holding scissors in her hands, Atropos gathers up the various-sized 

 clues of thread which, as the chief of the inexorable Fates, it is 

 her privilege to cut according to the length of the persons' lives 



they represent. Another name bestowed by the Greeks upon 



the Mandrake was that of Circeium, derived from Circe, the weird 

 daughter of Sol and Perseis, celebrated for her witchcraft and 



knowledge of magic and venomous herbs. From the earliest 



ages, the Atropa Mandragora appears to have been deemed a mystic 

 plant by the inhabitants of Eastern countries, and to have been 

 regarded by them as stimulating the passions ; on which account 

 it is still used for preparing love potions. It is generally believed 

 that the Mandrake is the same plant which the ancient Hebrews 

 called Dudaim ; and that these people held it in the highest esteem 

 in Jacob's time is evident from the notice in Genesis (xxx., 14) of 

 Reuben finding it and carrying the plant to his mother Leah. 

 From the remotest antiquity the Mandrakes were reputed in the 

 East to possess the property of removing sterility ; hence Rachel's 

 desire to obtain from Leah the plants that Reuben had found and 

 given to his mother. It is certain that the Atropa Mandragora was 

 looked upon by the ancients as something more than a mere vege- 

 table, and, in facft, as an embodiment of some unquiet or evil spirit. 

 In an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century, 

 the Mandrake is said to shine in the night like a candle. The 

 Arabs call it the Devil's Candle, because of this nocturnal shining 

 appearance ; and in allusion to this peculiarity, Moore says of it in 



' Lalla Rookh ' : — 



" Such rank and deadly lustre dwells, 

 As in those hellish fires that light 

 The Mandrake's charnel leaves at night." 



From times long past has come down the legend that the Man- 

 drake is a dweller in the dark places of the earth, and that it thrives 

 under the shadow of the gallows, being nourished by the exhalations 

 or flesh of the criminals executed on the gibbet. Amongst other 

 mysterious attributes, we are told by old writers that the Mandrake 

 has the power of emitting sounds, and that when it is pulled out of 

 the ground, it utters dreadful shrieks and groans, as if possessed of 

 sensibility. Shakspeare thus decribes these terrible cries : — 



" Would curses kill, as doth the Mandrake's groan, 

 I would invent as bitter- searching terms, 

 As curst, and harsh, and horrible to hear." 



And Moore relates in verse another tradition — 



"The phantom shapes — oh touch them not — 

 That appal the maiden's sight, 

 Lurk in the fleshy Mandrake's stem 

 That shrieks when plucked at night." 



These screams were so horrible and awe-inspiring, that Shakspeare 

 tells us the effedt was maddening — 



" And shrieks like Mandrakes, torn out of the earth, 

 That living mortals, hearing them, ran mad." 



