34 SHAKESPEARE'S [BEETLE. 



Beetle. 



The poor beetle that we tread upon, 

 In corporal sufferance, finds a pang as great 

 As when a giant dies. 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE, iii. I, 79-81. 



The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums, 

 Hath rung night's yawning peal. 



MACBETH, iii. 2, 42-3. 



BEETLES are often produced from the putrid flesh of 

 horses. They are hung round the necks of infants for their 

 cure. The nature of the green Beetle sharpens the sight 

 of those who behold it, and therefore carvers of jewels take 

 pleasure in the sight of it. 



Hortus Sanitatis, part iii. (" Of Birds "), ch. cvi. 

 (translated). 



THE Beetle is bred of putrid things and of dung, and it 

 chiefly feeds and delights in that. Of all plants they 

 cannot away with rose-trees, for they die by the smell of 

 them. They have no females, but have their generation 

 from the sun. Though the eagle, its proud and cruel 

 enemy, do make havoc and devour this creature of so 

 mean a rank, yet as soon as it gets an opportunity it 

 returneth like for like. For it flieth up nimbly into her 

 nest with its fellow-soldiers the scarab-beetles, and in the 

 absence of the old she-eagle bringeth out of the nest the 

 eagle's eggs one after another, which, falling and being 

 broken, the young ones are deprived of life. 



Mouffet, "Theatre of Insects," pp. 1005-13. 



Bell-wether. V. Wether. 



A jealous rotten bell-wether. 



MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, iii. 5, ill 



Benedictus (Carduus). 



MARG. Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it 

 to your heart ; it is the only thing for a qualm. 



HERO. There thou prickest her with a thistle.- 



BEAT. Benedictus ! why Benedictus ? You have some moral in thh 

 Benedictus. 



MARG. Moral ! no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning ; I meant 

 plain Holy thistle, 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, iii. 4, 73-80. 



