It was believed that a small dose of the mandrake made persons proud of their beauty, but that a larger quantity deprived them of their senses still more completely, and made them yet more effectually idiots.
Dr. Browne, in his gallant crusade against popular errors, says that the resemblance of the mandrake to the human form “is a conceit not to be made out by ordinary inspection, or any other eyes than such as regarding the clouds behold them in shapes conformable to pre-apprehension;” and as to the danger of gathering the plant, he justly holds it “a conceit not only injurious unto truth and confutable by daily experience, but somewhat derogatory to the providence of God: That is, not only to impose so destructive a quality on any plant, but conceive a vegetable whose parts are useful unto many should in the only taking up prove mortall unto any. To think he suffereth the poison of Nubia to be gathered, yet not this to be moved! That he permitteth arsenick and minerall poisons to be forced from the bowells of the earth, yet not this from the surface thereof! This were to introduce a second forbidden fruit and inhance the first malediction; making it not only mortal for Adam to taste the one, but capitall unto his posterity to eradicate the other.”
The orthodox way of plucking up the mandrake was to stand to the windward of it and, after drawing three circles round it with a naked sword to dig it up with one’s face looking to the west; the shrieks that would follow were in any case a trial to weak nerves, and at an earlier period were held to be fatal to the hearer. Philip de Thaun gives the following stratagem as the only available way of becoming the possessor of it:—“The man who is to gather it must fly round about it, must take great care that he does not touch it, then let him take a dog and let it be tied to it, which has been close shut up, and has fasted for three days, and let it be shewn bread and called from afar. The dog will draw it to him, the root will break, it will send forth a cry, and the dog will fall down dead at the cry which he will hear. Such vertue this herb has that no one can hear it but he must always die, and if the man heard it he would directly die. Therefore he must stop his ears, and take care that he hear not the cry lest he die, as the dog will do which shall hear it. When one has this root it is of great value for medicine, for it cures of every infirmity except only death, where there is no help.” The office of the herbalist was no sinecure when such a task could be expected of him, as great care had to be exercised not to touch the plant. The tying-up of the dog to it must have been particularly risky, and the consequences of the dog making a premature rush for the bread before the man had time to stop his ears were especially alarming. The writings of De Thaun are full of interesting matter, but his great object was to see in nature figures and symbols of religious truths, hence his narratives have often a somewhat forced character. Thus he tells us that “in India there is a tree of which the fruit is so sweet that the doves of the earth go seeking it above all things, they eat the fruit of it, seat themselves in the tree, they are in repose as long as they are sheltered by it. There is a dragon in the earth which makes war on the birds; the dragon fears so much the tree, that on no acconnt dare it approach it or touch the shadow, but it goes round at a distance, and, if it can, does them injury. If the shadow is to the right then it goes to the left, if it is to the left the dragon goes to the right. The doves have so much understanding which are above in the tree when they see the dragon go all around, which goes watching them, but it does them no harm, nor will they ever have any harm as long as they are in the tree, but when they leave the tree and depart, and the dragon shall come then, it will kill them. This is a great meaning, have it in remembrance.” This Indian tree stands not obscurely for the Saviour of the world, while the doves are His faithful ones sheltered in Him from the wiles of the Evil One. When we read story after story all equally apropos, we cannot help feeling that a pious fraud has now and then been indulged in, and the comely whole has been attained by a little judicious pruning in one direction, and a little forcing in another, and thus we lose faith in them, at least as examples of the current beliefs of our forefathers.
The Arabs call the mandrake the devil’s candle, from a belief that the leaves give out at night a phosphorescent light; and Moore, with his usual felicity, has introduced the idea in his poem of the “Fire-Worshippers:”—
“How shall she dare to lift her head,
Or meet those eyes, whose scorching glare
Not Yeman’s boldest sons can bear?
In whose red beam, the Moslem tells,
Such rank and deadly lustre dwells,
As in those hellish fires that light
The Mandrake’s charnel leaves at night.”
Another old name for the plant was the Enchanter’s nightshade, though that very suggestive and rather awe-inspiring title has in these later days become somehow transferred to a very insignificant weed that is common enough in some old gardens and on waste ground, but which is all too small to bear so formidable a title.
The Hebrew word Dudaim has, in Genesis and in the Song of Solomon, been translated in the Authorised English Version of the Bible as the mandrake, but this would appear to be nothing more than a guess, various commentators, Calmet, Hasselquist, and others who have written on the subject, not being by any means unanimous. Some tell us that the term is a general one for flowers, while others translate it as lilies, violets, or jessamine, or as figs, mushrooms, bananas, citrons, or melons. Whence we may fairly conclude that no one really knows, and that the whole matter resolves itself into a guess, fortified more or less by dogmatic assertion as a make-weight for the missing knowledge.
One of the most interesting of the old books on our shelves is the “Miracles of Art and Nature, or a Brief Description of the several varieties of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Plants and Fruits of other Countreys, together with several other Remarkable Things in the World, By R. B. Gent.” The author’s name thus modestly veiled is Burton, and the date of the book is 1678. In his preface he says—“I think there is not a chapter wherein thou wilt not find various and remarkable things worth thy observation,” and this observation of his is strictly within the truth. He arranges his short chapters geographically, but in the most arbitrary way—not alphabetically, not according to the natural grouping together of the countries of which he treats, nor indeed according to any settled method. In fact, he is sufficiently conscious of this, for, to quote his preface again, he says—“’Tis probable they are not so Methodically disposed as some hands might have done, yet for Variety and pleasure sake they are pleasingly enough intermixed.” We open the book at random and find “Chap. XX., Castile in Spain; XXI., Norway; XXII., Zisca of Bohemia; XXIII., Assiria; XXIV., Quivira in California.” Adopting his own random and haphazard way of going to work, we will pluck from his quaint pages some few of his botanical facts and fancies. His opening chapter deals with Egypt, and in his description of the palm-tree he refers to a very old belief that we may allow him to set forth in his own words:—“It is the nature of this tree though never so ponderous a weight were put upon it not to yield to the burthen, but still to resist the heaviness, and endeavour to raise itself the more upward. For this cause planted in Churchyards in the Eastern Countrys as an Emblem of the Resurrection.” A little further on, in his description of Sumatra, we read of “a tree whose Western part is said to be rank poyson and the Eastern part an excellent preservative against it,” and of “a sort of Fruit that whosoever eateth of it, is for the space of twelve hours out of his Wits.” Travellers’ tales have sometimes proverbially been difficult of belief, and it must have been some such as these that procured them their evil report, for we read too that in this same island “there is a river plentifully stored with Fish, whose Water is so hot that it scalds the skin,” and that “the cocks have a hole in their backs, wherein the Hen lays her Eggs and hatches her young ones.” A few pages further on we read of a tree in Peru, “the North part whereof looking towards the Mountains, brings forth its Fruits in the Summer only; the Southern part looking towards the Sea, fruitful only in Winter.” Our old author evidently delights in sharp contrasts. It is curious, however, that the Coca-leaf, which has within the last few years been highly commended for those who have exhausting exercise, is in this book of over 200 years old fully referred to:—“The leaves whereof being dried and formed into little pellets are exceedingly useful in a Journey; for melting in the mouth they satisfie both hunger and thirst and preserve a man in his strength, and his Spirits in Vigour; and are generally esteemed of such sovereign use, that it is thought no less than 100,000 Baskets full of the leaves of this tree are sold yearly at the Mines of Potosia only. Another plant they tell us of, though there is no name found for it, which if put into the hands of a sick person will instantly discover whether he be like to live or dye. For if on the pressing it in his hand he look merry and cheerful it is an assured sign of his recovery, as on the other side of Death, if sad and troubled.” A few pages further on we find ourselves at Sodom and the Dead Sea:—“If but an Aple grow near it, it is by Nature such that it speaks the Anger of God: for without ’tis beautiful and Red, but within nothing but dusty Smoak and Cinders.” This belief is a very ancient one. We find it, for instance, in the writings of Tacitus, and it has supplied moralists in all ages with an illustration. In “The Merchant of Venice,” for instance, we find the lines—
“A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”—
and again in “Childe Harold”—