Part 27
Concerning Scorpions, Diophanes, contemporary with Cæsar and Cicero, has collected the following several opinions of the more ancient writers: If you take a Scorpion, he says, and burn it, the others will betake themselves to flight: and if a person carefully rubs his hands with the juice of radish, he may without fear and danger take hold of Scorpions, and of other reptiles: and radishes laid on Scorpions instantly destroy them. You will also cure the bite of a Scorpion, by applying a silver ring to the place. A suffumigation of sandarach[1100] with galbanum, or goat’s fat, will drive away Scorpions and every other reptile. If a person will also boil a Scorpion in oil, and will rub the place bit by a Scorpion, he will stop the pain.[1101] But Apuleius says, that if a person bit by a Scorpion sits on an ass, turned toward its tail, that the ass suffers the pain, and that it is destroyed.[1102] Democritus says that a person bit by a Scorpion, who instantly says to his ass, “A Scorpion has bit me,” will suffer no pain, but it passes to the ass.[1103] The newt has an antipathy to the Scorpion: if a person, therefore, melts a newt in oil, and applies the oil to the person that is bitten, he frees him from pain. The same author also says that the root of a rose-tree being applied, cures persons bit by Scorpions. Plutarch recommends to fasten small nuts to the feet of the bed, that Scorpions may not approach it. Zoroaster says that lettuce-seed, being drunk with wine, cures persons bit by Scorpions. Florentinus says, if one applies the juice of the fig to the wound of a person just bitten, that the poison will proceed no farther; or, if the person bit eat squill, he will not be hurt, but he will say that the squill is pleasant to his palate. Tarentinus also says that a person holding the herb sideritis may take hold of Scorpions, and not be hurt by them.[1104] Dioscorides, among many other remedies for the sting of the Scorpion, prescribes “a fish called _Lacerta_, salted and cut in pieces; the barbel fish cut in two; the flesh of a fish called _Smaris_; house-mice cut asunder; horse or ass dung; the shell of an Indian small nut; ram’s flesh burnt; mummie, four grains, with butter and cow’s milk; a broiled Scorpion eaten; river-crabs raw and bruised, and drank with asses’ milk: locusts broiled and eaten,” etc. Rabby Moyses prescribes pigeon’s dung dried; Constantinus, hens’ dung, or the heart applied outwardly; Anatolius, crows’ dung; Averrhois, the bezoar-stone; Monus, silver; Silvaticus, from Serapis, pewter; and Orpheus, coral.
“Quintus Serenus writes thus, and adviseth:
These are small things, but yet their wounds are great, And in pure bodies lurking do most harm, For when our senses inward do retreat, And men are fast asleep, they need some charm, The Spider and the cruel Scorpion Are wont to sting, witnesse great Orion, Slayn by a Scorpion, for poysons small Have mighty force, and therefore presently Lay on a Scorpion bruised, to recall The venome, or sea-water to apply Is held full good, such virtue is in brine, And ’tis approved to drink your fill of wine.
“And Macer writes of houseleek thus:
Men say that houseleek hath so soveraign a might, Who carries but that, no Scorpion can him bite.”[1105]
The natives of South Africa, when bitten by a Scorpion, apply, as a remedy, a living frog to the wound, into which animal it is supposed the poison is transferred from the wound, and it dies; then they apply another, which dies also: the third perhaps only becomes sickly, and the fourth no way affected. When this is observed, the poison is considered to be extracted, and the patient cured. Another method is to apply a kidney, scarlet, or other bean, which swells; then apply another and another, till the bean ceases to be affected, when they consider the poison extracted.[1106]
There is a vast desert tract, says Pliny, on this side of the Ethiopian Cynamolgi--the “dog-milkers”--the inhabitants of which were exterminated by Scorpions and venomous ants.[1107]
Navarette tells us, in the account of his voyage to the Philippine Islands, that there was there in practice a good and easy remedy against the Scorpions which abound in that country. This was, when they went to bed, to make a commemoration of St. George. He himself, he says, for many years continued this devotion, and, “God be praised,” he adds, “the Saint always delivered me both there and in other countries from those and such like insects.” He confesses, however, they used another remedy besides, which was to rub all about the beds with garlic.[1108]
Navarette[1109] and Barbot[1110] both tell us that a certain remedy against the sting of a Scorpion, is to rub the wound with a child’s private member. This, the latter adds, immediately takes away the pain, and then the venom exhales. The moisture that comes from a hen’s mouth, Barbot says, is also good for the same.
The Persians believe that Scorpions may be deprived of the power of stinging, by means of a certain prayer which they make use of for that purpose. The person who has the power of “binding the Scorpion,” as it is called, turns his face toward the sign Scorpio, in the heavens, and repeats this prayer; while every person present, at the conclusion of a sentence, claps his hands. After this is done they think that they are perfectly safe; nor, if they should chance to see any Scorpions during that night, do they scruple to take hold of them, trusting to the efficacy of this fancied all-powerful charm. “I have frequently seen,” says Francklin, “the man in whose family I lived, repeat the above-mentioned prayer, on being desired by his children to bind the Scorpions; after which the whole family has gone quietly and contentedly to bed, fully persuaded that they could receive no hurt by them.”[1111]
Bell says the Persians “have such a dread of these creatures, that, when provoked by any person, they wish a Kashan Scorpion may sting him.”[1112]
An old story is, that a Scorpion surrounded with live coals, finding no method of escaping, grows desperate from its situation, and stings itself to death. This, though considered a mere fable of antiquity, may still have some truth, if we believe the following from the pen of Ulloa: “We more than once,” says this traveler, “entertained ourselves with an experiment of putting a Scorpion into a glass vessel, and injecting a little smoke of tobacco, and immediately by stopping it found that its aversion to this smell is such, that it falls into the most furious agitations, till, giving itself several stings on the head, it finds relief by destroying itself.”[1113] There is also told a story in the East Indies, that “the Scorpion is sometimes so pestered with the pismires, that he stings himself to death in the head with his tail, and so becomes a prey to the pismires.”[1114]
The Scorpion was an emblem of the Egyptian goddess Selk; and she is usually found represented with this animal bound upon her head.[1115]
Ælian mentions Scorpions of Coptos, which, though inflicting a deadly sting, and dreaded by the people, so far respected the Egyptian goddess Isis, who was particularly worshiped in that city, that women, in going to express their grief before her, walked with bare feet, or lay upon the ground, without receiving any injury from them.[1116]
The Ethiopians that dwell near the River Hydaspis commonly eat Scorpions and serpents without the slightest harm, “which certainly proceeds from no other thing than a secret and wonderful constitution of the body!” says Mercurialis.[1117]
Lutfullah, the learned Mohammedan gentleman, in his Autobiography, relates the following:
“On the morning of the 11th (April, 1839), I ordered my servant boy to shake my bedding and put it in the sun for an hour or so, that the moisture imbibed by the quilt might be dried. As soon as the quilt was removed from its place, what did I behold but an immense Scorpion, tapering towards its tail of nine vertebræ, armed with a sting at the end, crawling with impunity at the edge of the carpet. I had never seen such a large monster before. It was black in the body, with small bristles all over, dark green in the tail, and red at the sting. This hideous sight rendered me and the servant horror-struck. In the mean time, an Afghan friend of mine, by name Ata Mohamed Khan Kakar, a respectable resident of the town, honoured me with a visit, and, seeing the reptile, observed, ‘Lutfullah, you are a lucky man, having made a narrow escape this morning. This cursed worm is called Jerrara, and its fatal sting puts a period to animal life in a moment; return, therefore, your thanks to the Lord, all merciful, who gave you a new life in having saved you from the mortal sting of this evil bed-companion of yours.’ ‘I have no fear of the worm,’ replied I, ‘for it dare not sting me unless it is written in the book of fate to be stung by it.’ Saying this, I made the animal crawl into a small earthen vessel, and stopped the mouth of it with clay; and then making a large fire, I put the vessel therein for an hour or so, to turn the reptile into ashes, which, administered in doses of half a grain to adults, are a specific remedy for violent colicky pains.”[1118]
The ashes of burnt Scorpions, besides being good for colicky pains, as Lutfullah says, were often prescribed by the ancient physicians for stone in the bladder;[1119] and Topsel, quoting Kiranides, has the following: “If a man take a vulgar Scorpion and drown the same in a porringer of oyl in the wane of the moon, and therewithall afterward anoynt the back from the shoulders to the hips, and also the head and forehead, with the tips of the fingers and toes of one that is a demoniack or a lunatick person, it is reported, that he shall ease and cure him in short time. And the like is reported of the Scorpion’s sting joyned with the top of basil wherein is seed, and with the heart of a swallow, all included in a piece of harts skin.”[1120] The oil of Scorpions, Brassavolus says, “drives out worms miraculously;” and oil of Scorpions’ and vipers’ “tongues is a most excellent remedy against the plague, as Crinitus testifies, i. 7.”[1121] Galen prescribes Scorpions for jaundice, and Kiranides the same for the several kinds of ague. “Plinius Secundus saith, that a quartan ague, as the magicians report, will be cured in three daies by a Scorpion’s four last joynts of his tail, together with the gristle of his ear, so wrapped up in a black cloth, that the sick patient may neither perceive the Scorpion that is applied, nor him that bound it on.... Samonicus commends Scorpions against pains in the eyes, in these verses:
If that some grievous pain perplex thy sight, Wool wet in oyl is good bound on all night. Carry about thee a live Scorpion’s eye, Ashes of coleworts if thou do apply, With bruised frankincense, goat’s milk, and wine, One night will prove this remedy divine.”[1122]
The following Asiatic fable of the Scorpion and the Tortoise is from the Beharistan of Jamy: A Scorpion, armed with pernicious sting and filthy poison, undertook a journey. Coming to the bank of a wide river, he stopped in great perplexity, wanting height of leg to cross over, yet very unwilling to return. A Tortoise, seeing his situation, and moved with compassion, took him on his back, sprang into the river, and was swimming toward the opposite shore, when he heard a noise on his shell as of something striking him; he called out to know what it was; the ungrateful Scorpion answered, “It is the motion of my sting only, I know it cannot affect you, but it is a habit which I cannot relinquish.” “Indeed,” replied the Tortoise, “then I cannot do better than free so evil-minded a creature from his bad disposition, and secure the good from his malevolence.” Saying which he dived under the water, and the waves soon carried the Scorpion beyond the bourn of existence.
When, in this banquet house of vice and strife, A knave oft strikes the various stings of fraud, ’Tis best the sea of death ingulf him soon, That he be freed from man, and man from him.[1123]
Topsel, in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, has the following in his chapter on the Scorpion:
“There is a common adage, _Cornix Scorpium_, a Raven to a Scorpion, and it is used against them that perish by their own inventions: when they set upon others, they meet with their matches, as a raven did when it preyed upon a Scorpion, thus described by Alciatus, under his title _Justa ultio_, just revenge, saying as followeth:
Raptabat volucer captum pede corvus in auras Scorpion, audaci præmia parta gulæ. Ast ille infuso sensim per membra venemo, Raptorem in stygias compulit ultor aquas. O risu res digna! aliis qui fata parabat, Ipse periit, propriis succubuitque dolis.
Which may be Englished thus:
The ravening crow for prey a Scorpion took Within her foot, and therewithal aloft did flie, But he empoysoned her by force and stinging stroke, So ravener in the Stygian Lake did die. O sportfull game! that he which other for bellyes sake did kill, By his own deceit should fall into death’s will.
“There be some learned writers, who have compared a Scorpion to an epigram, or rather an epigram to a Scorpion, because as the sting of the Scorpion lyeth in the tayl, so the force and vertue of an epigram is in the conclusion, for _vel acriter salse mordeat, vel jucunde atque dulciter delectet_, that is, either let it bite sharply at the end, or else delight pleasingly.”[1124]
Araneidæ--True Spiders.
A little head and body small, With slender feet and very tall, Belly great, and from thence come all The webs it spins.--MOUFET.[1125]
“Domitian sometime,” says Hollingshed incidentally in his Chronicles of England, “and an other prince yet living, delited so much to see the iollie combats betwixt a stout Flie and an old Spider.... Some parasites also in the time of the aforesaid emperour (when they were disposed to laugh at his follie, and yet would seem in appearance to gratifie his fantasticall head with some shew of dutiful demenour) could devise to set their lorde on worke, by letting a fresh flie privilie into his chamber, which he foorthwith would egerlie have hunted (all other businesse set apart) and never ceased till he had caught him in his fingers: whereupon arose the proverbe ‘ne musca quidem,’ altered first by Vitius Priscus, who being asked whether anie bodie was with Domitian, answered ‘ne musca quidem,’ whereby he noted his follie. There are some cockes combs here and there in England, learning it abroad as men transregionate, which make account also of this pastime, as of a notable matter, telling what a fight is seene betweene them, if either of them be lustie and couragious in his kind. One also hath mad a booke of the Spider and the Flie, wherein he dealeth so profoundlie, and beyond all measure of skill, that neither he himself that made it, neither anie one that readeth it can reach unto the meaning thereof.”[1126]
Chapelain, the author of Pucelle, was called by the academicians the Knight of the Order of the Spider, because he was so avaricious, that though he had an income of 13,000 livres, and more than 240,000 in ready money, he wore an old coat so patched, pieced, and threadbare, that the stitches exhibited no bad resemblance to the fibers produced by that insect. Being one day present at a large party given by the great Condé, a Spider of uncommon size fell from the ceiling upon the floor. The company thought it could not have come from the roof, and all the ladies at once agreed that it must have proceeded from Chapelain’s wig;--the wig so celebrated by the well-known parody.[1127]
The often-told anecdote of the Scottish monarch, Robert Bruce, and the cottage Spider, is thus related in Chambers’ Miscellany: While wandering on the wild hills of Carrick, in order to escape the emissaries of Edward, Robert the Bruce on one occasion passed the night under the shelter of a poor deserted cottage. Throwing himself down on a heap of straw, he lay upon his back, with his hands placed under his head, unable to sleep, but gazing vacantly upward at the rafters of the hut, disfigured with cobwebs. From thoughts long and dreary about the hopelessness of the enterprise in which he was engaged, and the misfortunes he had already encountered, he was roused to take interest in the efforts of a poor industrious Spider, which had begun to ply its vocation with the first gray light of morning. The object of the animal was to swing itself, by its thread, from one rafter to another; but in the attempt it repeatedly failed, each time vibrating back to the point whence it had made the effort. Twelve times did the little creature try to reach the desired spot, and as many times was it unsuccessful. Not disheartened with its failure, it made the attempt once more, and, lo! the rafter was gained. “The thirteenth time,” said Bruce, springing to his feet; “I accept it as a lesson not to despond under difficulties, and shall once more venture my life in the struggle for the independence of my beloved country.” The result is well known.[1128]
It is related in the life of Mohammed, that when he and Abubeker were fleeing for their lives before the Coreishites, they hid themselves for three days in a cave, over the mouth of which a Spider spread its web, and a pigeon laid two eggs there, the sight of which made the pursuers not go in to search for them.[1129]
A similar story is told in the Lives of the Saints, of St. Felix of Nola: “But the Saint,” says Butler, “in the mean time had slept a little out of the way, and crept through a hole in a ruinous old wall, which was instantly closed up by Spiders’ webs. His enemies, never imagining anything could have lately passed where they saw so close a Spider’s web, after a fruitless search elsewhere, returned in the evening without their prey. Felix finding among the ruins, between two houses, an old well half dry, hid himself in it for six months; and received during that time wherewithal to subsist by means of a devout Christian woman.”[1130]
It is said of Heliogabalus, that, for the purpose of estimating the magnitude of the City of Rome, he commanded a collection of Spiders to be made.[1131]
Illustrative of the singularly pleasurable effect of music upon Spiders, in the Historie de la Musique, et de ses Effets, we find the following relation:
“Monsieur de ----, captain of the Regiment of Navarre, was confined six months in prison for having spoken too freely of M. de Louvois, when he begged leave of the governor to grant him permission to send for his lute to soften his confinement. He was greatly astonished after four days to see at the time of his playing the mice come out of their holes, and the Spiders descend from their webs, who came and formed in a circle round him to hear him with attention. This at first so much surprised him, that he stood still without motion, when having ceased to play, all those Spiders retired quietly into their lodgings; such an assembly made the officer fall into reflections upon what the ancients had told of Orpheus, Arion, and Amphion. He assured me he remained six days without again playing, having with difficulty recovered from his astonishment, not to mention a natural aversion he had for this sort of insects, nevertheless he began afresh to give a concert to these animals, who seemed to come every day in greater numbers, as if they had invited others, so that in process of time he found a hundred of them about him. In order to rid himself of them he desired one of the jailors to give him a cat, which he sometimes shut up in a cage when he wished to have this company and let her loose when he had a mind to dismiss them, making it thus a kind of comedy that alleviated his imprisonment. I long doubted the truth of this story, but it was confirmed to me six months ago by M. P----, intendant of the duchy of V----, a man of merit and probity, who played upon several instruments to the utmost excellence. He told me that being at ----, he went into his chamber to refresh himself after a walk, and took up a violin to amuse himself till supper time, setting a light upon the table before him; he had not played a quarter of an hour before he saw several spiders descend from the ceiling, who came and ranged themselves round about the table to hear him play, at which he was greatly surprised, but this did not interrupt him, being willing to see the end of so singular an occurrence. They remained on the table very attentively till somebody came to tell him that supper was ready, when having ceased to play, he told me these insects remounted to their webs, to which he would suffer no injury to be done. It was a diversion with which he often entertained himself out of curiosity.”[1132]
The Abbé Olivet has described an amusement of Pelisson during his confinement in the Bastile for refusing to betray to the government certain secrets intrusted to him by a friend who was a leading politician at the court of Louis XIV., which consisted in feeding a Spider, which he discovered forming its web across the only air-hole of his cell. For some time he placed his flies at the edge of the window, while a stupid Basque, his sole companion, played on a bagpipe. Little by little the Spider used itself to distinguish the sound of the instrument, and issued from its hole to run and catch its prey. Thus calling it always by the same sound, and placing the flies at a still greater distance, he succeeded, after several months, to drill the Spider by regular exercise, so that at length it never failed appearing at the first sound to seize on the fly provided for it, at the extremity of the cell, and even on the knees of the prisoner.[1133]
At a ladies’ school at Kensington, England, an immense species of Spider is said to be uncomfortably common; and that when the young ladies sing their accustomed hymn or psalm before morning and evening prayers, these Spiders make their appearance on the floor, or suspended overhead from their webs in the ceiling, obviously attracted by the “concord of sweet sounds.”[1134]
The following lines “to a Spider which inhabited a cell,” are from the Anthologia Borealis et Australis:
In this wild, groping, dark, and drearie cove, Of wife, of children, and of health bereft, I hailed thee, friendly Spider, who hadst wove Thy mazy net on yonder mouldering raft: Would that the cleanlie housemaid’s foot had left Thee tarrying here, nor took thy life away; For thou, from out this seare old ceiling’s cleft, Came down each morn to hede my plaintive lay; Joying like me to heare sweete musick play, Wherewith I’d fein beguile the dull, dark, lingering day.[1135]
“When the great and brilliant Lauzun was held in captivity, his only joy and comfort was a friendly Spider: she came at his call; she took her food from his finger, and well understood his word of command. In vain did jailors and soldiers try to deceive his tiny companion; she would not obey their voices, and refused the tempting bait from their hand. Here, then, was not only an ear, but a keen power of distinction. The despised little animal listened with sweet affection, and knew how to discriminate between not unsimilar tones.”[1136]