But all the above authorities are from the ancients, the system of modern witchcraft not affording any similar instances of its power. The Jesuit Delrio is willing to put up with any notice of this superstition among heathen writers, but is extremely indignant to find it mentioned by a Christian; contending that it exclusively belongs to the ancients. Disquis. magic. lib. ii. quæst. xi. The following classical references may not be unacceptable. The earliest on the list will be that in Aristophanes's Clouds, where Strepsiades proposes the hiring of a Thessalian witch to bring down the moon and shut her in a box that he might thus evade paying his debts by the month.
"Quæ sidera excantata voce Thessalâ
Lunamque cœlo deripit."
Horat. epod. v.
"Deripere lunam vocibus possum meis."
Horat. epod. xvii.
"Et jam luna negat toties descendere cœlo."
Propert. II. el. 28.
"Cantus et é curru lunam deducere tentat
Et faceret, si non ære repuisa sonent."
Tibull. I. el. 8. and see el. 2.
... "Phœbeque serena
Non aliter diris verborum obsessa venenis
Palluit, et nigris, terrenisque ignibus arsit,
Et patitur tantos cantu depressa labores
Donec suppositas propior despumet in herbas."[2]
Lucan vi.
"Mater erat Mycale; quam deduxisse canendo
Sæpe reluctanti constabat cornua lunæ."
Ovid. Metam. I. xii.
"Illa reluctantem curru deducere lunam
Nititur"
Ovid. epist. vi.
"Sic te regentem frena nocturni ætheris
Detrahere nunquam Thessali cantus queant."
Senec. Hippolyt. Act. 2.
"Mulieres etiam lunam deducunt."
Petron. Hadrianid. 468.