282 SHAKESPEARE'S [SERPENT. 



if a Serpent be crept into a man's womb, he may be drawn 

 out with odour and smell of milk. 



Bartholomew (Bertbelei], bk. xviii. 8. 



IF a water-snake be tied by the tail with a cord, 

 and hanged up, and a vessel full of water set under the 

 said snake, after a certain time he will avoid out of his 

 mouth a stone, which stone being taken out of the vessel, 

 he drinks up all the water. Let this stone be tied to the 

 belly of them that have the dropsy, and the water will be 

 exhausted or drunk up, and it fully and wholly helps the 

 party that hath the said dropsy. 



Lupton, "Notable -Things," bk. i. u. 



IF any do sprinkle his head with the powder of the skin 

 that a snake doth cast off, gotten or gathered when the 

 moon is in the full, being also in the first part of Aries, the 

 Ram, he shall see terrible and fearful dreams. And if he 

 shall have it under the plant of his foot, he shall be accept- 

 able before magistrates and princes. ibid., bk. iv. 54. 



A CERTAIN country-man did sleep open-mouthed in the 

 fields, a Serpent crept in at his mouth, and so into his 

 body ; but after the same man cured himself thereof with 

 eating of garlic. But he infected his wife with poison, 

 whereof she died, which was very rare and strange. 



Ibid., bk. v. 95. 



A SERPENT doth so hate the Ash-tree, that she will not 

 come nigh the shadow of them, and therefore she goes far 

 from them both morning and evening, because then they 

 give the longest shadows, etc. j^d., bk. ix. 8. 



V. Ash-tree. 



SERPENTS being within a circle made of Betony, they 

 cannot go out of the same, but rather will die with beating 

 themselves. 'ibid., bk. ix. 28. 



IN Egypt as frogs and mice are engendered by showers 

 of rain, so also are Serpents ; and the longest hairs of 

 women are easily turned into Serpents ; and dung, being 



