94 SHAKESPEARE’S [ DRAGON. 
their factors tame the Dragon with certain songs, and, 
sitting on his back, guide him with a bridle until they 
come into Ethiopia. Hortus Sanitatis, bk. ii. ch. xlviii. 
[This last statement recalls Mr. Waterton’s exploit with the 
alligator. ] 
Ir was wont to be said, because Dragons are the greatest 
serpents, that except a serpent eat a serpent, he shall never 
be a Dragon. In Ethiopia they grow to be thirty yards 
long. There are tame Dragons in Macedonia, where they 
are so meek, that women feed them, and suffer them to 
suck their breasts like little children,—their infants also play 
with them, riding upon them and pinching them, as, they 
would do with dogs. The apples of their eyes are precious 
stones, and as bright as fire. The Africans believe that the 
original of Dragons took beginning from the unnatural 
conjunction of an eagle and a she-wolf. The Dragons of 
Phrygia when they are hungry turn themselves towards the 
west, and gaping wide, with the force of their breath do 
draw the birds that fly over their heads into their throats. 
They greatly preserve their health by eating of wild lettuce, 
for that they make them to vomit, and they are most 
specially offended by eating of apples. They renew and 
recover their sight again by rubbing their eyes against 
fennel, or else by eating of it. The Indians take a gar- 
ment of scarlet, and picture upon it a charm in golden 
letters,—this_they lay upon the mouth of the Dragon’s 
den, for with the red colour and the gold, the eyes of 
the Dragon. are overcome, and he falleth asleep, the Indians 
in the mean season watching and muttering secretly words 
of incantation; when they perceive he is fast asleep, sud- 
denly they strike off his neck with an axe, and so take 
out the balls of his eyes, wherein are lodged those rare 
and precious stones which contain in them virtues unutter- 
able. Many times it falleth out, that the Dragon draweth 
in the Indian both with his axe and instruments into his 
den and there devoureth him, in the rage whereof he so 
beateth the mountain that it shaketh. [Topse// gives several 
long stories of the love of some Dragons for men and 
women, and lastly the tale of Winckelried, who slew a 
horrible Dragon, whereat for joy he lifted up his sword, 
and the blood of the Dragon dripped off the sword and 
