The Adder's Fork. 
315 
position of this little reptile’s weapon of defence. 
Bichard II. conjures his native earth to defend his king¬ 
dom from the usurper’s tread :— 
“ And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower, 
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder 
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch 
Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.” 
{Richard II., iii. 1, 29.) 
Webster writes:— 
“ Repentance then will follow like the sting 
Placed in the adder’s tail.” 
( Vittoria Corombona, act 2.) 
Another dramatist, John Kirke, says :— 
“ So thinks the adder when liis sting is gone, 
His hissing has the power to venom too.” 
(The Seven Champions of Christendom, iii. 1.) 
Andrew Boorde, in his Byetary , 1542, probably refers 
to some larger species of snake than the adder, if indeed 
any meaning at all can be attached to the following 
passage. Jews, he says— 
“ lovyth not porke nor swynes flesshe, but doth vituperat and abhorre 
it; yet for all this they wyll eate adders, which is a kynd of serpentes, 
as well as any other Crysten man dwellyng in Rome, and other hyghe- 
countries ; for adders flesshe there is called ‘ fysshe of the mountayn.*' 
This notwithstandynge, physycke doth approbat adders flesshe good to 
be eaten, sayinge it doth make an olde man yonge, as it apperytli, by a 
harte eatyng an adder, maketh hym yonge agayne.” (Early English 
Text Society, 1870.) 
“ The Aspis is a kind of deadly snake. ^ 
He hurts most perillous with venom’d sting 
And in pursute doth neare his foe forsake, 
But slaies a man with poysonous venoming : 
Betweene the male and female is such love, 
As is betwixt the most kind turtle dove. 
