fashion how commeth this gad-bee and whereof is he made This is certaine that bees couvy and sit as hens do and that which is after a sort by them hatched seemeth at the first to be a little white grub or magot lying crosse ouerthwart the hony and so fast sticking thereto as if it seemed to feed thereupon The king that shall be at the very first is yellow and of the colour of hony as if he were made of the most choice and excellent floure of all the rest nothing like to a grub as the other but presently hath wings The rest of the multitude when they begin to take some shape are called Nymphae like as the Drones at the beginning be termed Sirenes or Cephenes If a man take their heads from either sort before they be winged it is a most pleasant and excellent meat for the old dams In processe of time as they grow bigger the old bees distill and drop meat into their mouths as they sit vpon them then they keep most humming as some thinke for to set combs into an heat which is requisit and necessarie for the hatching of them and thus they continue till the little pellicles or membranes be broken within which euery one lieth by it selfe as egs and then they break forth all together and shew themselues accomplished bees The manner and experiment hereof was seene vpon a time in a ferme neere vnto Rome belonging to a nobleman of Rome who somtime had bin Consul for he caused his hiues to be made of lanterne horns that a man might see through into them These yong worms be 45 daies before they come to their perfection There is found in some combs a certain bitter thing and hard like to wax which the Latines call Clerus This is as it were the abortiue and vntimely fruit of the bees to wit when either by maladie or idlenesse or rather vpon some barrennesse and vnfruitfull disposition by nature bees are not able to bring the same to perfection As for the yong bees they are not so soon abroad but they begin to labor with their mothers and are trained by them to learn how to gather hony This yong people haue a yong king also vnto whom they make court and whom they follow And many such kings are bred at first for feare lest they should want but when the bees are grown big they all agree with one accord and voice to kill those that be most vntoward among them for feare they should make diuisions factions and siding to parts These kings be of two sorts those that are red all ouer be better than the black or partie-coloured All the race of them be very faire and goodly to see to and twice as big as the rest their wings shorter their legs streight in their port and manner of march more stately carryin in their front a white star like a diadem or coronet far brighter also and more neat they bâ—… than the common sort CHAP. XVII ¶ The regiment of Bees and their gouernment WHat shall a man now dispute about Hercules whether there was but one of that name or many Likewise as touching the Sepulchre of Prince Bacchus where and which it is As also trouble his head in many other such like antiquities buried by long continuance of time For behold in one small matter that is daily seene in our countrey houses in a thing annexed to our fermes and whereof there is such store all Authors who haue written of Agricultâ—…e are not yet resolued namely Whether the king of Bees alone hath no sting and is armed only with majestie or whether Nature hath bestowed a sting vpon him and denied him only the vse thereof For certaine it is that this great commander ouer the rest doth nothing with his sting yet a wonder it is to see how they all are readie to obey him When hee marches abroad the whole armie goes forth likewise then they assemble together and enuiron him round about they are of his guard so close they keep vnited together that they wil not suffer him once to be seen At other times when all his people are busie in labor himselfe as a right good captaine ouerseeth their workes goes about from one to another encouraging them in wel doing and exhorting them to plie their businesse himselfe only exempt from all other trauell pains taking About his person he hath a certaine guard euer attendant he hath his Lictors officers alwaies in readinesse in token of majestie and princely port He neuer sets forward but when the whole swarme is prest likewise to goe forth and in truth long time before a man may perceiue that they be about a voiage and expedition for many daies together there is an extraordinarie humming and noise within whiles they prepare to dislodge trussing vp as it were their bag and baggage and expecting only a faire day of remoue And suppose that the king haue in some battaile lost one of his wings yet will not his hoast forsake him and flie When they be in march each one desires and striues to be next the prince as taking a joy and pride to be seene of him how lustily they performe their deuoir If he begin to be wearie they support him with their shoulders if he be tired indeed and faint outright they cary him full and whole If any one of their owne companie chance to faile for very wearinesse and doe
same which at first was Helix and clasped trees in tract of time changed the leafe and became a very Iuie tree but fouly they are deceiued and disproued plainly they may be by this That of the said clasping Iuie Helix there be many kinds and three principall aboue the rest The first of grasse greene colour which groweth most common the second with a white leafe and the third called also the Thracian Iuie which hath leaues of diuers colours The foresaid greene Iuie is fuller of leaues and those finer and set in better order than in others whereas the contrary is to be seen in the white kind also in the third sort with variety of colours some haue smaller and thinner leaues couched likewise in good order and thicker growing whereas in the middle kind no such thing may be obserued Ouer and besides the leaues of Iuie are bigger or lesse spotted also and marked in which regard one differeth from another Among the white Iuies some be whiter than other The green Iuie groweth most of all others in length the white killeth trees for by sucking and soking al the sap and moisture out of them it feedeth and thriueth so wel it selfe that it becommeth in the end as big as a tree A man may know an Iuie being come to his perfection by these signes the leaues are very big and large withal the tree putteth forth yong shoots straight whereas in others they be crooked and bend inward the berries also stand in their clusters directly vpright Moreouer whereas the branches of all other Iuies be made like vnto roots this hath boughes strong and sturdy aboue the rest and next vnto it the black kind howbeit this property hath the white Iuie by it self that amid the leaues it putteth forth armes that clasp and embrace the tree round on euery side which it doth vpon walls likewise although it cannot so well compasse them And hereupon it is that although it be cut asunder in many places yet it continueth and liueth stil and looke how many such arms it hath so many heads likewise of roots are to be seen whereby it maintaineth it selfe safe and sound and is besides of that force as to suck and choke the trees that it claspeth Furthermore there is great diuersity in the fruit as well of the white as the black Iuie As for the rest the berries of them are so exceeding bitter as no bird wil touch them And yet there is one kind more of Iuy which is very stiffe and standeth alone of it selfe without any prop to beare it vp and this of all others only is therupon called Cissos or Iuie indeed Contrariwise Chamaecissos i. ground Iuie is neuer knowne but to creep along the ground CHAP. XXXV ¶ Of the Bind-weed or Iuie called Smilax LIke vnto Iuie is that plant which they call Smilax or rough Bind-weed It came first out of Cilicia howbeit more commonly it is to be seen in Greece it putteth forth stalks set thicke with ioints or knots and those thrust out many thornie branches The leafe resembleth Iuie and the same is small and nothing cornered from a little stele that it hath it sendeth forth certain pretty tendrils to clasp and wind about the floure is white and smelleth like to a Lilly it beareth clusters comming nearer to those grapes of the wild vine Labrusca than to the berries of Iuie red of color wherof the bigger contain within them 3 kernels or pepins apiece the smaller but one and those be hard and black withall This Smilax is not vsed in any sacrifices or diuine seruice of the gods nor serueth for garlands and chaplets for that it is held to be dolefull and ominous or of an vnlucky presage by occasion of a certain yong lady or Damosell of that name who for the loue of the young gallant and knight Crocus was turned into this shrub or plant retaining still her name which the ignorant people not knowing but taking it for a kind of Iuie stick not to make coronets therof profaning by that means many times their high feasts and sacred solemnities and yet who woteth not with what chaplets Poets are crowned and what garlands prince Bacchus or Silenus vsed to weare Of this Smilax are made certain manuell writing tables And this property moreouer hath the wood thereof That if a man hold it close to his eare he shall heare it to giue a pretty sound But to return againe to the Iuie indeed it hath by report a strange and wonderful vertue to trie wines whether they be delaied with water or no for make a cup of Iuie wood and put wine thereinto all the wine will soke and run through but the water if any be mingled therewith will tarry behind CHAP. XXXVI ¶ Of Reeds Canes and other water shrubs IN this discourse touching plants that loue cold places it wil not be amisse to treat of those that grow in waters Among which the Reeds and Canes may be raunged in the first place for necessarie they be in time both of war and peace they haue their vse besides and are accepted among the delightsom pleasures of this world Moreouer in the Northern regions the people vse therewith to couer and thatch their houses and this kind of roofe will last many ages if it be laid with a thick coat euen vpon high and stately houses In other parts also of the world they are woont with it to make their arch-roufes and hanging floores of most sleight worke As for Canes particularly and those of Aegypt by name which haue a certaine resemblance of the Papyr-reed in Nilus they serue for writing Paper Howbeit those of Gnidos and which grow in Asia along the lake or meere of Anaia be held for the best As for ours heere in Italy they are of a more spungeous substance and gristly matter apt to sucke and drinke vp any liquour The same within-forth is full of holes and concauities but conuerted aloft into a fine wooddy rind and in time becommeth drie fast and hard Apt it is to cleaue and the clifts euermore carry with them a very sharp edge and besides it is full of ioints Now this woodie substance being thus distinctly parted by knots runneth alwaies euen and smooth growing smaller and smaller vntill it proue sharpe pointed in the top with a head consisting of a good thicke downe or plume which serueth also to right good purposes for either in stead of feathers they vse to stuffe beds therewith in common Innes or when it is growne hard and hath a slimie callositie about it they in Picardie and those Nether-lands do stampe it and therewith calfret or calke the ioints of their ships betweene the ribs and plankes and herein it hath no fellow for it taketh faster hold than any glue and for filling vp any rifts and chinks no solder so strong no pitch so sure and trustie Of Reeds the Easterlings make their shafts and archers they be that fight their battels and
and those small round smooth and liker indeed to the young plants of Beets than to other Coleworts whiter also it is and more rougher clad with a mossie downe than is the garden Colewort Chrysippus writeth That it is a soueraigne medicine for flatuosities and such as be oppressed with melancholy that it is a singular salue for fresh wounds being applied with hony but with this charge That the plaster be not taken off in seuen daies Also if it be stamped and applyed with water it is an excellent cataplasme for the Kings euill and fistulous inward vlcers Other Chirurgions and Physitians do affirm that it represseth running corasiue sores which eat into the flesh such as the Greeks name Nomus Item that it doth extenuate and resolue all excrescence of proud ranke or dead flesh yea and it doth incarnat heale vp and skin very faire without skar by their saying Moreouer if it be chewed or the juice therof gargarised with honey so that the herb were sodden before it cureth the sores in the mouth called cankers as also the mumps and inflammation of the kernels in the throat called amygdales or almonds Semblably if a man take three parts of this herbe with twaine of alume and together with Vinegre make a liniment thereof it will clense the inueterate dry scab and the mortified leprosie Epicharmus is of opinion That for the biting of a mad dog a man need doe no more but lay to the sore a cataplasme of this herb alone but surer it were saith he and more effectual if Laser and strong sharp vinegre were ioyned thereto He addeth moreouer and saith That if it be giuen to dogs with some piece of flesh it will kill them And yet the seed being parched is a remedie against the sting of serpents and a countre-poison to venomous Mushroms and Buls bloud The leaues boiled and giuen with meat or otherwise raw and made into a liniment together with brimstone and nitre help those that be diseased in the splene The same liniment mollifies the hard swellings of womens breasts The ashes of the root being burnt cure the uvula or swelling of the wezil in the throat if it be but touched therewith Also a liniment thereof with honey applied to the inflamed kernels behind the eares represseth them yea and healeth the stinging of serpents I haue not yet done with the Colewort and the vertues thereof but one instance more I will giue you to proue the wonderfull force and effect that it worketh If any brasse pot caldron or such like vessel wherin we vse to seeth water ouer the fire haue gathered in continuance of time a fur or crust baked within such as by no washing or scouring can be rid away bee the same neuer so hard deep setled and inueterate boile but a cabbage or Colewort in it and the same will pill and go from the pot sides Among wild worts we may place Lapsana a plant growing to the height of a cubit bearing a furred or hairy leafe like for all the world to the Navew but that the floure is whiter This herb is commonly sodden and eaten in pottage and so taken it moderatly looseneth the belly The sea Colewort otherwise named Soldanella of all others purgeth most forcibly in regard of which acrimonie that it hath to stir the belly Cookes vse to seeth it with fat meat and yet is it most contrary to the stomack Touching Squils of Sea-Onions Physitians hold that the white is the male and the blacke the female but the whitest of them be euer best and of most vse The maner of preparing and dressing them is after this sort First the dry tunicles or skins being pilled off the rest which is quick and fresh vnderneath must be cut into slices so infiled vpon a thred along with a prety distance between euery one and hanged vp to dry afterward when the morcels be sufficiently dried they are to be put hanging stil as they did by a string into a barel or vessel of the strongest and quickest vineger that can be gotten and therein they must hang so as they touch â—…o part of the said vessel but this would be set in hand with 48 daies before the summer solstice Which done the barrel of Vineger beforesaid being well luted and stopped close with plastre must be set vnder a roofe of tiles to receiue the heate of the Sun all the day long from morning to night Now when it hath bin thus sunned so many days as are before named the vessel is remoued from vnder the case of tiles the Squilla taken forth and the vinegre poured out into another vessel This vinegre clarifieth their eie-sight who vse it comfortable it is to the stomack and sides and asswageth their paine if it be taken in small quantitie once in two daies for if a man should dring ouer-liberally of it so forcible it is that it would take away his breath and cause him to seem dead for the time Squilla chewed alone by it selfe is wholsom for the gums and teeth Being drank with vineger and honey it chaseth out of the belly the long flat worms and all other such like vermin If it be but held vnder the tongue while it is greene and fresh it allaieth thirstinesse in the dropsie and causeth that the Patient shall desire no drink The boiling of Squilla or the sea-onion is after many sorts for some after they haue either well luted or els greased it all ouer with fat put it into a pot of earth and then set it into an ouen or Furnace to be baked Others slice it into gobbets and so seeth it between two platters Some take it green and dry it then they cut it in pieces and boile it in vineger and being thus vsed and prepared apply it to the places which be stung with serpents Others againe rost it first in the embres and after they haue cleansed it from the vtmost pilling take the best of it onely in the midâ—… and seeth the same again in water Being thus baked and sod both it serueth to be giuen in a dropsie And if it be drunk to the quantitie of three Oboles with hony and vinegre it prouoketh vrine with ease In like maner this composition is good for those that be troubled with the splene or haue weak and feeble stomacks or be troubled with gnawing and pain there such also as canot hold their meat but it will flote aboue and come vp again prouided alwaies that there be no vlcer within the body Moreouer it is excellent good for the wringing in the guts the jaunise the old cough with shortnesse of wind The leaues emplastred resolue the wens or swelling kernels in the neck commonly called the Kings euil but they must lie fouâ—…e daies before they be remoued Being sodden in oile and reduced to a liniment and so applied it mundifieth the skurfe or dandruffe of the head the running skalls likewise that are bred there It is vsed also boiled
as most times it falleth out that a feuer follow vpon such accidents then the patient must drinke it with water A speciall and effectuall property it hath against certain land-snakes called Chersydri and venomous todes if it be reduced into a liniment and so applied to the sore But Heraclides the Physitian is of opinion That if the said root be boiled in the broth of a goose it is of more efficacie than all other against the Toxica and Aconita But whereas others do boile it in sheere water against the poisons Toxica Appollodorus would haue a frog sodden withal The herb it selfe is of substance hard branching much full of leaues and those beset with pricks A stem or stalk it carieth parted by knots and joints a cubit high somwhat more Moreouer as there is white Erynge so you shal haue of it black The root is odoriferous Eryngion verily commeth vp ordinarily of seeds and by setting But it groweth also in rough and stony places of the own accord And that which we see along the sea shore is harder and blacker than the rest leaued also like common Ach or Persely CHAP. VIII ¶ Of the hearbe or thistle commonly called Centum-Capita i. the hundred heads AS for the white Erynge our countrymen call it in Latine Centum-capita But they be all of one and the same operation and effect And the Greeks verily make their ordinary meat as well of their stalks as roots both waies to wit either raw or boiled as they list Certes there be wonders reported of this herb namely That the root of this white Eryngion which is very geason and hard to be found resembleth one while the male sexe and otherwhiles the female of our kind But if it chance that a man do meet with that Eryngion which is like to that member which distinguisheth him from a woman he shall be very amiable and beloued of women Which was the reason men say that lady Sappho was so enamoured on the yong knight Phao of Lesbos And verily as touching this herb not only the Magitians but the disciples also and followers of Pythagoras tell vs many vain and foolish tales But to come indeed to the vse of it in Physick Ouer and besides those vertues and properties which I haue related already good it is to resolue ventosities it easeth the gripes and wrings in the belly it cureth the diseases and debility of the heart it helpeth the stomack and liuer For the midriffe and precordial parts it is very wholsome taken in honied water and for the spleen in vineger water together Also drunk in mead or honied water aforesaid it is singular for the kidneies the strangury the cramp or crick that pulleth the head of a body backward for other spasmes also and convulsions for the loines the dropsie and the falling sicknesse Soueraigne it is moreouer for womens monthly fleures whether they do stay vpon them or contrariwise run excessiuely from them and in one word it cureth all the accidents infirmities of the matrice Being applied as a liniment with hony it draweth forth any offensiue thing sticking within the body And if it be laid too with salt lard or hogs grease and so incorporat into a cerot it heales the kings euill the swelling kernels within the eares and the flat biles and botches It reioineth also the flesh that is gone from the bone finally soudereth and knitteth broken bones or fractures Taken before a man sit downe to eat or drink it preserueth him from surfet or drunkennesse and bindeth the belly Some of our Latine writers would haue it to be gathered a little before the summer-solstice saying moreouer That if it be applied with rain water it helpeth al the infirmities incident to the nape of the neck and by their report if it be bound to the eies it cureth the pin and the web CHAP. IX ¶ Of Acanus and Liquorice SOme there be who take Acanus for a kind of Eryngium And they describe it to be a low herbe and yet growing broad and large full of prickes and thornes and those likewise bigger than ordinary being applied outwardly wonderfull effectuall it is by their saying to stanch bloud Others there are who haue thought Erynge and Liquorice to be all one but they are deceiued Howbeit for some resemblance that is between them I think it not amisse to set down the description therof immediatly after these Erynges Doubtlesse this Liquorice also is to be counted among these thorny plants for that the leaues stand pricking vp sharp pointed the same are fatty and in handling gummy and glewie It putteth forth many branches and those two cubits high it carrieth a floure in manner of the Hyacinth and beareth fruit resembling bals of the bignesse of those which hang vpon the Plane tree The excellent Liquorice is that which groweth in Cilicia the next for goodnesse commeth from Pontus and hath a sweet root which only is vsed in Physick Taken vp this is and gathered at the setting or occultation of the Brood-hen star and is found running along in the ground in manner of the Vine root in colour like to the Box tree That which is duskish and somwhat black is thought to be the better like as the lithe pliable root which wil wind and turn euery way is preferred before that which is brittle and easie to break Great vse there is of it in those medicines which be held vnder the tongue so to resolue melt leasurely namely after it hath bin sodden to the thirds yea and otherwhiles boiled to the height and consistence of hony Somtimes they vse to bruse it and in that manner they do lay it vpon wounds where it doth much good as also if it be applied to all the diseases and accidents befalling to the throat and jawes The juice of Liquorice reduced to a thick consistence if it be put vnder the tongue is singular for to cleare the voice In like manner it is supposed very wholsome for the brest and liuer And therewith as I haue sayd before both thirst and hunger may be slaked and allaied Which is the cause that some haue called it Adipson and in that regard ministred it to those persons who be fallen into a dropsie for to preuent and take away their thirstinesse Therfore it is thought to be a proper remedy for the diseases of the mouth if it be either chewed or otherwise cast and strewed vpon the vlcers therein and so it cureth the excrescences also and exulcerations about the roots of the nailes Moreouer it healeth the excoriation sorenesse of the bladder assuageth the paine of the kidneies cureth the swelling aking piles the fissures also in the seat and finally the vlcers of the priuy parts Some Physitians haue prescribed to drink in a quartaine ague the weight of two drams of Liquorice one of Pepper in a draught of water to the quantity of a smal pint or hemina this root being
and haue his feet washed in faire water before he commeth to gather it he ought to do sacrifice vnto the gods with bread and wine moreouer no knise or yron toole is to be vsed hereabout neither will any hand serue but the right and that also must do the deed not bare and naked but by some skirt or lappet of his coat between which was done off with the left hand and so closely besides as if he came to steal it away secretly last of all when it is gathered wrapped it must be and caried in a new linnen napkin or towell The Druidae of France haue agreat opinion of this herbe thus gathered and haue prescribed it to be kept as the only preseruatiue against all hurtfull accidents misfortunes what soeuer saying that the fume thereof is singular good for all the infirmites diseases of the eies The Druidae or Prelats of France aboue named make great account of another herb growing in moist grounds which they name Samolus and forsooth if you did well you should gather it fasting with the left hand in any wise in the gathering not look back howsoeuer you do Moreouer when it is thus gathered it ought not to be laid down out of the hand in any place but in the troughs cisterns or channels where swine kine or oxen vse ordinarily to drink where it must be likewise stamped and then without faile the foresaid cattell shal be warished and secured from all diseases As concerning gums I haue heretofore declared how many kinds thereof are to be sound To speak of them in generall The better that any gum is the more effectuall be the operations thereof hurtfull they are to the teeth they haue a property to thicken or coagulat bloud and therefore be good for those who cast and reach vp bloud likewise they be singular for burns as also for the wind pipe and instruments of respiration The superfluous and corrupt vrine within the body they prouoke and giue passage vnto They dul diminish the bitternesse of other medicines wherin they be mingled how soeuer otherwise they be astringent do fortifie other qualities That which commeth from the bitter almonds and is of a stronger operation to thicken and incrassat hath vertue also to heat the body The best gums be those of Plum-trees chery trees and vines they haue all of them a drying and astringent quality if any part be annointed with them and dissolued in vineger they kill the tettars or ringwormes in children heale them vp Being drunk to the weight of foure oboli in new wine they be good for any inueterat cough Moreouer they be thought to make the colour more fresh liuely pleasant to procure and stir vp the appetite to meat also to help those who be pained with the stone in case they be drunk in sweet wine cuit And to conclude with some particularity The gum of the Egyptian thorne is soueraigne for wounds and all accidents of the eies CHAP. XII ¶ Of the Arabian Thorne of the white Thistle Bedegnar of Acanthium and Acacia TOuching the Arabian Thorne or Bush and the commendable qualities therof I haue sufficiently spoken in the treatise of perfumes and odoriferous confections yet thus much moreouer I haue to say of the medicinable vertues that it doth thicken and incrassat thin and rheumatick humors it restraineth all catarrhes and distillations it represseth the reaching vp bloud staieth the immoderat flux of womens monthly terms for which purposes the root is more effectuall than any other part of the plant The seed of the white Thistle is singular for the sting of scorpions a garland made of it and set vpon the head assuageth the paine thereof Much like vnto this is that Thistle which the Greeks call Acanthion but that the leaues be much smaller and those are sharpe pointed and prickly all about the edges and couered with a downe resembling a cobweb which the people of the East countries do gather and therof make certain cloth for garments resembling silke The leaues or roots drunk in substance are supposed to be a singular remedy for the crampe or convulsion which draweth the neck and body backward Moreouer there is a kind of Thorne whereof commeth Acacia and it is the juice thereof It is found in Egypt to issue from certain trees which be white black and green howbeit the best Acacia by far is that which the former that is to say the white and the black do yeeld There is made likewise a kinde of Acacia in Galatia which is most soft and tender and the tree that affoordeth it is more pricky and thorny than the rest The seed or fruit of all these trees is like vnto Lentils but only that the grain is lesse and the cod or huske wherein it lieth smaller The right season to gather this fruit is in Autumn for if it be taken before it is too too strong For to draw this juice which we cal Acacia the cods wherin the grains lie ought to be throughly steeped first in rain water soone after when they be punned or stamped in a mortar the sayd juice is pressed forth with certaine instruments seruing for the purpose which done they let it remaine within mortars in the sun and there take the thickening and so at length reduce it into certain trochisks and reserue them for vse There is a iuice likewise drawne out of the leaues but the same is not so effectual as the other The curriours vse to dresse their skins with the seed or grains therof in lieu of Galls The juice which the leaues of the Galatian thorne aboue said doth yeeld and namely the blackest is reiected for naught like as that also which is of a deepe red colour Contrariwise that which is either purple or ash-colored and russet to see too as also that which will be soone dissolued is of exceeding efficacy to thicken and coole withall and is preferred before all other in colyries or eie-salues now for these vses some are wont to wash the trosches aforesaid others torrifie and burn them They are good to colour the haire of the head black they heale S. Anthonies fire and corrosiue sores yea and all grieuances of the body that consist in moisture they cure any impostumes joints that are bruised kibed heels and the turning vp of the skin and flesh from the naile roots They represse the exceeding flux of womens monthly fleurs the matrice and tiwell if they be slipt and faln out of the body they reduce into their place again In sum for the eies for the sores and infirmities of the mouth and naturall parts seruing for generation they be soueraigne CHAP. XIII ¶ Of the common Thorne of the wilde or wood Thorne of Erysisceptrum of Spina Appendix of Pyxacanthus and Paliurus of Hulver or Holly of Yeugh and Brambles with the medicinable vertues of them all THe common Thorn also wherewith the Fullers vse to fill
whiles some attribute to it the Centaur Chiron others to K. Pharnaces This Panaces is vsually set and planted bearing leaues indented in the edges like a saw and those longer than any of the rest The root is odoriferous which they vse to drie in the shadow and therewith to aromatize their wine for a pleasant and delectable taste it giueth vnto it Hereof they haue made two speciall kinds the one with a thicker leafe the other with a thinner and smaller As for Heracleon Siderion a plant it is also fathered vpon Hercules It riseth vp with a slender stalk to the height of foure fingers bearing a red floure and leaues in manner of the Coriander Found it is growing neare to pooles and riuers and for a wound herb there is not the like especially if the body be hurt by sword or any edged weapon made of yron and steele There is a wild Vine named Ampelos Chironia for that Chiron was the first author thereof Of this plant I haue written in my discourse of Vines vnder the name of Vitis Nigra like as also of another herb which hath the goddesse Minerua for the inuentresse Moreouer vnto Hercules is ascribed Henbane which the Latines call Apollinaris the Arabians Altercum or Altercangenon but the Greeks Hyoscyamus Many kinds there be of it the one beareth black seed floures standing much vpon purple and this herb is full of pricks And in very truth such is the Henbane that groweth in Galatia The common Henbane is whiter and brancheth more than the other taller also than the Poppy The third kinde bringeth forth seed like vnto the graine of Irio All the sort of these already named trouble the brain and put men besides their right wits besides that they breed dizzinesse of the head As touching the fourth it carieth leaues soft full of down fuller and fatter than the rest the seed also is white it groweth by the sea-side Physitians are not afraid to vse this in their compositions no more than that which hath red seed Howbeit otherwhiles this white kinde especially if it be not throughly ripe proueth to be reddish and then it is reiected by the Physitians For otherwise none of them all would be gathered but when they be fully drie Henbane is of the nature of wine and therfore offensiue to the vnderstanding and troubleth the head howbeit good vse there is both of the seed it selfe as it is in substance and also of the oile or iuice drawn out of it apart And yet the stalks leaues and roots are imploied in some purposes For mine owne part I hold it to be a dangerous medicine and not to be vsed but with great heed and discretion For this is certainly knowne That if one take in drink more than foure leaues thereof it will put him beside himself Notwithstanding the Physitians in old time were of opinion that if it were drunk in wine it would driue away an ague An oile I say is made of the seed therof which if it be but dropped into the ears is enough to trouble the brain But strange it is of this oile That if it be taken in drink it serues for a counterpoison See how industrious men haue bin to proue experiments and made no end of trying all things insomuch as they haue found means and forced very poisons to be remedies CHAP. V. ¶ Of Mercury called Linozostis Parthenium Hermupoa or rather Mercurialis of Achilleum Panaces Heracleum Sideritis and Millefoile of Scopa regia Hemionium Teucrium and Splenium of Melampodium or Ellebore and how many kinds there be of it of the black or white Ellebore their medicinable vertues how Ellebore is to be giuen how to be taken to whom and when it is not to be giuen and how it killeth Mice and Rats THe herb Mercury called by the Greeks Linozostis and Parthenion was thought to be first found out by Mercury whereupon many of the Greeks call it Hermu-poa and wee all in Latine name it Mercurialis Of it be two kinds the male and the female howbeit the female Mercury is of better operation than the other It riseth vp with a stem a cubit high which otherwhile brancheth in the top the leaues be like vnto Basil but that they are narrower full of knots or joints the stalk is and those haue many hollow concauities like arme-pits The seed hangeth down from those ioints In the female the same is white loose in great plenty in the male it standeth close vnto those joints but thinner and the same is small and as it were wreathed The leaues of the male Mercury be of a dark and blacker green wheras in the female they be more white The root is altogether superfluous and very little Both the one and the other delight to grow in plains and champion fields well ordered and husbanded It is wonderful if it be true that is reported of both these kinds namely That the male Mercury causeth women to beare boies and the female girls For which purpose the woman must presently after that shee is conceiued drink the juice of which Mercury she will in sweet wine cuit and eat the leaues either sodden with oile salt or els greene raw in a sallad with vineger Some there be who boile it in a new earthen vessell neuer vsed before together with the hearbe Hellotropium or Turnsol and 2 or 3 cloues of Garlick vntill it be throughly sodden VVhich decoction they prescribe to be giuen to women as also the herb it self to be eaten the second day of their monthly sicknes and so to continue for 3 daies together then vpon the fourth day after they haue bathed to company with their husbands Hippocrates giueth wonderfull praise vnto Mercury as wel the male as the female for all those accidents which follow women but the maner of vsing it which he prescribed there is no Physitian hath skil of He appointed to make pessaries thereof with hony oile of Roses oile of Ireos or Lillies and so to put them vp into the secret parts and in this manner he saith that the herb is excellent good for to prouoke the monthly termes of women and to fetch away the after-birth Hee affirmeth also that a potion of fomentation therwith wil do as much Moreouer by his saying the juice of Mercury infused into the ears or applied by way of liniment with old wine is singular for them when they runne with stinking matter he ordained likewise a cataplasme of Mercury to be laid to the belly for to stay the violent flux of humors thither for the strangury also and infirmities of the bladder In which cases he gaue the decoction therof with Myrrhe and Frankincense And verily for to loosen the belly although the Patient were in a feuer there is a potion of Mercury singular good made in this wise Take a good handfull of Mercury seeth the same in two sextars of water vntill one halfe be consumed let the party
In the ranke of these most memorable workes of man I may well raunge the mountaine that was digged through by the same Claudius Caesar for to void away the water out of the lough or meere Fucinus although this work was left vnfinished for hatred of his successour which I assure you cost an incredible and inenarrable sum of mony besides the infinit toil and labour of a multitude of workemen and labourers so many yeres together as well to force the water which came vpon the pioners from vnder the ground with deuise of engines and windles vp to the top of the hill whereas it stood vpon meere earth as to cut and hâ—…w through hard regs and rockes of flint and all this by candlelight within the earth in such sort that vnlesse a man had bin there to haue seene the manner of it vnpossible it is either to conceiue in mind or expresse with tongue the difficultie of the enterprise As for the peere and hauen at Ostia because I would make an end once of these matters I will not say a word thereof nor of the waies and passages cut through the mountaines ne yet of the mighty piles and damns to exclude the Tuscane sea for the Lucrine lake with so many rampiers and bridges made of such infinit cost Howbeit among many other miraculous things in Aegypt one thing more I will relate out of mine author Papyrius Fabianus a great learned Naturalist namely That marble doth grow daily in the quarries and in very truth the farmers of those quarries and such as ordinarily do labour and dig out stone do affirme no lesse who vpon their experience doe assure vs that looke what holes and caues be made in those rockes and mountaines the same will gather againe and fill vp in time which if it be true good hope there is that so long as marbles do liue excesse in building will neuer die CHAP. XVI ¶ The sundry kinds of the Load-stone and the medicines thereto depending NOw that I am to passe from marbles to the singular admirable natures of other stones who doubts but the Magnet or Loadstone will present it self in the first place for is there any thing more wonderfull and wherein Nature hath more trauelled to shew her power than in it True it is that to rockes and stones she had giuen voice as I haue already shewed whereby they are able to answer a man nay they are ready to gainsay and multiply words vpon him But is that all what is there to our seeming more dull than the stiffe and hard stone And yet behold Nature hath bestowed vpon it sence yea hands also with the vse thereof What can we deuise more stubborne and rebellious in the own kind than the hard yron yet it yeelds and will abide to be ordered for loe it is willing to be drawne by the load stone a maruellous matter that this mettall which tameth and conquereth all things els should run toward I wot not what and the nearer that it approcheth standeth still as if it were arrested and suffereth it selfe to be held therwith nay it claspeth and clungeth to it and will not away And hereupon it is that some call the load-stone Sideritis others Heracleos As for the name Magnes that it hath it tooke it as Nicander saith of the first inuentor and deuiser thereof who found it by his saying vpon the mountaine Ida for now it is to be had in all other countries like as in Spaine also and by report a neat-heard he was who as he kept his beasts vpon the foresaid mountaine might perceiue as he went vp and downe both the hob nailes which were in his shooes and also the yron picke or graine of his staffe to sticke vnto the said stone Moreouer Sotacus ascribeth and setteth downe fiue sundry kinds of the load-stone the first which commeth out of Aethyopia the second from that Magnesia which confineth vpon Macedonie and namely on the right hand as you go from thence toward the lake Boebeis the third is found in Echium a town of Boeotia the fourth about Alexandria in the region of Troas and the fift in Magnesia a country in Asia Minor The principall difference obserued in these stones consists in the sex for some be male others female the next lieth in the colour As for those which are brought out of Macedonie and Magnesia they be partly red and partly blacke The Boeotian loadstone standeth more vpon red than black contrariwise that of Troas is black and of the female sex in which regard it is not of that vertue that others be But the worst of all comes from Magnesia in Natolia and the same is white neither doth it draw yron as the rest but resembles the pumish stone In sum this is found by experience That the blewer any of these loadstones be the better they are and more powerful And the Ethyopian is simply the best insomuch as it is worth the weight in siluer found it is in Zimiri for so they cal the sandy region of Ethyopia which country yeeldeth also the sanguine load-stone called Haematites which both in color resembleth bloud and also if it be bruised yeeldeth a bloudy humour yea and otherwhiles that which is like to saffron As for the property of drawing yron this bloud-stone Haematides is nothing like to the loadstone indeed But if you would know and try the true Ethyopian Magnet it is of power to draw to it any of the other sorts of loadstones This is a generall vertue in them all more or lesse according to that portion of strength which Nature hath indued them withal That they are very good to put into those medicines which are prepared for the eies but principally they do represse the vehement flux of humors that fall into them beeing calcined and beaten into pouder they do heale any burne or scald To conclude there is another mountaine in the same Ehyopia and not far from the said Zimiris which breedeth the stone Theamedes that will abide no yron but rejecteth and driueth the same from it But of both these natures as well the one as the other I haue written oftentimes already CHAP. XVII ¶ Of certaine stones which will quickly consume the bodies that be laid therein Of others againe that preserue them a long time Of the stone called Assius and the medicinable properties thereof WIthin the Isle Scyros there is a stone by report which so long as it is whole sound will swim and flote vpon the water breake the same into small pieces it will sink Near vnto Assos a city in Troas there is found in the quarries a certaine stone called Sarcophagus which runneth in a direct veine and is apt to be clouen and so cut out of the rocke by flakes The reason of that name is this because that within the space of forty daies it is knowne for certaine to consume the bodies of the dead which are bestowed therein skin flesh and
vpon the shore and the very sands but for that they wanted other stones to serue as treuets to beare vp their pans and cauldrons ouer the fire they made shift with certaine pieces of sal-nitre out of the ship to support the said pans and so made fire vnderneath which being once afire among the sand and grauell of the shore they might perceiue a certaine cleare liquor run from vnder the fire in very streams and hereupon they say came the first inuention of making glasse But afterwards as mans wit is very inuentiue men were not content to mix nitre with this sand but began to put the Load-stone among for that it is thought naturally to draw the liquor of glasse vnto it as well as yron Then they fell to calcine and burne in many other places shining grauell stones shels of fishes yea and sand digged out of the ground for to make glasse therewith Moreouer diuers authors there be who affirme That the Indians vse to make glasse of the broken pieces of Crystall and therefore no glasse comparable to that of India Now the matter whereof glasse is made must be boiled or burnt with a fire of dry wood and the same burning light and cleare without smoke and there would be put thereto brasse of Cypros and nitre especially that which commeth from Ophyr The furnace must bee kept with fire continually after the manner as they vse in melting the ore of brasse Now the first burning yeeldeth certaine lumps of a fatty substance and blackish of colour This matter is so keen and penetrant whiles it is hot that if it touch or breath vpon any part of the body it will pierce and cut to the very bone ere one be aware or do feele it These masses or lumps be put into the fire againe and melted a second time in the glasse houses where the colour is giuen that they shall haue and then some of it with blast of the mouth is fashioned to what form or shape the workman will other parcells polished with the Turners instrument and some againe engrauen chased and embossed in manner of siluer plates in all which feats the Sidonians in times past were famous artificers for at Sidon were deuised also mirroirs or looking glasses Thus much as touching the antique maner of making glasse But now adaies there is a glasse made in Italy of a certain white sand found in the riuer Vulturnus for six miles space along the shore towns from the mouth where he dischargeth himselfe into the sea and this is between Cumes and the lake Lucrinus This sand is passing soft and tender whereby it may be reduced very easily into fine pouder either to be beaten in morter or ground in mill to which pouder the manner is to put three parts of nitre either in weight or measure and after it is the first time melted they vse to let it passe into other furnaces where it is reduced into a certain masse which because it is compounded of sand and nitre they call Ammonitrum this must be melted againe and then it becomes pure glasse and the very matter indeed of the white clear glasses in this sort throughout France and Spain the maner is to temper their sand to prepare it for the making of glasse Moreouer it is said That during the reigne of Tiberius the Emperor there was deuised a certain temper of glasse which made it pliable and flexible to wind and turne without breaking but the artificer who deuised this was put downe and his work-house for feare lest vessels made of such glasse should take away the credit from the rich plate of brasse siluer and gold and make them of no price and verily this bruit hath run currant a long time but how true it is not so certain But what booted the abolishing of glasse-makers seeing that in the daies of the Emperor Nero the art was growne to such perfection that two drinking cups of glasse and those not big which they called Pterotos were sold for 6000 sesterces There may be ranged among the kinds of glasses those which they call Obsidiana for that they carry some resemblance of that stone which one Obsidius found in Aethyopia exceeding blacke in colour otherwhiles also transparent howbeit the sight therein is but thicke and duskish It serueth for a mirroir to stand in a wall and instead of the image yeeldeth back shadows Of this kind of glasse many haue made jewels in maner of precious stones and I may selfe haue seene massiue pourtraitures made thereof resembling Augustus late Emperor of famous memory who was wont to take pleasure in the thicknes of this stone insomuch as he dedicated in the temple of Concord for a strange and miraculous matter foure Elephants made of this Obsidian stone Also Tiberius Caesar sent back again to the citizens of Heliopolis a certain image of prince Menelaus found among the moueable goods of one who had bin lord gouernor in Aegypt which he had taken away out of a temple among other cerimoniall reliques and the said statue was all of the Iaiet called Obsidianus And by this it may appeare That this matter began long time before to be in vse which now seemeth to be renued again and counterfeited by glasse that resembleth it so neare As for the said Obsidian stone Xenocrates writeth That it is found naturally growing among the Indians within Samnium also in Italy and in Spaine along the coast of the Ocean Moreouer there is a kind of Obsidian glasse with a tincture artificiall as blacke as Iaiet which serueth for dishes and platters to hold meat like as other glasse red throughout and not transparent called for that colour Haematinon By art likewise there be vessels of glasse made white and of the colour of Cassidony resembling also the Iacinct and Saphire yea any other colors whatsoeuer In sum there is not any matter at this day more tractable and willing either to receiue any forme or take a color than glasse but of all glasses those be most in request and commended aboue the rest which be white transparent and cleare throughout comming as neare as it is possible to Crystall And verily such pleasure do men take now adaies in drinking out of faire glasses that they haue in maner put downe our cups and boules of siluer or gold but this I must tell you that this ware may not abide the heat of the fire vnlesse some cold liquor were put therin before and indeed hold a round bal or hollow apple of glasse ful of water against the Sun it will be so hot that it is ready to burne any cloth that it toucheth As for broken glasses well may they be glued and sodered againe by a warme heat of the fire but melted or cast again they cannot be whole vnlesse a man make a new furnace of pieces broken one from another like as we see there be made counting rundles thereof which some call Abaculos whereof some are of
strakes or veines in fashion of eies compassing it about and in some of them you shall see white streaks or veins likewise to goe crosse and by as betweene them Sotacus maketh mention moreouer of an Arabian Onyx but it differeth from others saith hee in this respect That the Indian Onyx hath certaine sparkes in it and the same enuironed and compassed about with white circles either single or many fold farre otherwise than the Indian Sardonyx for in the former the white seemed to be pointed prickes but in these they bee compleat circles As for the Arabian Onyches there bee found of them blacke with white circles Satyrus reporteth furthermore that the Indian Onyx is fleshie that in one part it resembleth a Rubie otherwise called a Carbuncle in another a Chrysolith and an Amethyst yet he maketh no account of such but the true Onyx indeed quoth hee hath very many veins and those of sundry colors garnished also it is with circles as white as milk and albeit the colors of the veins be inexplicable as a man casteth his eie vpon them seuerally yet meeting as it were all in one they make a good consort and yeeld a lustre most pleasing to the sight Now that I haue treated of the Onyx I must not deferre to say somewhat also of the nature of Sarda which maketh the other half of the stone Sardonyx and so by that means as it were by the way to discourse of those gems that are of an ardent and fiery colour CHAP. VII ¶ Of Carbuncles or Rubies and their sundry kindes of their defaults and imperfections of the meanes to trie them Of other precious stones resembling the fire AMong these red gems the Rubies otherwise called Carbuncles challenge the principall place and are esteemed richest they haue their name in Greeke of the likenesse vnto fire and yet fire hath no power of them which is the reason that some call them Apyroti As touching their kinds there be Rubies of India and Rubies of the Garamants which carry the name also of Carchedonij i. Carthaginian in regard of excellency by reason of the wealth and puissance of the city Carthage the Great In this ranke some doe place the Ethyopian Rubies and the Alexandrian which are found indeed among the cliffes of the hill Orthosia but trimmed brought to their perfection by the Alabandians Moreouer in all sorts of Rubies those are taken for the male which shew a quick red more fire-like than the rest and contrariwise female such as shine not so bright but after a faint manner In the male it is obserued that some seeme to flame more cleare and pure others are darker and blacker there be againe that shine brighter than the rest yea and in the sun giue a more ardent and burning lustre but the best simply be those which are called Amethystizontes that is to say that in the end of their fire resemble the blew violet color of the Amethyst The next in goodnesse to them are those which they call Syrtitae and such do glitter and shine of their own nature by reason whereof they are discouered soon wheresoeuer they lie by the reuerberation of the Sun-beams As touching the Indian Rubies Satyrus saith they are not found cleare but for the most part foul howbeit after they be scoured their brightnesse is most fiery He affirmeth moreouer that the Ethyopian Rubies are greasie and shine not out but seeme to haue a fire burning within as if it were infolded in some thing about it Callistratus holdeth opinion that if a Carbuncle or Rubie be laid vpon a thing it ought to yeeld certain white clouds in the edges and extremities of the glittering that it makes but if it be held vp or hung in the aire it flameth burneth out fire red and hereupon it is that most men haue called it the white Carbuncle like as they haue named those Indian Rubies Lithizontes which shine more faintly with a brownish or duskish flame As for the Carchedonian Rubies Callistratus saith they be far lesse than others wheras of the Indians some are so big that being made hollow they wil contain the measure of one sextar Archelaus writes that the Carchedonian rubies be blacker than others to see too but if they be quickened as it were with fire or Sun or be held bowing forward they are more ardent and fiery than any other the same in a shady house seeme purple in the open aire flaming against the raies of the Sun sparkling he auoucheth moreouer that the fiery heat thereof is so actual that if a man seal with them though it be in a shadowie and coole place they will melt the very wax that is stamped therewith Many authors haue written that the Indian Rubies be whiter than the Carchedonian and contrarie to the nature of the Carchedonian if they be bended forward they lose much of their viuacitie and be dimmer and more dull by that means also that in the Carchedonian Rubies which be male there are seene certain raies as it were of starres twinckling within wheras the female contrariwise sparckle all their fire without-forth that the Alabandines be more darke and blackish than others and withall rough in hand It is said moreouer that there bee certaine stones growing in Thracia of the same colour that Rubies and which will not be chafed and made hot in the fire Theophrastus writeth that there bee Rubies found about Orchomenus in the country of Arcadie as also in the Isle Chios and as for the Orchomenian they be of a blacker kinde and serue to make mirroirs of The Troezenian Rubies by his saying are of diuers colours and spotted with white specks comming in among and the Corinthian Rubies be more pale and whiter than the rest Bocchus writeth that there be brought Rubies from Marsils and Lisbon in Portugall but with much adoe and great difficultie they are found by reason of the clay wherein they be inlapped in certain desarts and forrests burnt with the Sun In sum there is not a harder thing than to discern these sundry kinds of Rubies one from another they are so easie to be counterfeited and falsified by the art and skill of lapidaries goldsmiths who haue a cast to lay some foile vnder to make them for to shine and glitter like fire Men say that the Aethyopians haue a deuise to steep their duskish and dark Rubies in vineger for in 14 daies they will be pure and glister yea and continue so 14 moneths after There is a way to counterfeit Rubies with false glasse stones which they will make seem Rubies as like as is possible but the grinding vpon a mill soone discouereth the fraud like as it doth in any other artificiall and sophisticat gems whatsoeuer for their matter is more soft and brittle withall than the fine and pure stones indeed also the false Rubies are detected by the hardnesse of the powder that is fetched from them the weight for these glasse Rubies
a planet and bones broken 17. Against Melancholic and those whose braines bee troubled with fansies the lethargie dropsie wild fire or tetter and the paines or ach of the sinewes apt remedies 18. To staunch bloud to cure vlcers or old sores cankers and scabs 19. Medicines appropriat to womens diseases 20. Strange and wondrous things obserued in sundry beasts In summe here be reported medicines stories and obseruations to the number of a hundred eightie and fiue Latine Authours alledged M. Varro L. Piso Fabianus Verres Antias Verrius Flaccus Cato Censorius Servius Sulpitius Licinius Macer Celsus Massurius Sextius Niger who wrate in Greeke Bythus the Dyrrhachian Ophilius the Physitian and Granius the Physitian Forreine Writers Democritus Apollodorus who wrate a book entituled Myrsis Miletus Artemon Sextilius Antaeus Homer Thcophrastus Lysimachus Attalus Xenocrates who wrote a booke called Diophros and Archelaus likewise that wrote such another Demetrius Sotira Elephantis Salpe and Olympias of Thebes fiue women and midwines Diotimus Iolla Miction of Smyrna Aeschines the Physician Hippocrates Aristotle Metrodorus Icacidas the Physitian Hesiodus Dialcon Caecilius Bion the authour of the booke Peri Dynamaean Anaxilaus and king Iuba ¶ IN THE XXIX BOOKE ARE CONTAINED medicines from other liuing creatures Chap. 1. The first beginning and originall of the Art of Physicke when Physicians began first to visit Patients lying sicke in their beds the first Physitians that practised the cure of sick persons by frictions ointments baths hot-houses c. Of Chrysippus and Erasi stratus their course and manner of practise of Empiricke Physicke of Herophilus and other famous Physitians how often the Art and state of Physicke hath altered the first professed Physician at Rome when it was that hee practised what opinion the ancient Romans had of Physicians finally the imperfection and faults in that Art 2. The medicinable vertues and properties obserued in wooll 3. The nature of eggs and the vertues thereof good in Physicke 4. Remedies in Physicke receiued from doggs and other creatures that are not tame but wild also from foules and namely against the stings of the venomous spiders Phalangia 5. Of the Ostrich greace and the vertues therof of a mad dog also remedies had from him a lizard geese doues and weasils 6. Medicines against the falling of the haire and to make it grow againe to kill nits to recouer the haire of the eye-lids to cure the dimnesse and rednesse and generally all diseases and accidents of the eyes as also the swellings and inflammations in the kernils vnder the eares In sum there be medicines and other things worth obseruation in this booke to the number of fiue hundred twentie and one Latine Authors alledged M. Varro L. Piso Verrius Flaccus Antias Nigidius Cassius Hemina Cicero Plautus Celsus Sextius Niger who wrote in Greeke Caecilius the Physician Metellus Scipio Ovid the Poet and Licinius Macer Forteine Authours Philopater Homerus Aristotle Orpheus Democritus Anaxilaus Physitians Botrys Apollodorus Archidemus Anaxilaus Ariston Xenocrates Diodorus Chrysippus the Philosopher Horus Nicander Apollonius of Pytane ¶ IN THE XXX BOOKE ARE CONTAINED medicines for liuing creatures such as were not obserued in the former Booke Chap. 1. The beginning of the black Science Art magicke when it began who practised it first and who were they that brought it into request and reputation Also the rest of the medicines taken from beasts 2. Sundrie kinds of Magicke the execrable and cursed parts plaid by Nero and of Magicians 3. Of Wants or Mouldwarps of liuing creatures as well tame as sauage which affourd remedies and those are digested in order according to the diseases 4. How to make the breath sweet against mols and spots disfiguring the face remedies for to cure the diseases of the throat and chaws 5. Against the Kings euill and namely when the swelling is broken and doth run to ease the pain of the shoulders the heart and the parts about it 6. For the diseases of the lungs and liver also to cure the casting and reiection of bloud vpward 7. Remedies for the bloudie flix and generally for all diseases of the bellie and the guts 8. For the gravell and stone for paines of the bladder for swelling of the stones and the groine of apostems or swellings in the kirnels and emunctories 9. Against the gout of the feet and paines of other ioynts 10. Remedies against many diseases that hold the whole bodie 11. Against the jaundise the phrensie fevers and dropsie 12. Against the wild fire carbuncles fellons or vncoms burnes scaldings and shrinking of the sinews 13. To staunch bloud to allay swellings in wounds also to cure vlcers greene wounds and other maladies diverse remedies all taken from liuing creatures 14. To cure womens secret maladies and to helpe conception 15. Many receits and remedies huddled together one with another 16. Certaine miraculous things obserued in beasts In summe this booke sheweth vnto vs medicines and memorable obseruations 54. Latine Authors cited M. Varro Nigidius M. Cicero Sextius Niger who wrate in Greeke and Licinius Macer Forreine Writers Eudoxus Aristotle Hermippus Homer Apion Orphens Democritus and Anaxilaus Physicians Botrys Horus Apollidorus Menander Archimedes Ariston Xenocrates Diodorus Chrysippus Nicander Apollonius Pitanaeus ¶ THE XXXI BOOKE SHEWETH MEDICINES gathered from fishes and water creatures also it deliuereth vnto vs strange and wonderfull things as touching the Waters Chap. 1. Admirable matter obserued in the waters 2. The difference of waters 3. The nature and qualitie of waters how to know good and wholesome waters from them that be naught 4. The reason of some waters that spring on a suddain so likewise cease and giue ouer 5. Many historicall obseruations of waters 6. The manner of water conduits and how to draw them from their heads when and how waters are to bee vsed which naturally are medicinable how farre forth navigation or sailing vpon the salt water is good for the health medicines made of sea water 7. Divers kinds of salt the preparing and making thereof together with the vertues medicinable of salt and other considerations thereto belonging 8. Of the fish Scamber or the Mackrell of fish pickle of Alex a kind of brine or fish sauce 9. The nature of Salt and the medicines made of it 10. Sundrie sorts of Nitre the handling and preparation thereof the medicines and obseruation to it pertaining 11. The nature of Spunges This booke comprehendeth medicines and notable obseruations 266. Latine Authours alledged M Varro Cassius of Parma Cicero Mutius Cor. Celsus Trogus Ovid Polybius and Sornatius Forreine Writers Callimachus Ctesias Eudicus Theophrastus Eudoxus Theopompus Polyclitus Iuba Lycus Apion Epigenes Pelops Apelles Democritus Thrasillus Nicander Memander the Comicall Poet Attalus Sallustius Dionysius Andreas Nicreatus Hippocrates Anaxilaus ¶ IN THE XXXII BOOKE ARE CONTAINED other medicines behind from fishes and water creatures Chap. 1. Of the fish Echeneis his wonderfull propertie of the Torpedo and the Sea-hare maruellous things reported of the red sea 2. The naturall industrie
wonderfull The Mullet and the sea-Pike hate one another and be euer at deadly war likewise the Congre the Lamprey insomuch as they gnaw off one anothers taile The Lobster is so afraid of the Polype or Pourcuttell that if he spie him neere he euermore dieth for very woe The Lobsters are ready to scratch and teare the Congre the Congres again do as much for the Polype Nigidius writeth That the sea-Pike biteth off the Mullets taile and yet the same fishes in certaine set moneths are good friends and agree well enough He saith moreouer that those Mullets liue all notwithstanding their tails be so curtold On the other side there be examples of friendship among fishes besides those of whose societie and fellowship I haue already written and namely between the great whale Balaena and the little Musculus For whereas the Whale aforesaid hath no vse of his eies by reason of the heauy weight of his eie-browes that couer them the other swimmeth before him serueth him in stead of eies and lights to shew when he is neere the shelues and shallowes wherein he may be soone grounded so big and huge he is Thus much of fish Hence forward will we write of Foules THE TENTH BOOKE OF THE HISTORIE OF NATVRE WRITTEN BY C. PLINIVS SECVNDVS CHAP. I. ¶ The nature of Birds and Foules IT followeth now that we should discourse of the nature of Foules And first to begin with Ostriches They are the greatest of all other foules and in manner of the nature of foure footed beasts namely those in Africke and Aethiopia for higher they be than a man sitting on horsebacke is from the ground and as they be taller than the man so are they swifter on foot than the very horse for to this end only hath Nature giuen them wings euen to help and set them forward in their running for otherwise neither flie they in the aire ne yet so much as rise mount from the ground Clouen houfs they haue like red deere and with them they fight for good they be to catch vp stones withall with their legs they whurle them back as they run away against those that chase them A wonder this is in their nature that whatsoeuer they eat and great deuourers they be of all things without difference and choise they concoct and digest it But the veriest fooles they be of all others For as high as the rest of their body is yet if they thrust their head and necke once into any shrub or bush and get it hidden they thinke then they are safe enough and that no man seeth them Now two things they doe affoord in recompence of mens pains that they take in hunting and chasing them to wit their egs which are so big that some vse them for vessels in the house and their feathers so faire that they serue for pennaches to adorne and set out their crests and morions of souldiers in the wars CHAP. II. ¶ Of the Phoenix THe birds of Aethiopia and India are for the most parr of diuerse colours and such as a man is hardly able to decipher and describe But the Phoenix of Arabia passes all others How beit I cannot tell what to make of him and first of all whether it be a tale or no that that there is neuer but one of them in all the world the same not commonly seen By report he is as big as an Aegle for colour as yellow and bright as gold namely all about the necke the rest of the bodie a deep red purple the taile azure blew intermingled with feathers among of rose carnation color and the head brauely adorned with a crest and penach finely wrought hauing a tuft and plume thereupon right faire and goodly to be seen Manilius the noble Romane Senatour right excellently seene in the best kind of learning and litterature and yet neuer taught by any was the first man of the long Robe who wrot of this bird at large most exquisitely He reporteth that neuer man was known to see him feeding that in Arabia he is held a sacred bird dedicated vnto the Sun that he liueth 660 yeares and when he groweth old and begins to decay he builds himselfe with the twigs and branches of the Canell or Cinamon and Frankincense trees and when he hath filled it with all sort of sweet Aromaticall spices yeeldeth vp his life thereupon He saith moreouer that of his bones and marrow there breedes at first as it were a little worme which afterwards prooueth to be a prettie bird And the first thing that this yong new Phoenix doth is to perform the obsequies of the former Phoenix late de ceased to translate and cary away his whole nest into the citie of the Sun neere Panchea and to bestow it full deuoutly there vpon the altar The same Manilius affirmeth that the reuolution of the great yeare so much spoken of agreeth just with the life of this bird in which yeare the stars returne againe to their first points and giue significations of times and seasons as at the beginning and withall that this yeare should begin at high noone that very day when the Sun entreth the signe Aries And by his saying the yeare of that reuolution was by him shewed when P. Licinius and M. Cornelius were consuls Cornelius Valerianus writeth That whiles Q. Plautius and Sex Papinius were Consuls the Phoenix flew into Aegypt Brought he was hither also to Rome in the time that Claudius Caesar was Censor to wit in the eight hundreth yeare from the foundation of Rome and shewed openly to be seen in a full hall and generall assembly of the people as appeareth vpon the publick records how beit no man euer made any doubt but he was a counterfeit Phoenix and no better CHAP. III. ¶ Of Aegles OFall the birds which we know the Aegles carie the price both for honor strength Six kinds there be of them The first named of the Greeks Melaenaetos and in Latin Valeria the least it is of all others and strongest withall blacke also of colour In all the whole race of the Aegles she alone nourisheth her yong birds for the rest as we shall hereafter declare doe beat them away she only crieth not nor keepeth a grumbling and huzzing as others doe and euermore converseth vpon the mountaines Of the second sort is Pygargus It keepes about townes and plaines and hath a whitish taile The third is Morphnos which Homer cals also Perâ—…nos some name it Plancus and * Anataria and she is for bignesse and strength of a second degree louing to liue about lakes and meeres Ladie Phoemonoe who was supposed said to be the daughter of Apollo hath reported that this Aegle is toothed otherwise mute as not hauing any tongue also that of all other she is the blackest and hath the longest tail With her accorcordeth Boethus likewise Subtle she is and wittie for when she hath seazed vpon Tortoises and caught them
Germanie The Geese there be all white but lesse of bodie than from other parts and there they be called Ganzae And truly a pound of such feathers be worth 5 deniers Hereupon it is that so many complaints are made of Colonels and Captaines ouer companies of auxiliarie souldiers for their disorders For wheras they should keep them together in a standing corps de gard to watch and ward night and day they license many times whole bands to straggle abroad to hunt and chase Geese for their feathers and downe And now forsooth the world is growne to be so delicate and daintie that not only our fine smooth dames but also our men cannot take their repose and sleep without this ware but complaine of a paine in their necks and heads vnlesse they may lay them vpon bolsters and pillowes of goose feathers and their soft downe Now to that part of Syria called Comagena we are beholden for another proper inuention of theirs They take me the leafe and grease of Geese and Cinnamon together which they put into a brazen pot and couer it all ouer with good store of snow wherein they let it lie in steepe well infused in this cold humor to vse in that notable composition and sweet ointment which of that countrey is called Comagenum Of the Geese kind are the Birganders named Chelanopeces and than which there is not a daintier dish knowne in England the Chenerotes lesse than wild Geese As for the phesant Bustards they haue a trim shining brightnesse that becommeth and graceth them exceeding well in their perfect and absolute black hew and their eie-browes painted red as it were with deep Scarlet Another kind there is of them bigger than Vultures but in feather and colour much resembling them And there is not a Foule setting the Ostrich aside that poiseth weigheth more heauy than they for they grow to that bignes that a man can hardly lift them from the ground These breed in the Alpes and the North countries If they be mued vp and kept in a pen they lose their pleasant taste and are no good meat nay they grow so sullen and self-willed that they will die with holding their breath Next to these are those which in Spaine they cal the Slowbirds and in Greece Otides but their meat is naught for the marow in their bones if it be let run out hath such a stinking smell that a man cannot abide it but shall be readie to vomite CHAP. XXIII ¶ Of Cranes Storkes Swans Quailes the Glotis and strange birds of other countries THe nation of the prettie Pigmies enjoy a truce and cessation from armes euery yeare as we haue said before when the Cranes who vse to wage war with them be once departed come into our countries And verily if a man consider well how far it is from hence to the Leuant sea it is a mightie great journey that they take their flight exceeding long They put not themselues in their journey nor set forward without a counsell called before and a generall consent They flie aloft because they would haue a better prospect to see before them and for this purpose a captain they chuse to guide them whom the rest follow In the rereward behind there be certaine of them set and disposed to giue signall by their manner of crie for to raunge orderly in rankes and keep close together in array and this they doe by turnes each one in his course They maintaine a set watch all the night long and haue their sentinels These stand on one foot and hold a little stone within the other which by falling from it if they should chance to sleepe might awaken them and reproue them for their negligence Whiles these watch all the rest sleep couching their heads vnder their wings and one while they rest on the one foot and otherwhiles they shift to the other The captaine beareth vp his head aloft into the aire and giueth signall to the rest what is to be done These Cranes if they be made tame and gentle are very playfull and wanton birds and they will one by one dance as it were and run the round with their long shankes stalking ful vntowardly This is surely known that when they mind to take a flight ouer the sea Pontus they will fly directly at the first to the narrow streights of the sayd sea lying between the two capes Criu-Metophon and Carambis and then presently they ballaise themselues with stones in their feet and sand in their throats that they flie more steadie and endure the wind When they be halfe way ouer down they fling these stones but when they are come to the continent the sand also they disgorge out of their craw Cornelius Nepos who died in the daies of Augustus Caesar Emperor in that chapter where he wrote That a little before his time men began to feed and cram Blackbirds and Thrushes in coupes saith moreouer That in his daies Storks were holden for a better dish at the bourd than Cranes And yet see how in our age now no man will touch a Storke if it be set before him vpon the bourd but euery one is readie to reach vnto the Crane and no dish is in more request From whence these Storks should come or whither they go againe is not yet known No doubt from far remote countries they visite vs and in the same manner as the Cranes do only this is the difference that the cranes are our guests in Winter and the Storks in Summer When they be minded to part out of our coasts they assemble all together in one certain place appointed there is not one left out nor absent of their owne kind vnlesse it be some that are not at libertie but captiue or in bondage Thus as if it had been published before by proclamation they rise all in one entire companie and away they flie And albeit well knowne it might be afore that they were vpon their remoue and departure yet was there neuer any man watched he neuer so well that could perceiue them in their flight neither do we at any time see when they are comming to vs before we know that they be alreadie come The reason is because they doe the one and the other alwaies by night And notwithstanding that they flie too and fro from place to place and make but one flight of it yet be they supposed neuer to haue ariued at any coast but in the night There is a place in the open plaines and champion countrey of Asia called Pithonos-Come where by report they assemble all together and being met keepe a jangling one with another but in the end look which of them lagged behind and came tardie him they reare in peeces and then they depart This also hath been noted that after the Ides of August they be not lightly seene there Some affirme constantly that Storkes haue no tongues But so highly regarded they are for â—…aying of Serpents that in Thessalie it
the world man only is born without them and at the 7 moneth they commonly breed In all other creatures they continue still and stick fast except Men Lions Horses Mules Asses Dogs and such as chew cud for these change their teeth but Lions and dogs cast only the eie-teeth called Canini in Latine The eie-tooth of a Wolfe so it grow on the right side of the head is thought to doe strange matters The great grinders which stand beyond the Eye-teeth in no creature whatsoeuer doe fall out of themselues As for the farthest cheek-teeth in a mans head which be called Genuini 〈◊〉 the Wit-teeth they come about the time that he is 20 yeares old and in many at 80 yeares of age Sure it is that those teeth fall from women in their old age and soone after come againe such women I meane as had no children in their youth And Mutianus hath reported That hee saw one Zancles a citizen of Samothrace who had new teeth comming vp after he was an 104 yeares old Moreouer males ordinarily haue more teeth than the females as we may see in mankind Sheep goats and Swine Timarchus the son of Nicocles the Paphian had a double course of teeth in either jaw He had a brother also who neuer cast his foreteeth and therefore hee wore them before to the verâ—… stumps We reade in Chronicles of one man that had a tooth growing out of the very pallat of his mouth As for the eye-teeth if they be lost by any mischance there neuer grow again any other for them In horses only of all other creatures teeth wax whiter by age for in the rest they turne to be browne and reddish The age of Horses Asses and Mules is knowne by a marke in the teeth a horse hath in all 40. At the end of 30 moneths hee loseth his fore teeth of either chaw as well aboue as beneath the yere following as many euen those that be next namely at what time as they put out those which be called the cheeke teeth At the beginning of the fifth yere he loseth other two but there come vp new in the place in the sixth yere By the seuenth yere he hath all as well those that should come in others place as those which are firme and neuer change A guelding neuer casts his teeth no not his sucking teeth in case he were guelded before Asses in like manner begin to shed their teeth at the 30 moneth of their age and so forward from 6 moneths to 6 moneths and if they fole not before they haue shed their last teeth they are for certaine to be holden barren Kine and Oxen when they be two yeres old do change their teeth Hogs or Swine neuer haue any teeth to fall Now when as these marks are gon out which shew the Age of Horses Asses and such like yee must to know their age go by the ouergrowth standing out of the teeth the greinesse of the haire ouer their brows and the hollow pits thereabout for then are they supposed to be 16 yeares of age As touching men some are thought to haue venome and poison in their teeth insomuch as they be shewed bare and naked against a cleare mirror or looking glasse they wil dimme the beauty thereof yea and kill yong pigeons whiles they be calow and vnplumed But forasmuch as we haue spoken sufficiently of teeth in our treatise as touching the generation of Man wee will passe ouer the rest and proceed vnto other parts saue onely that this is to be obserued and noted How children be sicke when they be about breeding of their teeth And to conclude of all other creatures those are most dangerous with their Teeth which haue them framed like sawes and closing one betweene another Now as concerning Tongues we obserue much diuersitie in them for all creatures are not tongued alike First and formost Serpents haue very thin tongues and the same three-forked blacke of colour â—…ing and ready to pierce and if a man take them forth very long Lizards haue tongues two-forked and full of haires so haue the Seales or Sea calues a double tongue but the tongues of these beforenamed are as small as haires as for the rest their tongues serue them to licke their muffles and lips all about Fishes haue their tongues for the greater part therof cleauing fast to their pallat and in Crocodiles they are so clean throughout But as wel fishes as other creatures of the water haue a fleshy palat which serues them in stead of a tongue to tast withall Lions Libards and all of that sort yea and Cats haue their tongues rough and vneuen made like a file with many small edges lapping one ouer another in such sort as that with licking it wil weare the skin of a man so thin that their spittle and moisture when it commeth neare vnto the bloud and the quick will driue oftentimes into rage and madnesse those whom they so licke yea although otherwise they be made tame and gentle to come to hand As touching the tongues of Purple fishes we haue written already Frogs haue their tongues in the forepart fast to the mouth the hinder part within toward their throat is free and at liberty whereby they keep that croking which we heare at one season of the yeare namely when the males cal to the femals for to ingender then they be called Olalygones for at that time they let down their nether lip somwhat vnder the water that they gargle with their tongue leuell to the water which they receiued into their throat and so while their tongue quauereth withall they make that croking noise abouesaid he that would looke then aduisedly vpon them should see their specks so swoln and stretched out full that they will shine againe he should perceiue their eies ardent and fierie with paines that they take thus with the water Those creatures that haue pricks and stings in their hin-parts are furnished also with tongue and teeth As for Bees their tongue is very long and the Grashoppers put it forth a good way They that haue a fistulous sting or pricke in their mouth are prouided neither of teeth nor tongue In some Insects as namely Pismires the tongue lieth close within Elephants aboue all other beasts haue a large and broad tongue All creatures haue their tongue loose and at libertie at all times each one in their kind man only is oftentimes so tongue tied that needful it is to cut certain strings and veines for to ease it Metellus the high priest and chiefe sacrificer at Rome had such a stutting and stammering tongue by report that against he should dedicate the temple of the goddesse Opifera he labored so with his tongue for vtterance for certaine moneths together took such pains as if he had bin vpon the racke All children by that time that they be seuen yeares old at the farthest speake readily so as they be not by some vnnaturall cause impeached
old and loses the strength Of late daies there was an herbe found in Thracia the leaues wherof differ in nothing from the Indian Nard As for the grape of Amomum which now is in vse and much occupied some say it groweth vpon a wilde vine in India Others haue thought that it commeth from a shrubbe like Myrtle carieth not aboue a hand-bredth or 4 inches in height Plucked it is together with the root and gently must be laid and couched in bunches by handfuls for if great heed be not taken it will soone burst and breake The best Amomum and most commendable is that which carrieth leaues like to those of the Pomegranate without riuels and wrinckles and besides of a red colour The next in goodnesse is that which is pale The greene or grasse coloured is not all out so good but the worst of all is white and that colour comes by age and long keeping a pound of these grapes intire and whole in the cluster is worth 60 Roman deniers But if they be crumbled and broken it will cost but 48. This Amomum groweth likewise in a part of Armenia named Otene also in the kingdomes of Media and Pontus It is sophisticated with the leaues of the Pomgranate and with some other liquid gum besides that it may hang vnited together and roll round into the forme of grapes Now as touching that which is called Amomis it is lesse full of veins and nothing so sweet smelling but harder than Amomum whereby it appeareth that it is either a diuers plant from it or els if it be the same it is gathered before it be full ripe Cardamomum is like to these aboue rehearsed both in name and also in making and ferme but it bears a longer graine for seed The maner also of gathering and cutting it downe in Arabia is the same Foure kinds there be of it The first is most green and fatty withal hauing foure sharp corners and if a man rub it between his fingers he shal find it very tough and stubborne and this is most esteemed of all the other The next to it is somwhat reddish but inclining to a whitish colour A third sort is shorter lesser and blacker than the rest Howbeit the worst is that which hath sundry colours is pliable and gentle in the rubbing and smelleth but a little The true Cardamomum ought to come neare in resemblance to Costus And it grows in Media A pound of the best will cost 12 deniers The great affinitie or kinred rather in name that Cinnamon hath with these spices before rehearsed might induce me to write therof in one suit euen in this place but that more meet it is to shew first the riches of Arabia and to set down the causes why that country should be syrnamed Happy and Blessed Wee will begin therefore with the chiefe commodities thereof namely Frankincense and Myrrhe and yet Myrrhe is found as wel in the Troglodites country as in Arabia CHAP. XIV ¶ Of Happy Arabia that yeeldeth plenty of Frankincense THere is no region in the whole world that bringeth forth frankincense but Arabia and yet is it not to be found in al parts therof but in that quarter only of the Atramites Now these Atramites inhabit the very heart of Arabia and are a county of the Sabaei The capitall city of the whole kingdom is called Sabota seated vpon a high mountain from whence vnto Saba the only country that yeelds such plenty of the said incense it is about 8 daies journey As for Saba which in the Greek tongue signifieth a secret mysterie it regards the Sunne rising in Summer or the North-East enclosed on euery side with rockes inaccessible and on the right hand it is defended with high cliffes and crags that beare into the sea The soile of this territorie by report is reddish inclining to white The forrests that carry these Incense treesly in length 20 Schaenes and beare in bredth half as much Now that which we cal Schaenus according to the calculation of Eratosthenes contains forty stadia that is to say fiue miles how soeuer some haue allowed but 32 stadia to euery Schaenus The quarter wherein these trees grow is full of high hills howbeit go down into the plains and valley beneath you shall haue plenty of the same trees which come vp of their own accord and were neuer planted The earth is fat and standeth much vpon a strong clay as all writers do agree Few Springs are there to be found and those that be are full of Nitre There is another tract by it selfe confronting this country wherein the Minaeans do inhabit and through them there is a narrow passage whereby the frankincense is transported into other parts These were their first neighbours that did traffique with them for their Incense and found a vent for it and euen so they doe still at this day whereupon the frankincense it selfe is called of their name Minaeum Setting these people of the Sabeans aside there be no Arabians that see an Incense tree from one end of the yere to another neither are all these permitted to haue a sight of those trees For the common voice is that there be not aboue 3000 families which can claime and challenge by right of succession that priuiledge to gather incense And therefore all the race of them is called Sacred and Holy for looke when they go about either cutting and slitting the trees or gathering the Incense they must not that day come neere a woman to know her carnally nay they must not be at any funerals nor approch a dead corps for being polluted By which religion and ceremonious obseruation the price is raised and the incense is the dearer Some say these people haue equall liberty in common to go into these Woods for their commodities when they will but others affirme that they be diuided into companies and take their turns by yeares As concerning the very tree I could neuer know yet the perfect description of it We haue waged warres in Arabia and our Roman armie haue entred a great way into that country C. Caesar the adopted son of Augustus wan great honour and glory from thence and yet verily to my knowledge there was neuer any Latine Author that hath put down in writing the form and fashion of the tree that carrieth incense As for the Greeke Writers their bookes doe vary and differ in that point Some giue out that it hath leaues like to a Peare tree only they be somewhat lesse and when they come forth they be of a grasse green colour Others say that they resemble the Lentiske tree and are somwhat reddish There be again who write that it is the very Terebints and none else that giueth the Frankincense of which opinion king Antigonus was who had one of these shrubs brought vnto him King Iuba in those books which he wrot and sent to C. Caesar son to the Emperor Augustus who was inflamed with an ardent desire to
but the white is of no regard at all and therefore they neuer cut the twigs and branches neere the root nor aboue two cubits in length And when they haue cut them in this manner they presently sow them vp in greene skinnes of four-footed beasts killed new and fresh for that purpose that of their corruption and putrefaction there might breed certaine wormes to eat out the wood within the barke and so make it hollow for the bark is so bitter that the worm will not touch it The newest and freshest Canell is reputed best and that which hath a most delicate smell very hot in the mouth and burning the tongue rather than gently warming it without any great biting Such Canell is of a purple colour and very light in hand which seeming much to the eye yet weigheth little besides the pipes be but short and the outward rinde or coat is not brittle and easie to fall in pieces This elect and choice Canell the barbarous people call Lacta Another sort there is named Balsamodes because it hath a smell resembling Balm bitter it is in the mouth therefore of more vse in physicke like as the blacke is most imployed in sweet perfumes and oyntments There is no drugs that varieth more in price than the Canell for whereas the best will cost fifty deniers Romana pound all the rest a man may buy for fiue CHAP. XX. ¶ Of Isocinnamon Cancamum and Tarum THe Hucksters and regraters that buy and sell againe haue another kinde which they call Daphnoides and they syrname it Iso-cinnamon and surely they hold it at 300 deniers a pound Mingled it is and made counterfeit with Storax with the smallest and tendrest branches also of Lawrell for the likenesse it hath to the bark therof Moreouer it is set planted in our part of the world here in Italy also in the vtmost marches and confines of our Empire along where the riuer Rhine runs it liueth being set neere vnto Bee-hiues Howbeit because it wants the parching heate of the Sun it is nothing so deepe coloured and rhereupon also it comes short of the smell that the other hath Out of the regions which bound on those parts where Casia and Cinamon groweth there are brought ouer vnto vs two other spices called Concamum and Tarum but by the way of the Troglodite Nabathaeans who onely of the antient Nabathaeans there setled and remained CHAP. XXI ¶ Of Serichatum Gabalium and Myrobalanum i. Ben. IN the same country the Arabians come charged also with Serichatum and Gabalium but they make an hand with it among themselues and spend it quite in such sort as their drugs are known only in name to vs in this part of the world albeit they grow together with Cinamon and Casia And yet otherwhiles there is Serichatum brought vnto vs which some perfumers vse to put into the composition of ointments And a pound of it is commonly exchanged for six deniers As for Myrobalanon i. Behen it growes ordinarily in the region of the Troglodites about Thebais and that part of Arabia which diuideth Iury from Egypt a drug that Nature hath brought forth only for ointment as the very name giueth it Whereby it appeareth also that it is a very nut of a certain tree which beareth leaues like to Heliotropium whereof we wil speak among other herbs The fruit that this plant beareth is about the bignes of a filberd nut That which growes in Arabia and yet called Syriaca is white but contrariwise that about Thebais is black The former of these two is commended for the goodnesse of the oile which is pressed out of it but the Thebaick Ben is in greater request for the plenty that it yeeldeth As for the Trogloditick it is the worst of all and the cheapest And yet some there be that prefer the Aethiopian Ben before all other The Nut and fruit thereof is black and fat with a smal and slender kernell within howbeit the liquor pressed forth of it is more odoriferous and it groweth in champian countries and plains It is affirmed moreouer that the Egyptian Ben is more oleous and fat hauing a thicker shell and the same red And albeit that it grow in marish ground yet is it a shorter plant and more dry than the others But contrariwise they say that the Arabick is green of colour and thinner in substance and for that it groweth vpon the mountaines it is more massie and weighty But the best simply by manv degrees is that Ben which is called Petraea comming from about the town abouesaid with a blackish rind white kernel Now the Perfumers and Apothecaries do presse only the husks and shels but the Physitians extract an oile out of the very kernels which as they stamp they poure hot water euer and anoâ—… vnto it by little and little CHAP. XXII ¶ Of Phoenicobalanus Calamus odoratus and Squinanth THe Date in Egypt called Adipsos hath the like vse in ointments and is next in request for such odoriferous compositions as the Myrabalanus or Ben aforesaid Green it is in colour it smelleth like vnto a Quince and hath no wooddy stone within But to serue for those purposes aboue recited it must be gathered somewhat before it beginneth to ripen That which is left behinde vngathered is called Phoenicobalanus This waxeth blacke and maketh them drunke that eat thereof As for Myrobalanus or Ben it is worth two Romane deniers a pound The occupiers and shopkeepers call the very setling and grounds of their ointment and compositions by the name of Myrobalanon Moreouer within Arabia there growes also the sweet Calamus which is common to the Indians Syrians likewise That of Syria passes all the rest and comes vp in a tract of that countrey distant from the coast of our Sea fiftie stadia Between mount Libanon and another mountain of no account for it is not Antilibanon as some haue thought in a little vale beneath neer vnto a lake the marshes and flats whereof are drie in Summer for the space of thirtie stadia there grow both sweet Calamus and also Sqinanth or Iuncus Odoratus i. the Sweet-rush For let vs speak also in this place of the said Scaenanth and although it be but a rush and another booke is appointed for the treatise and historie of such Hearbes yet because we handle the Species that go to the composition of sweet Perfumes Pomanders ointments I canot passe it ouer Well then neither the one nor the other of these twaine differ in sight from the rest of that kind But Calamus is the better of the twaine and hath a more pleasant smell for a man may wind the sent of it presently a great way off besides it is softer in hand and better is that which is lesse brittle and breaketh in long spils and shiuers rather than knappeth off like a Radish root Within the pipe of this reed there lieth a certaine matter like vnto a Spiders-web which the
chiefe commeth from Parapotamia the second from Antiochia and Laodicea in Syria and a third sort from the mountaines of Media and this is best for medicine Some prefer before all these that which groweth in the Island Cyprus As for that which is made in Africke it is meet for Physitions onely and is called Massaris Now the better euer is that which they gather from the white wild vine than from the black Moreouer there is another tree which serues for perfumes some call it Elate and we Abies i. the Fir others Palma or the Date and some againe Spathe That which grows about the sands of Africk where Iupiter Hammons temple standeth is highly commended aboue the rest and after it that in Aegypt Next thereto is the Syrian This tree is odoriferous when it grows in dry places only it hath in it a certaine fat liquor or Rosin and entreth into compositions of sweet ointments for to correct and mitigate the other oile In Syria there is a drug which they call Cinnamum Caryopon A iuice or oyle this is pressed out of a certain nut This Cinnamon differeth much in forme from the stickes of true Cinnamon indeed aboue specified although in smell it commeth neare vnto it A pound thereof is worth to be bought and sold 40 Asses i. 2 shil 6. d. THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF THE HISTORIE OF NATVRE WRITTEN BY C. PLINIVS SECVNDVS The Proeme THus far forth the woods and forrests are of estimation in regard of the pleasure they doe vnto vs for perfumes and sweet odors and in truth if we consider duly these aromaticall plants admirable they be cuerie one in their kinde euen as they be weighed apart by themselues alone But such is the riot and super fluitie of man that being not content with that perfection of Nature shining in those plants and trees aboue rehearsed he hath not ceased to mingle and compound them and so of them all together for to make one confused smell and thus were our sweet ointments and precious perfumes deuised whereof we purpose to write in this booke next insuing CHAP. I. ¶ Of Ointments Perfumes and their compositions and when they came into knowledge first at Rome AS touching the inuention of Ointments it is not well knowne who was the first that deuised them Certaine it is that during the raigne of the Troianes and whilest Ilium stood men knew not what they meant nay they vsed not so much as Incense in Sacrifice and diuine seruice The sume and smoke of the Cedar and the Citron trees onely the old Troianes were acquainted with when they offered sacrifice their fuming and walming steame more truly I may so terme it than any odoriferous perfume they vsed which they might easily come by since they were plants growing among them and so familiar notwithstanding they had found out the iuice of Roses wherwith yet they would not correct the foresaid strong fumes in those daies for that also was knowne to be a commendable qualitie of Oile Rosate But the truth is The Persians and none but they ought to be reputed the inuentors of precious perfumes and odoriferous ointments For they to palliate and hide the ranke and stinking breath which commeth by their surfet and excesse of meats and drinkes are forced to helpe themselues by some artificiall meanes and therefore goe euermore all to be perfumed and greased with sweet ointments And verily so farre as euer I could finde by reading histories the first prince that set such store by costly perfumes was King Darius among whose coffers after that Alexander the Great had defeated him and woon his campe there was found with other roiall furniture of his a fine casket full of perfumes and costly ointments But afterwards they grew into so good credit euen among vs that they were admitted into the ranke of the principal pleasures the most commendable delights and the honestest comforts of this life And more than that men proceeded so far as therewith to honour the dead as if by right that duty belonged to them And therefore it shall not be amisse to discourse of this theame more at large Wherein I must aduertise the Reader by the way that for the present I will but only name those ingredients that go into the composition of these ointments such I mean as came not from herbs and trees shrubs plants reseruing the treatise of their natures vertues and properties vnto their due place First and formost therefore all perfumes took their names either of the country where they were compounded or of the liquors that went to their making or of the plants that yeelded the simples and the drugs or els of the causes and occasions proper and peculiar vnto them And here it would be noted also principally that the same ointments were not alwaies in like credit and estimation but one robbed another of their honor and worth insomuch as many times vpon sundry occasions that which was lately in request and price anon gaue place to a new and later inuention At the first in antient time the best ointments were thought to come from Delos but afterwards those that were brought out of Aegypt no talke then but of Mendesium compounded at Mendes a city there And this varietie and alteration was not occasioned alwaies by the diuersity of composition and mixture but otherwhiles by reason of good or bad drugs for ye should haue the same kind of liquors and oiles better in this country for one purpose and in that for another yea and that which in some place was right and true the same did degenerat and grow to a bastard nature if you changed once the region for a long time the oile or ointment of Iris or the Floure-de-luce root made at Corinth was in much request and highly praised but afterwards that of Cizicum won the name and credit for the artificiall composition thereof Semblably the oile of Roses that came from Phaselus was greatly called for but in processe of time Naples Capua and Praeneste stole that honor and glory from thence in that behalfe The ointment of Saffron confected at Soli in Cilicia imported for a good while and carried the praise alone but soone after that of Rhodes was euery mans money The oile drawne out of the floures of the wild vine in Cyprus bare the name once but afterwards that of Egypt was preferred before it in the end the Adramyttians gained the credite and commendation from both places for the perfect and absolute confection thereof The ointment made of Marjoram gaue credit for a certain time to the Isle Cos but not long after their name was greater for another made of Quinces As for the oile Cyprinum which came of Cypros the best was thought to be made in Cyprus but afterwards there was a better supposed to be in Egypt where the ointments Metopium and Mendesium all of a sudden were better accepted than all the rest It was not long first but that Phoenice put Aegypt by
womb and this reason soundeth more probable than that they should be scattered because in their fall they rebound and make a ratling to drowne forsooth all other noises from the bride-bed or chamber That these Nuts also were brought out of Persis first by commandement of the Kings is euident by their Greeke names for the best kind of them they call Persicon and Basilicon as one would say the Persian and Royall nut and these indeed were the first names Afterwards the nut came to be named Caryon by all mens confession for the heauinesse of head which it causeth by reason of the strong smell Their outward husk serues to die wooll and the little nuts when they come new forth are good to giue the haire of the head a reddish or yellow colour The experiment therof was first found by staining folks hands as they handled them The elder that nuts be longer kept the more oleous and fatty they are The only difference in the sundry kinds consisteth in the shel for that in some it is tender and brittle in others hard in one sort it is thin in another thick lastly some haue smooth and plain shells others again be as full of holes and cranies Walnuts be the fruit alone that Nature hath inclosed with a couer parted in twaine and so is ioyned and set together for the shell is diuided and cleft iust in the middle and each halfe resembleth a little boat The kernell within is distinguished into foure parts and between euerie of them there runneth a membrane or skin of a wooddy substance As for other nuts their meat is solid and compact as we may see in Filberds and Hazels which also are a kind of nuts and were called heretofore Abellinae of their natiue place from whence came good ones at first They came out of Pontus into Natolia and Greece and therefore they be called Pontick nuts These Filberds likewise are couered with a soft bearded huske and as well the shell as the kernell is round and solid all of one entire piece These nuts also are parched for to be eaten and within their belly they haue in the mids a little chit or spirt as if it were a nauill As for Almonds they are of the nature of nuts and are reckoned in a third ranke An vpper husk they haue like as Walnuts but it is thin like as also a second couerture of a shell The kernell differeth somewhat for broader it is and flatter and their skin more hard more sharpe and hoter in taste than that of other nuts Now whether the Almond tree were in Italy during the life of Cato there is some doubt and question made because he nameth the Greeke nuts which some do hold for a kind of walnut Mention maketh he besides of the Hazel nuts or filberds as well the Galbae as the Prenestine commended by him aboue all others which hee saith are put vp in pots and kept fresh and green within the earth Now adaies the Thasian and Albeusian nuts be in great account and two sorts besides of the Tarentine whereof the one hath a tender and brittle shell the other as hard and those are the biggest of all other and nothing round He speaketh also of the soft shaled Filberds Molluscae the kernels whereof doe swell and cause their shels to breake in sunder But to return again to our Walnuts some to honor them interpret their names Iuglandes as a man would say the nuts of Iupiter It is not long since I heard a knight of Rome a gentleman of high calling and who had bin Consul professe and say that he had certain walnut trees that bare twice a yeare As for Fisticks we haue spoken already of them To conclude these kind of nuts the aboue named Vitellius brought first into Italy at the same time namely a little before the death of Tiberius the Emperor and withall Flaccus Pompeius a knight of Rome who serued in the wars together with him caried them ouer into Spain CHAP. XXIII ¶ Of Chestnuts eight kindes WE entitule Chestens also by the name of Nuts although indeed they are more aptly to be called a kind of Mast. This fruit what euer it be is inclosed within a huske and the same defended and armed all ouer with a rampier and palisade as it were of sharp pricks like the skin of an vrchin whereas the A corn and other Mast is but half couered and that defence in them is begun only And certes a wonderfull matter it is that we set so little store by this fruit which Nature is so carefull to hide and defend Vnder one of these husks ye shall find somtime three Chestnuts and those hauing certain tough pils or shells very pliable But the skin or filme within and which is next to the body or substance of the fruit vnlesse it be pilled off and taken away marreth the taste of it like as it doth also in other nut-kernells Chestnuts if they be rosted are better and more pleasant meat than otherwise They vse also to grind them to meale and thereof is made a kind of bread which poore women for hunger will eat The first Chestnuts were known to grow about Sardis from thence were brought wherfore the Greeks call them Sardinian nuts but afterwards they came to be named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. Iupiters nuts when as men began to graffe them for thereby they became more excellent And this day there be many sorts of them The Tarentine be gentle and not hard of digestion and in forme flat and plaine That which they call Balanitis is rounder it will soone be pilled and cleansed and of it selfe will leape out of the skin And of this kind the Salarian is more neat flat and smooth the Tarentine not so easie to be handled and dealt withall the Corellian is more commended than the rest as also the Meterane which commeth of it by grassing the manner whereof we will shew when we come to treat of graffes These haue a red pilling in which regard they are preferred before either the three cornered or the blacke common ones which be also called Coctiuae i. Chestnuts to be boiled The best Chestnuts are they which grow about Tarentum and Naples in Campaine All the rest are good in manner for nothing but to feed swine so close sticketh the pill or inner skin also as if it were soudered to the kernell within and so hard it is to seperate the one from the other CHAP. XXIIII ¶ Of Carobes of fleshie and pulpous fruits of Mulberries of liquid kernels or graines and of berries THe fruit called Carobes or Caracts may seeme to come neare vnto the foresaid Chestnuts so passing sweet they be but that their cods also are good to be eaten They bee as long as a mans finger and otherwhiles hooked like a faulcheon and an inch in bredth As for mast it cannot be reckoned among fruit properly called Poma and therefore we will speak of
the carpenter must goe euery way about it with axe and plaine contrariwise that of the female is more frim and gentle And commonly the axe or the hatchet wil tell the difference of male and female in any tree for what wood soeuer it be it will soone find and feele the male for hardly is it able to enter but either turnes edge or rebounds again and whether a man hew or cleaue withall it maketh more crashing and a greater noise where it setleth and taketh hold it sticketh also faster and with more ado is plucked forth Moreouer the very wood of any male tree is of a more brown and burnt colour yea and the root of a blacker hew About the forrest Ida within the territory of Troas there is another distinction of trees in the same kind for some grow vpon the mountaines others toward the coast on the sea side In Macedony Arcadia and about Elis these trees eftsoons change their names so that the Greek writers are not agreed how to distinguish their seueral sorts and range them in their due kind I therefore haue exprest them according to the iudgment of Roman and Latine Authors Of al the trees aboue named the Firs surpasse for bignesse and the femals are the taller The timber also is more frim and soft more profitable also and easier to be wrought the tree it self rounder and so it brancheth archwise the boughes as they resemble wings stretched out and displaied so they stand so thicke with leaues that they will beare off a good shower insomuch as no rain is able to pierce through In sum the female Firre is far more louely and beautifull euery way than the male All the sort of these foresaid trees saue onely the Larch beare certain knobs like Catkins or Chats composed as it were of many scales wrought one ouer another and those hang downe dangling at the branches These knobs or clogs in the male Firre haue in the vpper end a kernel within but those of the femal haue no such thing Moreouer the pitch tree as it hath such catkins lesse and slenderer so all within from one end to the other the kernels be passing little and black withall like to lice or fleas which is the reason that the Greekes call it Phthirophoâ—…os The said catkins of the male pitch trees are more flat and nothing so round as those of the females lesse gummie aâ—…so and not so moist of the rosin To come now to the Yugh because we would ouerpasse none it is to see to like the rest but that it is not so green more slender also and smaller vnpleasant and fearefull to looke vpon as a cursed tree without any liquid substance at all and of these kind of trees it alone beares berries The fruit of the male is hurtful for the berries in Spain especially haue in them a deadly poison And found it hath bin by experience that in France the wine bottles made thereof for wavfaring men and trauellers haue poisoned and killed those that drunke out of them Sestius saith That the Greekes call it Smilax and that in Arcadia it is so venomous that whosoeuer take either repose or tepast vnder it are sure to die presently And hereupon it commeth that those poisons wherewith arrow heads be invenomed after some were called in times past Taxica which wee now name Toxica But to conclude it is seen by good proofe that if a brasen wedge or spike be driuen into the very body of the tree it loseth all the venomous nature and becommeth harmlesse CHAP. XI ¶ How to make all kinds of Pitch The maner how Cedrium is made Also of thicke Pitch how it is made and in what sort Rosin is boiled THe liquid Pitch or Tar throughout all Europe is boiled out of the Torch tree and this kind of pitch serueth to calke ships withall and for many other vses Now the manner of drawing Tarre out of this tree is to cut the wood thereof into pieces and when they are piled vp hollow into an heape to make a great fire within as it were vnder a furnace being claied without-forth thus with the heate of the fire it doth fry and seeth again The first liquour that sweateth and issueth forth runneth cleare as water in a channell or pipe made for the purpose and this the Syrians cal Cedrium which is of such force and efficacy that in Egypt they vse to embalme the dead bodies of men and women departed and keep them from putrefaction At the next running it is thicker and this second liquor is very pitch Howbeit this is cast again into certaine coppers or cauldrons of brasse and together with vineger sodden a second time vntill it come to a thick consistence and when it is thus thickened it taketh the name of Brutian pitch good only for tuns barrells and other such vessels Much like it is to the former pitch but that it is more glutinous and clammy redder also of colour and more fatty And thus much concerning the pitch made of the Torch tree As for that which comes of the pitch tree the rosin thereof is drawne with red hot stones in certain vessels made of strong and thick oken planks or in default thereof the wood is clouen into pieces and piled together after the order of a charcole hearth so the pitch boiles forth The vse hereof when it is beaten into a kind of meale or pouder is to be put into wine and it is of a blacker colour than the rest The same pitch-rosin if it be boiled more lightly with water and be let to run through a strainer comes to a reddish colour and is glewie and thereupon it is called stilled Pitch And for this purpose lightly is set by the more grosse and faultie substance of the rosin together with the bark of the tree But there is another composition and maner of making of pitch that serueth for heady wine called Crapula For the floure of the Rosin is taken green and fresh as it distilleth from the tree together with a good quantitie of small thin and short spils or chips of the tree plucked away with the same the same are minced or shred so small as they may passe through a sieue or a riddle which don all is put into scalding water and there boileth vntill it be incorporate with the water The fat substance that is strained and pressed from hence is the excellent pitch Rosin hard to come by and not to be found in Italy vnlesse it be in few places vnder the Alps and very good it is in physick Now to make it passing white there must be taken one galon of the rosin sodden in two gallons of rain water But some think it the better way to seeth it a whole day together at a soft fire without any matter at all in a pan or vessell of Latton Others there be likewise that boile Turpentine in a hot frying pan and are of opinion that this is
made of Zea than of Wheat and called it is Granum or Granatum although in Alica that be counted a fault To conclude they that wil not vse chalk do blanch and make their Frumentie white by seething milke with it and mingling all together CHAP. XII ¶ Of Pulse IT followeth now to write of the nature of Pulse among which Beanes do challenge the first ranke and principall place for thereof men haue assaied to make bread The meale of Beans is called in Latine Lomentum There is not a Pulse weigheth more than it and Beane meale makes euery thing heauier wherin it is Now adaies they vse to sel it for prouender to feed horses And indeed Beanes are dressed and vsed many waies not only to serue all kind of four-footed beasts but also for man especially For in most countries it is mingled with Frumentiâ—… corn and namely with Pannicke most of all whole and entire as it is but the more delicat and daintie way is to break and bruise it first Moreouer by ancient rites and religious ceremonies at the solemn sacrifice called Fabraria the maner was to offer vnto certain gods and goddesses Beane cakes This was taken for a strong food being eaten with a thick grewel or pottage howbeit men thought that it dulled a mans sences and vnderstanding yea and caused troublesome dreames in the night In regard of which inconueniences Pythagoras expressely forbad to eat Beanes but as some haue thought and taught it was because folke imagined that the soules of such as were departed had residence therein which is the reason also that they be ordinarily vsed and eaten at the funerals and obsequies of the dead Varro also affirmeth That the great Priest or Sacrificer called the Flamine abstains from Beanes both in those respects aforesaid as also for that there are to be seen in the floure thereof certain letters or characters that shewheauines and signs of death Further there was obserued in old time a religious ceremonie in Beanes for when they had sown their grounds their maner was of all other corne to bring back with them out of the fieldes some Beanes for good luck sake presaging thereby that their corne would returne home again vnto them and these Beanes thereupon were called in Latine Refriuae or Referiuae Likewise in all port-sales it was thought that if Beanes were entermingled with the goods offered to be sold they would be luckie and gainefull to the seller This is cerataine that of all the fruits of the earth this only will be full and sound when the Moone is croisant notwithstanding it were gnawne and halfe eaten with some thing before Set them ouer the fire in a pan with sea water or any other that is saltish they will neuerbe thoroughly sodden They are set or sowne before the retrait of the Starre Vergiliae i. the Brood-hen the first of al other Pulse because they might take root betimes and preuent the Winter And yet Virgill would haue them to be put into the ground in the Spring like as the manner is in Piemont and Lombardie all about the riuer Po. But the greater part of good Husbandmen are of this opinion That the stalke or straw of Beanes sowne early or set betimes are better than the very fruit it selfe which hath had but three months being in the ground For the cods and stalks only of Beans are passing good fodder and forage for cattell Beanes when they are blouming and in their floure desire most of al to be refreshed with good store of rain but after they haue don flouring they care for little the sowing of this Pulse in any ground is as good as a mucking vnto it for it enriches it mightily And therefore towards Macedonie and about Thessalie the manner is when Beanes begin to blossom for to turne them into the ground with the plough Beans come vp and grow in most places of their owne accord without sowing and namely in certaine Islands lying within the Northern ocean which our countrymen therupon haue named Fabariae Semblably they grow wild commonly thoroughout Mauritania but exceeding hard and tough they be and such as possibly canot be sodden tender There are likewise in Aegypt to be found Beanes with a stalk beset full of prickles or thornes which is the cause that Crocodiles wil not come neer them for feare of hurting their eyes The stemme of these Beanes is foure cubites in height but exceeding thicke and big withall tender it is notwithstanding and soft running vp euen and smooth without any knots or joints at al it caries a head in the top like Chesboule or Poppy of a rose red color wherin are contained not aboue 30 Beanes at the most The leaues be large the fruit it selfe or the Bean is bitter in tast and the smel not pleasant howbeit the root is a most dainty meat which the inhabitants do eat as wel raw as sodden and like it is to reed cane roots These grow in Syria and Cylicia as also about the lake Torone within Chalcis As touching other Pulse Lentils be sown in Nouember and so are Pease but in Greece only Lentils loue a light ground better than a fat heauie they like also drie and faire weather Two kinds thereof be found in Aegypt the one more round and blacke than the other the rest be fashioned as common Lentils According to the manifold vse and diuers effects of Lentils there haue sundrie names and denominations beene borrowed from them for I find in writers that the eating of Lentils maketh men to be mild and patient whereupon they be called Lenti and Lenes As for Pease it ought to be sowed in warm places lying well vpon the Sunne for of all things it cannot abide the cold Which is the cause that in Italie and in other countries where the clime is tough and hard they are not sowne vsually but in the Spring and folke chuse a gentle light and loose ground To come now to the Ciâ—…h pease the nature of it is to be nitrous and saltish and therefore it burneth the ground where it grows Neither must it be sowne vnlesse it were well steeped and soked in water the day before many sorts there be of these cich-pease different in bignes form colour and tast for there are both blacke and white and those in fashion shaped like to a Rams head and therupon they are so called There is a second kind named Columbinum or by others Venerium These are white round light lesse than the former Rams-head ciches which men do eat ceremoniously with great religion when they meane to watch thoroughly all night long There is a little cich pease also called Cicercula made cornered and otherwise vneuen like vnto a Pease But the best ciches and most pleasant are those that come neerest in resemblance to the Eruile and generally the red kind and the black are more firm and fast than the white cich pease grow within round cods whereas other Pulse
within the guts Boiled in vinegre it is singular for the cankers or exulcerations within the mouth howbeit all authors doe accord that they bee not good for the stomacke Touching Louage which some call Panax i is holesome for the stomack Likewise a proper medicine it is for convulsions and ventosities To conclude there are some who name it Cunila Bubula as I haue before noted but they be deceiued CHAP. XVI ¶ Of the wilde Origan Cunila Bubula of the Bastard Marjoram named Gallinacea Cunila or Hâ—…racleoticum Origanum of the tender Cunilago of Rosemarie of Garden Sauorie or Cunila and that of the mountaines OVer and besides the garden Sauorie there be many kinds of Cunila known in Physicke and first that which is called Bubula and hath seed like to Peniroiall being either chewed in the mouth or applied outwardly it is a good wound-hearb so that it be not remooued but euery fiue daies Taken in wine it is singular against the poisonous sting of serpents in case the hearbe it selfe be stamped and laid withall vpon the sore place and verily it is an ordinarie thing to rub therewith welland throughly the wounds that they make Semblably the Tortoises against the time that they should fight with Serpents vse this hearbe in manner of a defensatiue take themselues wel armed against their enemie which is the reason that some giue it the name of Panax Being dried it assuageth the pain of tumors and cures the accidents that befall to the priuie members of men or if the leaues be but stamped they haue the like effect And in one word the operation thereof is excellent and wonderfull if it be vsed in wine Another Cunila or Sauorie there is which our countreymen call in Latine Gallinacea the Greekes name it Origanum Heracleoticum If it be braied and salt joined thereto it is soueraigne for the eyes it helpeth the cough also and correcteth all faults of the liuer If a thicke grewell or sew be made thereof together with floure oile and vinegre so tempered as it may be supped it cureth the pleurisie or paines of the sides but aboue all it is singular for the stinging of Serpents A third kind there is which the Greeks tearme the male but we in Latin Cunilago a stinking smell it hath with it a woodie hard root and a rough leafe but it is generally said that the operations thereof be more effectuall than of any other kind It is verily thought that if a man cast an handfull thereof from him into any part of the house al the moths and such like vermin will gather about it But to come to particulars It hath a singular power against Scorpions if it be taken with water vinegre Also if a man or woman take 3 leaues thereof and rub his bodie thoroughly with it and oile together there is not a Serpent so hardie as dare approch neare such a bodie so perfumed Contrariwise the Cunila which is named Mollis idest Soft hath leaues and branches more hairie than the former and those sharpe pointed like prickes This hearbe if a man rub betweene his fingers resembleth honey in smell and will sticke fast too in manner of honny Another sort there is of Cunila which we for the smell that it hath of Frankincense call Libanotis But both these the one as well as the other taken in wine or vinegre cureth the biting and sting of Serpents If they be bruised or stamped into pouder and so put into water they kill all the fleas in the place where the said water is cast or spinckled As for the garden Sauorie it also hath many good properties The juice thereof with oyle of roses distilled into the ears is very comfortable vnto them The hearb it selfe taken in drink helpeth those who are stung with venomous Serpents This Sauorie oftentimes doth degenerat into a bastard kind named Mountain Sauory Like it is to wild running Thyme and is effectuall also against the poyson of serpents It prouoketh vrin and purgeth women newly deliuered if haply they haue not sufficient voidance Singular it is for to help digestion and stirreth vp appetit to meat wonderfully In summe as well the gentle Sauorie as the wild is passing wholesome for crudities in the stomacke if one spice his morning draught therewith fasting It is vsed also to very good purpose in dislocations and members out of joynt with barley meale water and vigre it is excellent for the stinging of waspes and such like pricks As touching the other kinds of Libanotis or Rosemarie write I will more fully in due place CHAP. XVII ¶ Of Piperitis and Origanum of Onitis-Prasium of Tragoriganum and Heraclium of Lepidium and Gith or Melanthium of Annise PIperitis or Calecut Pepper-wort which before we called Siliquastrum beeing taken in drinke is very good for the falling sicknesse Castor hath described it after another manner namely to be an herb rising vp with a long red stem thicke set with joynts or little knees bearing leaues resembling those of Lawrel with white seed and the same smal carying with it the tast of Pepper The vertues of which hearb be these To help the gumbs and teeth to make a sweet breath and withstand soure and stinking belches Origan or Orgament which in tast as we haue said resembleth * Sauery hath many kinds all medicinable for there is one one sort therof sirnamed Onitis or Prasion not vnlike to hyssope a peculiar propertie this hearb hath being drunke in warme water to quiet the gnawings in the stomacke and to concoct the crudities there but taken in white wine to cure the venomous pricks of Spiders and Scorpions The same applied outwardly with oile and vinegre vpon wooll is singular good for dislocations disjointures spraines contutions and bruises As for Tragoriganum it is more like vnto wild creeping Thyme it hath vertue to prouoke vrin to discusse and resolue all tumors or swellings And more particularly most effectuall it is for them that haue drunke the gum of Chamelaeon called Ixia also against the Vipers sting besides for the stomacke that belcheth soure and for the midriffe and precordiall parts It is an approued medicine for the cough the phrensie and inflammation of the lungs being with honey reduced into the forme of a Lohoch for to be sucked downe leisurely Touching the Origan named Heracleum or Heracleoticum the same also is diuided into three sorts For the first is of a blacker more duskish green with broader leaues also than the rest and besides is glutinous and will cleaue to ones fingers A second sort hath smaller leaues softer it is more tender in hand not vnlike to Majoram and this kind some would rather call Prasium The third hath leaues of a mean bignes between the other two not so large as the one nor so slender as the other but not so forcible in operation as either of them both but to return againe to our former Origanum the best
be who drink the same for to purge both vpward and downward for otherwise an enimy it is to the stomack in which potion if there be put some salt it doth euacuat fleagme but with salt petre it voideth cholerick humors If the patient haue a mind to purge by seege he shal do wel to drink the juice of Tithymall in water and vineger mingled together but if he be disposed to vomit it is better to drink it in cuit or mead The ordinarie dose is three oboles thereof in a potion But the better way is to take the figs prepared as is beforesaid after meat and euen so taken in some sort the juice doth sting the throat and set it on fire For to say a truth of so hot a nature it is that alone of it selfe being applied outwardly vnto any part of the body it raiseth pimples and blisters no lesse than fire in which regard it is vsed for a caustick or potentiall cauterie the second kind of the Tithymall is knowne by the name Myrsinites which others call Caryites The reason of the one name is this for that it beareth sharp pointed and prickie leaues in manner of the Myrtle but that they be somwhat more tender and the same groweth in rough places like as the former The bushy heads or tufts of this Tithymall would be gathered when Barly beginneth to swell in the eare so they be let to take their drying in the shade 9 daies together for in the Sun they wil be withered in that space The fruit which this plant beareth doth not ripen all together in one season but some part thereof remaineth against the next yere and the said fruit is called the Tithymal nut which is the cause that the Greeks haue imposed vpon it that second name Caryites The proper time to gather and cut down this herb is when corn is ripe in the field and ready to be reaped or mowed Which beeing washed must afterwards be laied forth a drying so they vse to giue it with two parts or twice as much of black Poppie yet so as the whole dose may not exceed one acetable This Tithymall is nothing so strong a vomitory as the former no more be the rest whereof I will speak anone Some there be who giue the leaues also with black poppy after the foresaid proportion the very nut or fruit it selfe alone in mead or cuit or els if they put any thing thereto it must be Sesama and truely in this maner it sendeth flegmatick chollerick humors away by seege This Tithymal is singular for the sores in the mouth But for cankerous and corrosiue vlcers indeed which corrode deep into the mouth it is good to chew and eat the same with honey The third kind of Tithymall is called Paralius or Tithymalis This herb puts forth round leaues riseth vp with a stalk a span or hand full high the branches be red and the seed white which ought to be gathered when the grape beginneth to shew blacke vpon the vine And being dried and made into pouder is a sufficient purgation so it be taken inwardly to the measure of one acetable the fourth kind is named Helioscopium the leaues wherof resemble Purcellane and from the root it puts forth 4 or 5 small vpright branches which be likewise red and half a foot high the same also be ful of juice or milk This herb delighteth to grow about town sides bearing a white seed wherin Doues Pigeons take exceeding great pleasure which also is ordinarily gathered when the grape maketh some shew of ripening It took this name Helioscopium for that it turns the heads which it beareth round about with the Sun Halfe an acetable thereof taken in Oxymel purgeth choller downeward And in other cases vsed it is like as the former Tithymall named Characias The fifth men call Cyparissias for the resemblance that the leaues haue to those of the Cypresse tree it riseth vp with a double or threefold stem and loueth to grow in champian places of the same operation and vertue it is that Helioscopium and Characias beforenamed The sixth Tithymal is commonly called Platyphyllos although some name it Corymbites others Amygdalites for the resemblance that it hath to the almond tree there is not a Tithymal hath broader leaues than it which is the reason of the first and vsuall name Platyphyllos it is good to kil fish it purges the belly if either the root leaues or iuice be taken in honied wine or in mead to the weight of foure drams a speciall vertue it hath to draw water downward from all other humors The seuenth is called commonly Dendroides and yet some giue it the name Cobion others Leptophyllon ordinarily it is found growing vpon rocks and of all others carrieth the fairest head likewise the stems be reddest and the seed sheweth in most plenty the effects be all one with those of Characias as touching the plant called Apios Ischas or Rhaphanos-agria i. the wild Radish it putteth forth two or three stalkes like bents or rushes spreading along the ground and those be red and the leaues resemble rue the root is like an onion head but that it is larger which is the reason that some haue called it the wild Radish this root hath a white fleshie substance within but the skin or rind thereof is blacke it groweth vsually vpon rough mountains and otherwise in faire greens full of grasse The right season to dig vp this root is in the Spring which being stamped and strained they vse to put in an earthen pot where it is permitted to stand look what it casteth vp and swimmeth aloft they scum off and throw away the rest of the iuice thus clarified purgeth both waies if it be taken to the weight of one obolus a half in mead or honied water and in that maner prepared it is giuen to those that be in a dropsie the ful measure of one acetable the pouder also of the root dried is good to spice a cup for a purgation and as they say the vpper part of the root purgeth choler vpward by vomit whereas the nether part doth it by seege downward Now for the pains and wrings which oftentimes torment the poorebelly all the kinds of Panaces and Betony are singular to assuage and allay them plain vnlesse they be such as are occasioned by crudity and indigestion As for the iuice of Harstrang it dissolueth ventosities for it breaketh wind vpward and causeth one to rift so doth the roots of Acorus also carots if they be eaten in a salad after the maner of Lettuce For the infirmities proper to the guts namely the worms there breeding Ladanum of Cypresse is soueraigne to be taken in drinke in like maner the pouder of Gentian drunk in warm water to the quantity of a bean Plantain likewise hath the same effect if there be taken of it first in a morning to the quantity of 2 spoonfuls
of the grape Moreouer this proper qualitie haue scorpions alone by themselues That they neuer pricke the ball of ones hand nor sting at all vnlesse they may touch some haire Furthermore take any little stone whatsoeuer and apply that side which lay next the ground vnto the wound it will ease the paine likewise any shell or potsherd which lieth with some part of it couered with earth if it be taken vp and laid unto the sore with earth and all vpon it as it was found lying is said to heale the same perfectly but in no wise they that haue the applying of it must looke behind them they ought also to take heed and be very carefull that the Sun shine not vpon them when they are about this businesse Earth-worms or mads stamped and laid to are very good to cure the biting of scorpions and yet they serue besides for many other remedies in which regard they be ordinarily preserued in hony For the sting of Bees Wesps and Hornets for the biting also of those Horseleeches called Bloudsuckers the Howlat is counted a soueraigne remedie by a certaine antipathy in nature also whosoeuer carry about them the bill of a Woodpecker or Hickway shall neuer be anoled with any of the foresaid vermin The smallest kind of locusts likewise which are without wings and be called Attelabi be aduerse and contrarie vnto them all Ouer besides the Insects aboue named there be in some places certain pismires also very venomous which Cicero calleth Solpugae but they of Grenado in Spain Salpugae howbeit few or none of them are to be found throughout all Italy But what help is there for them and their poison Surely the heart of a Reremouse otherwise called a bat hath an operation which is aduerse not only to them but to all Ants besides As for the flies named Cantharides I haue shewed before how contrarie they be to the venom of the Salamander and yet considering how hurtful they be themselues and a very poison to the bladder causing intollerable pain if they be drunk down much dispute question there is among physitians how they should be taken and vsed for how venomous they be it may appeare by the practise of a certaine Egyptian physitian whom by occasion that one Cossinus a knight of Rome a great fauorit of the Emperor Nero was infected with the foule tettar called Lichene the said prince sent for out of Egypt to cure of that disease but he prepared such a drink of Cantharides for his patient Cossinus that it quickly cost him his life and brought him to his graue Howbeit there is no doubt but being applied outwardly they are not only harmlesse but also very good especially if they be incorporate in the juice of the blacke wilde Vine called Vva Taminia and sheeps suet or goats tallow Moreouer albeit well knowne it is that these Cantharides be venomous yet those Authors that write of them be not agreed and resolued in what part that venom lieth for some there be who are of opinion that their feet are poison others thinke their mischiefe is all in their head and there be againe who deny both but wheresoeuer the said poison lieth all conclude jointly vpon this point that their wings be medicinable therefore and do cure the same As for the generation of these dangerous flies they be ingendred of certaine little grubs or wormes and most commonly vpon the spongeous bals which wee see to grow vpon the stalke or stem of the Eglantine but surely the greatest plenty of them breed in an Ash tree As for others that come of a white Rose bush they are not so vehement in operation as the rest and of them all those worke most violently which are spotted and of diuers colours streaked with yellow lines ouerthwart their wings and besides are very plumpe and fat The smaller sort which also are broad and hairy are nothing so powerful and speedy in their operation But the worst of all and least effectuall in physicke be those which are of one entire colour and leane withall Now for the manner of preparing and ordering of them for physical vses they would be gotten when Roses be fully out heaped vp together in one masse and so bestowed in an arthen pot not pitched vernished or nealed the mouth wherof is close stopped with a linnen cloath then are they to be hanged vp with the mouth of the said pot downward ouer some vinegre boiling with salt vntill such time as by the fume or vapour thereof steeming through the said linnen clout they be choked and killed and afterward they be layd vp and reserued for vse Of a causticke and burning nature they are insomuch as they will raise blisters yea and leaue an eschar vpon the exulcerat place Of the like force be the wormes Pityocampae breeding in pitch trees so is the venomous flie or beetle called Buprestis and after the same maner be they prepared as the Cantharides All the sort of them in generall be most effectuall to kill the leprosie and ilfauored tettars called Lichenes Besides they haue the name to prouoke womens monethly termes and vrine which is the cause that Hippocrates prescribed them to be vsed in a dropsie To conclude with these Cantharides I thinke it not amisse to note That Cato syrnamed Vticensis was accused and endited for felling of poison because in the generall portsale of the kings goods amongst other moueables he held Cantharides at threescore sesterces a pound and made so much money of them CHAP. V. ¶ Of the Ostrich greace and of a mad Dog of Lizards Geese Doues and Weasils with the medicines that they do yeeld I Cannot chuse but relate also by the way vpon this occasion ministred that at the same time Ostrich grease was sold for eighty Sesterces the pound and in truth it is much better for any vse it shall be put vnto than goose grease As touching diuers sorts of venomous hony I haue written already but for to represse the poison thereof it is good to vse other hony wherein a number of bees haue been forced to die and such hony so prepared and taken in wine is a soueraign remedie for all those accidents that may come by eating or surfeiting vpon fish For the biting of a mad dog take the ashes of a dogs head burnt and apply it to the sore it wil saue the Patient from that symptome of being afraid of water which is incident to such as be so bitten And now by occasion of speech know thus much once for all That all things which are to be calcined require one and the same manner of burning that is to say within a new earthen pot neuer occupied before well luted all ouer with strong cley and so set into an ouen or furnace vntill such time as the contents be calcined The said ashes made of a Dogs head is singular good likewise to be drunke in the same case wherfore some haue giuen counsell
sweet boy which for the singular beautie Brutus of Philippo so loued that it was commonly called by his surname Philippensis Theodorus who made the Maze or Labyrinth at Samos caused his own image to bee cast in brasse which besides the wonderfull neere resemblance and likenesse to himselfe was contriued so artificially besides and so set out with other fine deuises that he was much renowned for the workmanship and in the sight of all men it was admirable he carrieth yet in his right hand a file and in his left hand he bare somtime with three fingers a little pretty coach and the same with four horses at it which was afterwards taken from the rest and had away to Praeneste but both the coach the teeme of horses and the coachman were couched in so small a roome that a little flie which also he deuised to be made to the rest couered all with her pretie wings Xenocrates was apprentice to Tisicrates or as some say to Euthycrates but whether of the twaine soeuer was his master he outwent therâ—… both in the number of statues and images that he wrought and besides compiled bookes of his owne art and workemanship Many artificers there were thatby imagerie delighted to counterfeit in brasse the battailes that king Attalus and Eumenes both fought against the Galatians or Gallogreekes and namely Isigonus Pyromachus Stratonicus and Antigonus and this artisane last named composed bookes also of his own art Boethius although he was a better workeman in siluer yet one piece of worke he made in brasse which had an excellent grace and that was a child throtling a Goose by the necke Of all these pieces of antique worke which I haue reckoned vp the most choise and singular aboue the rest Nero before time had by his violent edicts and commandements caused to bee brought from all parts to Rome and he disposed them in diuerse roomes of his golden house for to adorne and beautifie the same but now they be consecrated by Vespasian the Emperour in the temple of Peace and in other stately buildings and edifiâ—…s of his Many other excellent artificers there are be sides these aboue rehearsed but they may be all raunged in one ranke and counted for their skill and cunning equall for a man shall not find one piece of worke of their making that carieth any singularity aboue the rest and namely Ariston who also was wont to graue and chase in siluer Callias Clesias Cantharus of Sicyone Dionysodorus who was an apprentise trained vp vnder Critias Deliades Euphorion Eunicus and Hecataeus As touching famous engrauers in siluer I read of Lesbocles Prodorus Pithodâ—…eus and Polygnotus who also were most excellent and renowned painters Likewise of siluersmiths or grauers in siluer we haue Stratonicus and Scymnus who had for his master Criâ—…ias Now will I reckon vp those worthy and famous Imageurs who emploied themselues in one and the same kind of workes In the first place Apollodorus Androbulus Asclepiodorus and Aleuas tooke pleasure to expresse the similitudes of learned men Philosophers As for Apelles he delighted besides to represent women at their deuotions adoring the gods and offering sacrifices Antigonus had a grace likewise to represent one currying and scraping his skin al ouer the body in a stoue as also the murderers of the Tyrants abouenamed Antimachus and Athenodorus loued to haue in their shops the statues of great ladies and noblewomen Aristodemus tooke much pleasure to busie himselfe about the portraying of wrestlers coaches with two horses set therto and a coachman Philosophers and great clearkes old matrons and king Seleucus There is also of his making a Doryphorus resembling one of Darius his guard which is a proper piece of work a louely As touching the Cephissodori for two of them there were the elder had a great dexterity in making Mercurie fostering prince Bacchus in his infancie He made also one preaching to the people and casting forth his armes but what person of quality he should be it is not certainely knowne the younger was wont to represent the Philosophers Colothas who joined with Phidias in the making of Iupiter Olympius He delighted also to be doing with the images of Philosophers So did Cleon and Cenchramis Callicles and Cephis As for Calcosthenes he busied and amused himselfe in the counterfeits of Comaedians players of enterludes and champions Daehippus had a very good hand in making one scraping and rubbing his body in an hot-house Daiphron Democritus and Daemon were as cunning and perfect in the personages of Philosophers and Sages Epigonus would haue his hand in all those works in manner which I haue rehearsed and laboured to imitate those artificers but he surpassed them all in a Trumpetter of his owne devising and a little infant who seeing the mother slaine made toward the dead corps and hung about it as if it would play and be plaied withall ful pittiously to behold Eubolides made one as if he were counting vpon his fingers Mycon his cunning was most seen in the counterfeiting of wrestlers and such as practise feats of actiuitie and Menogenes in making chariots with foure horses Niceratus likewise enterprised all maner of works wherein others were best seen and besides represented the personage of Alcibiades together with his mother Demarete as shee sacriced with lampe light burning by her Pisicrates shewed much skill with a chariot of two horses wherein he bestowed Pitho sitting in the habit of a woman The images Mars and Mercurie also which stand at Rome in the temple of Concordia be of this mans making As for Perillus there is no man commendeth him for his workmanship but holdeth him more cruell than Phalaris the Tyrant who set him a work for that he deuised a brasen Bull to rost frie condemned persons in assuring the Tyrant that after the fire was made vnder it they would when they cried seeme to bellow like a Bull so rather make sport than moue compassion but this Perillus was the first himselfe that gaue the hansell to the engine of his own inuention although this was cruelty in the Tyrant yet surely such a workman deserued no better a reward justly he felt the smart of it For why The art and cunning foundery which of all others is most ciuile agreeable to our nature and which had beene emploied ordinarily in representing the personages of men and gods this monster of men abused and debased to this vile and vnnaturall ministery of tormenting man Would one haue euer thought that after so many witty worthy men who had trauelled in this science to bring it to some perfection all their labours should turne in the end to this proofe for to make instruments thereby of torture And certes there being many pieces of his workmanship they be kept and saued for this cause onely that as many as see the same may detest and abhor the wicked hand that made them But to proceed forward to other workmen in
and vsing to the hand bright-shining and as one would say tamed made gentle and pliable It would not be forgotten also to euery 100 pound weight of the said melted ore to mix 12 pound and a halfe of Tin But to haue a kinde of Brasse mettall that is most tender and soft there must bee giuen vnto it that mixture or temperature which is called Formall namely by putting thereto of ordinarie lead a tenth part and of Tin a twentieth part and by that means especially it taketh that colour which they call Grecanicke The last temperature is that which in Latine they call Ollaria as â—…e would say the pot-brasse for it taketh the name of that vessell whereto it is most emploied and this is by tempering with euery hundred pound weight of brasse 3 or four pound weight of argentine lead or tin To Cyprian brasse or copper if you put lead you shall haue that deep red or purple colour which giueth the tincture to the robes that statues are pourtraied with Moreouer this is to be noted that the more you do scoure any vessels of brasse the more are they subject to rust and sooner will they gather it than if they were neglected and not medled withall vnlesse they be well annointed with oile It is said that a vernish made of tarre is singular for to preserue and saue any brasse from rust To conclude brasse hath serued many a yeare ago for the perpetuity of memorials and registers as we may see by those brasen tables here in Rome wherin be cut and ingrauen all our publick laws and constitutions CHAP. X. ¶ Of Cadmia or Brasse ore and the medicines wherein it is vsually employed THe mines and veins of brasse ore do many waies furnish vs with medicines a good proofe whereof this may be that any vlcers be soonest healed there but the most medicinable of all minerals that belong to brasse mettall is Cadmia artificial And verily there is a kind of Cadmia made in the furnaces where siluer is fined of a whiter colour and lesse ponderous but nothing comparable to that which commeth from the brasse furnaces And sundry sorts there be of Cadmia for the very stone of which they make brasse is called Cadmia and as it is necessary for founders so it is of no vse at all in Physick Now is there a Cadmia besides which is made in the furnaces and so called but the reason thereof is far different and this kinde of of Cadmia commeth of the finest and thinnest part of the ore or matter in the furnace cast vp aloft by the flame blast sticking to the roofe or sides of the furnace higher or lower according to the proportion of the lightnesse that it carrieth more or lesse The finest and the floure as it were of Cadmia is found in the very mouth of the furnace whereas the flames do striue to get forth the Greeks call it Capnitis for that it is smokie and burnt and for the exceeding leuity thereof resemble flying cinders That which is more inward and hangeth downe from the coping and vauted roofe of the furnace is the best and in that respect because it hangeth so as it were by clusters they giue it the name Botryitis heauier this is than the former but lighter than those that follow after As for the colour thereof it is in two sorts that which you see of a dead hew like ashes is the worse whereas the red is the better the same also is brittle and will soone crumble small for eie-salues and collyries reputed soueraign A third kind of Cadmia sticketh by the way to the sides and wals of the furnace for by reason of the heauinesse and ponderosity it was not able to mount vp to the bending roofe of the furnace this the Greeks call Placitis and well it may be so named for a crust rather it is than a scaly substance break it you shal find many colours in it and this Cadmia for to heale scabs and scurfe as also to cicatrice or skin a sore is better than the former Out of this kinde there proceed other twaine to wit Onychitis which in the outside is after a sort blewish but within it resembleth the flecks or spots of the onyx stone and Ostracitis blacke throughout of all the rest most foule and grosse howbeit fittest for wounds Generally that Cadmia of what kinde soeuer is best which is found within the furnaces of Cypros this the Physitians doe burne a second time with pure coles and when it is calcined and turned to ashes they quench it with Amminean wine if they meane to prepare it for plasters but with vineger for scabs and scurfe Some there be who after it is stamped grosse burne or calcine it in an earthen pot then wash it well in a mortar and afterwards dry it Nymphodorus taketh the very stone or the ore as it lieth in the mine the heauiest and most compact that may be found which he burneth among coles and after it is sufficiently burnt quencheth it in wine of Chios he beateth and punneth it then again anon he driueth or boulteth it through a linnen cloth and grindeth it finer in a mortar this done soon after he steepeth and soketh it wel in rain water and that which setleth in the bottom he stampeth and this he doth vntill such time as it be like ceruse or white lead and wil not crash between the teeth The same maner of preparing vseth Iôllas but he chuseth the purest and brightest stone that he can get The medicinable operations of Cadmia bee to drie to heale throughly to stay fluxes to cleanse the filthinesse in the eyes and to scoure the pin and web to extenuate any roughnesse and in one word to worke all those effects which I shall attribute hereafter to Lead Furthermore brasse it selfe may be burnt and being so prepared it serueth for all those purposes beforenamed ouer and aboue it cureth the pearls films and skars in the eies if it be incorporat with milk it healeth the vlcers in the eies the same likewise they vse to grinde vpon hard stones after the manner of the Aegyptian collyrie taken as a lohoch inwardly with hony it causeth vomit Now as touching copper the manner is to burn it in vnbaked earthen pans with the like weight of brimstone but all the breathing holes of the furnace ought to be well closed and luted vp where they must stand vntill such time as the said pans be throughly baked hard some put salt thereto others in stead of brimstone take alumne and there be againe who vse neither the one nor the other but sprinckle it well with vineger onely when it is thus calcined they pun it in a morter of Thebaick marble and then wash it in rain water Howbeit this first lotion of it maketh it but weak and of small effect and therefore it had need of a second washing in a greater quantity of water and to be braied againe therein and left so
kindes the blacke and the white The richest of all and that which carrieth the greatest price is that which we in Latine name Plumbum candidum i. the white bright lead and the Greeks Cassiteron But I hold it a meere fable and vaine tale that all of it is fetched as farre as from the Islands of the Atlanticke sea and that the inhabitants of those parts doe conueigh it in little twiggen boats couered all ouer with feathers For the truth is that there is found of it in these daies within Portugall and Gallaecia growing ebbe vpon the vpmost face of the earth being among the sands of a black colour and by the weight only is knowne from the rest of the soile and here and there among a man shall meet with small stones of the same stuffe most of all within the brookes that be dry sometimes of the yere This sandie and grauelly substance the mine masters and mettall finers vse to wash and that which setleth downeward they burne melt in the furnace There is found likewise in the gold mines a kind of lead ore which they cal Elutia for that the water that they let into those mines as I said before washeth and carrieth down withall certain little blacke stones streaked and marked a little with a kind of white and as heauy they be in hand as the very ore of gold and therefore gathered they be with the same ore and laid in the paniers together therewith and afterward in the furnace when the fire hath made a separation between them and gold so soone as they are melted do resolue into the substance of the white lead or tinglasse aforesaid Moreouer this is is strange that throughout all Gallecia you shal not find a mine of common black lead yet in Biskay which confineth hard vpon it there is abundance of it no other neither out of the vein of this white lead shal you try any siluer wheras out of the black it is an ordinarie thing to extract siluer Again this is certain that two pieces of black lead canot possibly be sodered together without this tinglasse neither can this be vnited to the other but by means of oile nay it is vnpossible to conioyne a piece of tin-soder or white lead with another but with a soder of the black This white lead or tinglasse hath bin of long time in estimation euen since the war of Troy as witnesseth the poet Homer who calls it Cassiteron As for blacke lead ingendred it is two maner of waies for either it groweth in a vein of the owne without any other mettal with it or els it doth participat with siluer in the same mine and being intermixt in one piece or lump of ore it is separated from it at the melting and fining only for the first liquor that runs from it in the furnace is tin and the second siluer As for the third part of the vein which remaineth behind in the furnace it is Galaena that is to say the very mettal it selfe of lead which beeing once againe melted and tried in the fire after two parts thereof be deducted yeeldeth that black lead whereof we now do treat CHAP. XVII ¶ Of Tin of Argentine Lead and other points pertinent to these matters TIn hath a proper vse to enhuile vessels of brasse partly to take away the euil tast they haue and to make them sweeter and partly to preserue them from rust or to qualifie the malitious nature of brasse and yet wonderfull it is that such vessels thus tinned are neuer a jot the heauier by that means Also in times past there were as I haue already said excellent Mirroirs made of tin and the same were tempered wrought at Brundise but those of siluer haue put them down since that euery chamber-maid and such like seruing creature would be at their looking-glasses of siluer But tin is found much counterfeit in these daies by putting to White lead aboue said a third prrt of white brasse yea and there is another deuise to sophisticate tin to wit by mixing white and blacke lead one with another by euen weight and portion and this maslen some call at this day siluer lead or argentine As for that mixed matter wherein be two parts of black lead and one of the white they cal it Tertiarium this kind of tinne is sold after 30 the pound and it is that wherewith they vsed to soder conduit pipes but the lewder disposed pewterers haue a cast to put vnto this tin called Tertiarium an equal quantity of white lead and then they call it Argentarium which mettall they employ in vessells for the kitchen to seeth meat or what they list in them and this kind of pewter wanteth no price for they set it at 130 the pound whereas a pound of white lead or tinglasse pure and fine of itselfe is sould for thirty and the blacke for sixteen As touching the temperature and nature of the white lead it standeth more vpon a dry substance contrariwise that of blacke is wholly moist and liquid which is the reason that the said white lead or tinglasse will serue to no vse or purpose vnlesse it be mixed with some other mettal neither is it good to lead or soder siluer with for sooner will siluer melt in the fire than it There is a deuise to tin pots pans and other pieces of brasse so artificially with white lead or tinglasse an inuention which came out of France that hardly a man shall discerne them from vessell of siluer and such leaded vessels are commonly called Incoctilia After the same maner they haue taken vp of late another custome to siluer the trappings especially and caparisons of their horses of seruice yea and the harnesse of coach-horses and draught jades and namely in the town Alexia As for the former inuention those of Bourges haue the honour of it Neither rested they so but haue proceeded to adorn and garnish in that maner their chariots wagons and coaches But our vain and wastful wantons not herewith contented are come now to their wagon seats not of siluer only but also of gold and that which in times past was condemned as monstrous prodigalitie to be put into drinking vessels the same to tread vpon now with the feet and to waste and consume about waggons and charriots is commended for finenesse neatnesse and elegancie But to return againe vnto our white lead if you would know whether it be right and good or no the proof is to be made in paper for put it melted into a sheet of paper if it be not falsified it wil seem to break and rend the paper with the weight and not with the scalding heat thereof Moreouer it is worth the obseruation that the Indians haue no mines among them either of brasse or lead but are content to part with their pearles and pretious stones vnto merchants by way of counterchange for these mettals Black lead or common lead is much vsed with
calcining lead is to put into a pan certaine little plates thereof together with brimstone turning the same euer and anone either with some yron rod or stiffe stalke and stem of Ferula plants vntil such time as both the one and the other being liquefied be conuerted turned into ashes the same after that they be once cooled ought to be punned and beaten againe and reduced into a most pure and exquisite fine pouder Some there be who take file-dust of lead put the same in an earthen pot or greene potters clay set the same into an ouen and so let it calcine therein vntill such time as the pot be well and throughly baked others againe there are who mix with lead the like quantity of cerusse or els of barly and pun the same like crude lead vncalcined in manner aforesaid for a loture and when it is reduced thus into pouder they make more reckoning of it than of the Cyprian Spodium Ouer and besides the drosse or refuse of lead is medicinable and the best is that accounted which commeth nearest to a yellow colour without any reliques at all of the lead among or else inclining to the hew of brimstone and cleansed from all earthly substance this also beeing braied and broken into small parcels may be washed in manner aforesaid and stamped with water in a mortar vntill such time as the water looke yellow then must it bee powred forth into a pure cleane vessell and this tranvasation ought so long to be continued out of one vessell into another vntill such time as it haue done casting any residence downeward for the sediment that resteth in the bottome is the best working the self-same effect as lead doth but with more acrimony When I consider all this mee thinkes I cannot sufficiently admire the diligence of men who haue made such experiments of al things in the world sparing not so much as the very ordure offall and filthy excrements but haue tried conclusions therein so many waies and left nothing vnattempted There is a kind of Spodium also made of lead in the furnace after the same manner as I shewed before of copper or Cyprian brasse the order of washing whereof is this to put it in a course linnen cloth and to lay the same in rain water that the terrene substance may be separated from the rest that is transfused or passeth through the cloth with the water and yet the same must bee cribled or serced afterwards and beaten to pouder Some thinke it better to wipe and scoure off the dust from the Calamine with wings and then to beat it in a mortar with the most odoriferous wine they can get There is besides a minerall named Molybdena which elsewhere I haue called Galaena by which I meane in this place the ore or veine that containeth within it both siluer and lead the better this is thought to be the more that it inclineth to the colour of gold and the lesse that it standeth vpon lead the same also is brittle apt to crumble and in proportion of the quantity not very weighty in hand the same if it be boiled with oile will in colour resemble liuer There is a kind of Galaena likewise that sticketh to the furnaces of gold and siluer but this whereof I now speake they call Metallica that is to say the Minerall and verily the best of this kinde is that which is found in Zephyrium the marks whereof are these if it haue little or no earth in it nor be any waies stony the same is burnt calcined and washed neither more nor lesse than the drosse Scoria Much vsed this minerall is in those vncteous liniments or salues called Liparae deuised as lenitiue refrigerant for vlcers also it entreth into plasters which are not mordicant but being applied to any sore in tender and delicat bodies and in the softest parts it doth heale faire and skin throughly The composition of which plasters is after this manner Take three pound weight of this minerall lead Molybdaena put thereto of wax one pound and of oile three hemines which done incorporat all together according to art into the forme of an emplastre Now if it so fal out that the patient be an elderly body there would be an addition put thereto of the lees or mother of oile oliue This minerall may be tempered also to right good purpose with litharge of siluer and the drosse of lead and then it is a most excellent medicine to be injected by a clystre for the dysenterie or bloudy flix for the tinesm also which is an inordinat desire to the stoole without doing any thing prouided alwaies that the belly be fomented besides with hot water There is another mineral besides called Psimmithyum which is al one with Ceruse and this the furnace and mine of lead ore doth yeeld but the best of this kind is brought from the Island Rhodes The manner of making it is this Take the finest pieces that are scraped from lead let the same be hung ouer a vessell of the strongest and sharpest vineger that possibly can be had that they may distill thereinto and looke what of it is fallen into the said vineger must be dried afterwards ground into pouder and searced then a second time it ought to be tempered with vineger and so reduced into seuerall trochiske to be dried in the Sun during Summer There is another way of making Ceruse besides this namely to put lead into certaine pots or pitchers of vineger well and throughy stopped that no aire go out and therein to let it rest for ten daies space together after which time to take it forth and scrape from it the mouldinesse or vinewing that doth furre or gather about it which done to cast it in againe into the said vessels continuing so vntill such time as the lead be consumed to nothing Now that which hath been thus scraped from it they take and beat into pouder they serce it also very fine calcin it ouer the fire in a pan stirring and mixing it together with little slices or pot-stickes vntill such time as it wax red and be like vnto Sandaracha After all this they wash it in fresh water so long vntil that all the grossenesse be scoured off which when it is dry in like manner as before they digest into trochiskes This Ceruse serueth to the same purposes that the rest abouenamed onely of al the other it is lightest in operation and besides serueth to make an excellent blanch for women that desire a white complexion but deadly it is being taken inwardly in drink like as letharge also This ceruse thus made as white as it is in case it be afterwards burnt againe turneth to be reddish As touching Sandarache I haue already shewed in manner all that concerneth the nature of it howbeit this would be noted ouer and aboue that it is found in the mines as well of siluer as of gold the redder it is and of a more
their paine The Amiant stone is like Alume being put into the fire loseth nothing of the substance a singular propertie it hath to resist all inchantments and sorceries such especially as Magitians do practise As for Gaeodes the Greeks haue giuen it this significant name because it containeth inclosed within the belly a certaine earth a medicine soueraigne for the eies as also for the infirmities incident as well to womens paps as mens genitoirs The stone Melitites hath that name because if it be bruised or braied it yeeldeth from it a certaine sweet juice in manner of honey the same being incorporat in wax is good to cure the flegmatick wheales and other pushes or specks of the body it healeth likewise the exulceration of the throat applied with wool it takes away the chilblanes or angry bloudifalls called Epinyctides also the griefe of the matrice it easeth in the same manner The Gete which otherwise we call Gagates carrieth the name of a towne and riuer both in Lycia called Gages it is said also that the sea casteth it vp at a full tide or high water into the Island of Leucola where it is gathered within the space of twelue stadia and no where els black it is plaine and euen of an hollow substance in manner of a pumish stone not much differing from the nature of wood light brittle and if it be rubbed or bruised of a strong sauor Looke what letters are imprinted in it into any vessel of earth they will neuer be got out again whiles it burneth it yeelds a smel of brimstone but a wonderful thing it is of this jeat stone that water will soone make it to flame and oile will quench it againe in burning the perfume thereof chaseth away serpents and recouers women lying in a trance by the suffocation or rising of the mother the said smoke discouereth the falling sicknesse and bewraieth whether a yong damsell be a maid or no being boiled in wine it helpeth the tooth-ache and tempered with wax it cures the swelling glandules called the Kings euil They say that Physitians vse this â—…et stone much in their sorceries practised by the means of red hot axes which they call Axinomantia for they affirme that being cast thereupon it will burn and consume if what we desire and wish shall happen accordingly As for Spunges I mean by them in this place certain stones found in Spunges and the same also do ingender naturally within them Some there be who cal them Tecolithos because they are good for the bladder in this respect that they breake the stone being drunk in wine As concerning the Phrygian stone it beareth the name of the country where it is ordinarily found and it groweth in hollow lumps in manner of a pumish stone the order is to steep it well in wine before it be calcined and in the burning to maintain the fire with blast of bellows vntil it wax red then to quench it again in red wine continuing this course three times being thus prepared it is good only to scoure cloth and make it ready for the Dier to take a colour CHAP. XX. ¶ Of the red Bloud-stone Hoematites and the fiue sorts thereof also of the blacke sanguine stone called Schistos THe bloud-stone Schistos and Hoematites both haue great affinitie one with another As for the bloud-stone Hoematites a meere mineral it is and found in mines of mettal being burnt it comes to the colour of Vermilion the manner of calcining it is much after that of the Phrygian stone but wine serueth not to quench it Many sophisticate it with Schistos and obtrude the one for the other but the difference is soon known for that the right Hoematites hath red veins in it and besides is by nature fraile and easie to crumble of wonderful operation it is to help bloud-shotten eies the same giuen to women to drink staieth the immoderat flux that followes them they also that vse to cast vp bloud at the mouth find helpe by drinking it with the juice of a pomgranat in the diseases likewise of the blader it is very effectual and being taken in wine it is souerain against the sting of serpents In all these cases the bloud-stone Schistos is effectual but weaker only it is in operation and yet among these sanguine or bloud-stones those are taken for the best and most helpfull which in colour resemble saffron such haue a peculiar resplendant lustre by themselues This stone being applied to weeping and watery eies with womans milk doth them much good and is soueraign also to restrain and keep them in if they be ready to start out of the head And this I write according to the mind and opinion of our modern writers But Sotacus a very antient writer hath deliuered vnto vs fiue kinds of bloud-stones besides that Hoematites called Magnes or the Load-stone among which he giues the chiefe prize and principall praise to the Aethiopian for that it is so souerain to be put into medicines appropriat to the eies as also into those which for their excellent operation be called Panchresta A second sort he saith is called Androdamas black of colour and for weight and hardnesse surpassing all the rest whereupon it took that name and of this kind there are found great store in Barbary He affirmeth moreouer That it hath a qualitie to draw vnto it siluer brasse and iron and for triall whether it be good or no it ought to be ground vpon the touch called Basanitis for it will yeeld a bloudy juice the which is a right soueraign remedie for the diseases of the liuer The third kind of bloud-stone he maketh Arabick for that it is brought out of Arabia as hard it is as the other for hardly will there any juice come from it though it be put to the grindstone and the same otherwhile is of a Saffron colour The fourth sort he saith is called Elatites so long as it is crude but being once calcined it is named Miltites a very excellent thing for burns and scaldings and in all cases much better than any ruddle whatsoeuer In the fift place he reckons that which is called Schistos this is held to be singular for repressing the flux of bloud from the hemorrhoid veins But generally of all these bloud stones he concludes thus That if they be puluerised and taken in oile vpon a fasting stomack to the weight of 3 drams they be right soueraign for all fluxes of bloud The same author writes of another Schistos which is none of these Hoematites and this they call Anthracites and by his saying found there is of it in Africk black of colour which if it be ground vpon a whetstone or grindstone with water yeelds toward the nether end or side thereof that lay next the ground a certaine blacke juice but on the other side of a saffron colour and he is of opinion that the said juice is singular for those medicines appropriat to the eies
coasts of Pallene From the verie centre within there shineth a kind of star in manner of a full Moone in the height of her brightnesse Some giue this reason of the name that being held against any stars it receiueth from them a light and sendeth the same from it againe in manner of beams And they hold that the best be in Carmania and there is not another gem againe lesse subject to blemishes and imperfections than it As also that a worse kind thereof is called Ceraunias and the worst of all other resembleth the blase or flame of lampes and candles As touching Astroites many make great account of it and such as haue written more diligently thereof doe report That Zoroastres hath highly commended it and told wonders thereof in art Magicke Sudines speaketh of another gem called Astrobolos and saith it is like vnto a fish eie and casteth forth white glittering raies against the Sunne Among white pretious stones may be reckoned that which they call Ceraunia which is apt to receiue light and lustre both from Sunne and Moone and other starres It selfe looketh like Crystall cleare howbeit the lustre that commeth from it seemeth to be of a blue Azure color and Carmania is the natiue place therof Zenathemis confesseth That it is a white gem and hath within a starre-like fire which seemeth to run too and fro and change place according as a man turneth it He affirmeth also that the foresaid Cerauniae will become dul and duskish which if they be soked for certain daies together in vineger and sal-nitre will recouet their light and conceiue a new fire in maner of a star which will continue for so many months as they lay daies infused after that lose their lustre again Sotacus hath set down two kinds more of Ceraunia to wit the black and the red saying that they resemble halberds or ax heads And by his saying the black such especially as be round withall are endued with this vertue that by the means of them cities may be forced and whole nauies at sea discomfited and these forsooth hee called Betuli whereas the long ones be properly named Cerauniae It is said there is one more Ceraunia yet but very geason it is and hard to be found which the Parthian Magitions set much store by and they only can find it for that it is no where to be had but in a place which hath bin shot with a thunderbolt Next after the Ceraunia there is a stone named Iris digged out of the ground it is in a certain Isle of the red sea distant from the city Berenice 60 miles For the most part it resembleth Crystal which is the reason that some haue termed it the root of Crystall But the cause why they call it Iris is That if the beams of the Sun strike vpon it directly within house it sendeth from it against the wals that be near the very resemblance of a rainbow both in form and colour and eftsoons it will change the same in much variety to the great admiration of the beholders For certain it is known that six angles it hath in manner of Crystal but they say that some of them haue their sides rugged and the same vnequally angled which if they be laid abroad against the Sun in the open aire do scatter the beams of the Sun that light vpon them to fro also that others do yeeld a brightnesse from themselues and thereby illuminat all that is about them As for the diuers colours which they cast forth it neuer hapneth but in a dark or shadowy place whereby a man may know that the varietie of colours is not in the stone Iris but comes by the reuerberation of the wals The best Iris is that which represents the greatest circles vpon the wall and those which be likest to rainbowes indeed There is another gem called Iris like to this in all respects but that it is exceeding hard Horus saith that if it be calcined and pulueâ—…ised it is a singular remedie against the biting of Ichneumones also that naturally it is to be found in Persis Much like in form and shape to Iris but not of the same effect is there another stone called Zeros a man that sees it would take it to be a crystal with a black strake parting it ouerthwart Thus hauing laid abroad the pretious stones jewels which are distinguished by sundry kinds of principal colors I wil proceed to the rest and discourse of them alphabetically CHAP. X. ¶ Of certaine gems digested in order according to the Alphabet THe Agat was in old time of great estimation but now it is in no request Found it was first in Sicily neere to a riuer called likewise Achates but afterwards in many other places It exceeds in bignesse and is full of varietie in colours whereby it hath gotten many names for called it is Phassachates Cerachates Sardachates Haemachates Leucachates and Dendrachates as if the veins thereof resembled a little tree As touching the Agath called Antachates as it burneth you shall haue it to smel like vnto Myrrh Also there is an Agath of a reddish colour resembling coral and thereupon called Coralloachates and the same is beset with certain spots or drops of gold in manner of the Saphyr of which kind there is passing great plentie in Candy where they call it the holy or sacred Agat for people are persuaded that it auaileth much against the sting of venomous spiders and scorpions which propertie I could very well beleeue to be in the Sicilian Agaths for that so soone as Scorpions come within the aire and breath of the said prouince of Sicilie as venomous as they be otherwise they die thereupon The Agats likewise found among the Indians haue the same operation and besides doe represent many other miracles for you shall find imprinted naturally in them the forme and proportion of riuers woods and laboring horses a man shal see in them coaches and little Chariots or horselitters together with the furniture and ornaments belonging to horses As for physitians they make their grinding stones therof for fine pouders And it is holden for a truth that only to behold and looke vpon an Agath is very comfortable for the eies If they be but held in the mouth they quench and allay thirst The Phrygian Agats haue no part of green in them Those that be found about Thebes in Egypt are without red and white veins howbeit these also be effectuall against scorpions Of the same credit likewise are the Cyprian Agats Some hold opinion that the singular grace and commendation of an Agat is to be clear and transparent like glasse There be found of them in Thrace about the mountain Oeta in the hil Pernassus in Lesbos and Messene and such haue floures imprinted in them like those which grow in the highwaies and paths by the fields also in the Island of Rhodes But the Magitians obserue diuers other sorts and as for those that
the water of the sea about the shore Capnites as some think is a kind of stone by it selfe beset with many wreaths and those seeming to smoke as I haue said already in due place the naturall place of it is Cappadocia and Phrygia in some sort it is like yvory As touching Callainae it is commonly said that they be found alwaies many joined together Catochites is a stone proper to the Island Corsica in bignes it exceedeth ordinary precious stones a wonderfull stone if all be true that is reported thereof and namely That if a man lay his hand thereupon it will hold it fast in maner of a glewie gum Catopyrites groweth in Cappadocia Cepites or Cepocapites is a white stone and the veins therein seem to meet together in knots and so white and cleare withall that it may serue as a mirrour to shew ones face Ceramites in colour resembleth an earthen pot As for Cinaediae they be found in the braine of a fish named Cinaedus white they be and of a long fashion and of a wonderfull nature if wee may beleeue that which is reported of the euent which they signifie and namely that according as they bee cleare or troubled in colour they do presage either storms or calm at sea Cerites is like to wax and Circos vnto wreaths or circles Corsoides is made in maner of a gray peruke of haire Corallo-achates vnto a Corall set with gold spots Corallis to Vermillon and is ingendred in India and Syene Craterites hath a colour betweene the Chrysolith and the base gold Electrum of an exceeding hard substance Crocallis doth represent a cherry Cyssites is engendred about Coptos and is of a white color it seemeth as it were to be with childe for somthing stirs and ratleth within the belly if it be shaken Calcophonos is a blacke stone if a man strike vpon it he shall perceiue it to ring like a piece of brasse and the Magitians would persuade those that play in Tragoedies to carry it about them continually As for the stone Chelidonia there be two sorts of it in colour they do both resemble the Swallow and of one side which is purple you shal see black spots intermingled here and there among Chelonia is no more but the very eie of an Indian Tortoise of a most strange nature by the Magitians saying and working great wonders but they will lie most monstrously for they would promise and assure vs That after one hath well rinsed or washed his mouth with hony and then lay it vpon the tongue hee shall presently haue the spirit of prophesie and be able to foretell of future things all a day long either in the full or change of the Moon but if this be practised in the wane of the Moon he shall haue this gift but onely before the Sunne-rising vpon other daies namely while the moone is croissant from six of the clock or sun-rising six houres after Moreouer there be certaine stones called Chelonitides because they be like to Tortoises by which these Magitians would seeme to tell vs by way of prophesie and reuelation many things for to allay tempests and stormes but especially the stone of this kinde which hath golden drops or spots in it if together with a flie called a beetle it be cast into a pan of seething water it will auert tempests that approch Chlorites is a stone of a grasse green colour according as the name doth import and by the saying of Magitians it is found in the gesier of the bird called Motacilla or Wagtaile yea and is ingendred together with the said bird They giue direction forsooth as their manner is to inchase or inclose it with a piece of yron and then it will doe wonders Choaspites taketh that name of the riuer Choaspes green it is and resplendent like burnished gold Chrysolampis is found in Aethyopia all the day long of a pale colour but by night it glowes in manner of a cole of fire Chrysopis is so like to gold as a man would take it for no other The stones called Cepionides grow in Aeolis about Atarne a little village now but somtimes a great town they haue many colours and be transparent sometimes in manner of glasse otherwhiles like Crystall or the lasper such also as be not cleare through but foule and thick within are notwithstanding so pure and neat without that they will represent a man or womans visage as wel as a mirroir or looking glasse Daphnias is a stone whereof Zoroastres writeth and namely that it is good against the falling sicknesse Diadochus is like to Berill Diphris is of two kinds the white and the black the male and the female where in may be perceiued very distinctly those members that distinguish the sex by reason of a certain line or vein of the stone Dionysias is a blacke stone and hard withall hauing certain red spots interming led if it be stamped in water it giueth the tast of wine and is thought to withstand drunkennesse Draconites or Dracontia is a stone ingendred in the brains of serpents but vnlesse it be cut out whiles they be aliue namely after their heads be chopt off it neuer grows to the nature of a precious stone for of an inbred malice and enuie that this creature hath to man if perceiuing it selfe to languish and draw on toward death it killeth the vertue of the said stone and therefore they take these serpents whiles they be asleepe and off with their heads Sotacus who wrote that he saw one of these stones in a kings hand reports that they who go to seek these stones vse to ride in a coach drawn with two steeds and when they haue esp ed a dragon or serpent cast in their way certain medicinable drugs to bring them asleep and so haue means and leisure to cut off their heads white they are naturally transparent for impossible it is by any art to polish them neither doth the lapidary lay his hand to them Encardia is a precious stone named also Cardiscae one sort there is of them wherein a man may perceiue the shape of an heart to beare out a second likewise there is so called of a greene colour and the same doth represent also the forme of an heart the third sheweth the heart only black for all the rest is white Enorchis is a faire white stone the same being diuided the fragments thereof do resemble a mans genetoirs whereof it took that name As touching Exhebenus the stone Zoroastres saith that it is most beautifull and white and therewith goldsmiths vse to burnish and polish their gold As for Eristalis being of it self a white stone seemes as a man holdeth it to wax red Erotylos which some cal Amphicome others Hieromnemon is commended much by Democritus for sundry experiments in prophesying and foretelling fortunes Eumeces groweth in the Bactrians country like to a flint being laied vnder a mans head lying asleep vpon his bed it representeth by visions