26 SHAKESPEARE’S [ BASILISK, 
is venomous and deadly. With hissing he slayeth, or he 
biteth or stingeth. And he presseth not his body with much 
bowing, but his course of way is forthright, and goeth in 
mean [the middle]. He dryeth and burneth leaves and herbs, 
not only with touch, but also by hissing and blast he 
rotteth and corrupteth all thing about him. And he is of 
so great venom and perilous, that he slayeth and wasteth 
him that nigheth him by the length of a spear, without 
tarrying; and yet the weasel taketh and overcometh him. 
And though the Cockatrice be venomous without remedy 
while he is alive, yet he loseth all the malice when he is 
burnt to ashes. Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xviii. § 8. 
Irs head is very pointed, its eyes red, its colour inclining 
to black and yellow ; it has a tail like a viper, but the rest 
of its body is like a cock. The Basilisk is sometimes 
gendered from a cock; for towards the end of summer a 
cock lays an egg from which the Basilisk is hatched. But 
many things must concur to this gendering, for it lays the 
egg in much warm dung, and there sits on it. And 
those who have seen its creation say that there is no shell 
to the egg, but a very strong skin which can resist the 
hardest blows. Also the opinion of some is that a viper | 
or toad sits on that cock’s egg—but this is doubtful. 
Hortus Sanitatis, part iii, (“Of Birds”) ch. xiii. 
Baste was built in the year 382, having the name of 
a Basilisk slain by a knight covered with crystal. 
Fynes Moryson’s “Itinerary,” part i. ch. ii, p. 27. 
Even as a lion is afraid of a cock, so is the Basilisk, 
for he is not only afraid at his sight, but almost dead 
when he heareth him crow. It is a question whether the 
Cockatrice die by the sight of himself. Once our nation 
was full of Cockatrices, and a certain man did destroy 
them by going up and down in glass, whereby their own 
shapes were reflected upon their own faces, and so they died. 
But this fable is not worth refuting, for it is more likely 
that the man should first have died by the corruption of 
the air from the Cockatrices. , 
Topsell, ‘History of Serpents,” pp. 679, 681. 
