282 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Rook XXVIII. 



Hence it is, no doubt, that the name 34 of the tutelary deity of 

 Rome has been so strictly kept concealed, lest any of our enemies 



should act in a similar manner. There is no one, too, who does 



[ not dread being spell-bound by means of evil imprecations ; 35 and 

 hence the practice, after eating eggs or snails, of immedi- 

 ately breaking 36 the shells, or piercing them with the spoon. 

 Hence, too, those love- sick imitations of enchantments which 

 we find described by Theocritus among the Greeks, and by 

 Catullus, and more recently, Virgil, 37 among our own writers. 

 Many persons are fully persuaded that articles .of pottery may 

 be broken by a similar agency ; and not a few are of opinion 

 even that serpents can counteract incantations, and that this is 

 the only kind of intelligence they possess-^-so much so, in fact, 

 that by the agency of the magic spells of the Marsi, they may 

 be attracted to one spot, even when asleep in the middle of the 

 night. * Some people go so far, too, as to write certain words 38 

 on the walls of houses, deprecatory of accident by fire. 



But it is not easy to say whether the outlandish and unpro- 

 nounceable words that are thus employed, or the Latin ex- 

 pressions that are used at random, and which must appear 

 ridiculous to our judgment, tend the most strongly to stagger 

 our belief seeing that the human imagination is always con- 

 ceiving something of the infinite, something deserving of the 

 notice of the divinity, or indeed, to speak more correctly, some- 

 thing that must command his intervention perforce. Homer 39 

 tells us that Ulysses arrested the flow of blood from a wound 



34 Ajasson is of opinion that this name was either Favra or Fona, Aeca, 

 Flora, or Valesia or Valentia. 



35 "As in saying thus, The Devill take thee, or The Ravens peck out 

 thine eyes, or 1 had rather see thee Pie peckt, and such like." Holland. 



36 It is a superstition still practised to pierce the shell of an egg after 

 eating it, " lest the witches should come." Holland gives the following 

 Note " Because afterwards no witches might pricke them with a needle 

 in the name and behalfe of those whom they would hurt and mischeefe, 

 according to the practice of pricking the images of any person in wax ; 

 used in the witchcraft of these daies." We learn from Ajasson that till 

 recently it was considered a mark of ill-breeding in France not to pierce 

 the shell after eating the egg. See also Brand's Popular Antiquities, 

 Vol. III. p. 19, John's Ed. ^ 



37 See the Eighth Eclogue of Virgil. 



38 " That is to say, Arse verse, out of Afranius, as Festus noteth, which 

 in the old Tuscane language signifieth, Averte ignem, Put backe the fire." 

 Holland. 



w Odyss. xix. 457. It is not Ulysses, but the sons of Autolycus that do 

 this. Their bandages, however, were more likely to be effectual. 



