Ill] 



The Mandrake 



37 



tuggeth it up, that it shall soon in the same manner be 

 deceived. Therefore, as soon as thou see that it be jerked 

 up, and have possession of it, take it immediately in hand, 

 and twist it, and wring the ooze out of its leaves into a 

 glass ampulla." 



Text-fig. 19. Wood-cut of Plants [Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Liber de 

 proprietatibus rerum, Wynkyn de Worde, ? 1495]. Reduced. 



The writer of the herbal evidently fully accepted the 

 mythical notion that the Mandrake was furnished with 

 human limbs. Plate V shows how this plant was depicted 

 in an early printed edition of the Herbarium of Apuleius, 

 but much more spirited and sensational treatments of the 

 same subject are to be found in some of the manuscripts 



