THE SONGS OF < ; ItOOKWOOD." 



And though all around it be bleak and bare, 

 Freely the Mandrake flourisheth there. 



Maranatha Anathema ! 

 Dread is the curse of Mandragora ! 



Euthanasy ! 



" At the foot of the gibbet the Mandrake springs, 

 Just where the creaking carcass swings ; 

 Some have thought it engendered 

 From the fat that drops from the bones of the dead ; 

 Some have thought it a human thing ; 

 But this is a vain imagining. 



Maranatha Anathema ! 

 Dread is the curse of Mandragora ! 



Euthanasy ! 



" A charnel leaf doth the Mandrake wear, 

 A charnel fruit doth the Mandrake bear ; 

 Yet none like the Mandrake hath such great power, 

 Such virtue resides not in herb or flower ; 

 Anconite, hemlock, or moonshade, I ween, 

 None hath a poison so subtle and keen. 



Maranatha Anathema ! 

 Dread is the curse of Mandragora ! 



Euthanasy 1 



" And whether the Mandrake be create 

 Flesh with the flower incorporate, 

 I know not ; yet, if from the earth 'tis rent, 

 Shrieks and groans from the root are sent; 

 Shrieks and groans, and a sweat like gore 

 Oozes, and drops from the clammy core. 



Maranatha Anathema ! 

 Dread is the curse of Mandragora ! 



Euthanasy ! 



"Whoso gathereth the Mandrake, shall surely die; 

 Blood for blood is his destiny. 

 Some who have plucked it have died with groans, 

 Like to the Mandrake's expiring moans; 

 Some have died raving, and some beside 

 With penitent prayers but all have died. 



Jesu ! save us, by night and day ! 

 From the terrible death of Mandragora ! 

 Euthanasy ! " 



Thomas Browne. He tears up the fable, root and branch. Concerning the dan- 

 ger ensuing from the eradication of the Mandrake, he thus writeth : 'The 

 last assertion is, that there follows a hazard of life to them that pull it up, that 

 some evil fate pursues them, and that they live not very long hereafter. There- 

 fore the attempt hereof among the ancients was not in ordinary way ; but, as 

 Pliny informeth, when they intended to take up the root of this plant, they 

 took the wind thereof, and with a sword describing three circles about it, they 

 digged it up, looking toward the West. A conceit not only injurious unto 

 truth and confutable by daily experience, but somewhat derogatory unto the 

 Providence of God ; that is, not only to impose so destructive a quality on any 

 plant, but to conceive a vegetable whose parts are so useful unto many, should, 

 in the only taking up, prove mortal unto any. This were to introduce a second 

 forbidden fruit, and enhance the first malediction, making it not only mortal 

 for Adam to taste the one, but capital for his posterity to eradicate, or dig up 

 the other.' Vulgar Errors, Book ii., c. vi. 



