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,