But never more be officer of mine,”—
Cassio says to Iago,—
“I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a drunkard!
Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all.”
So of the change which suddenly came over the Prince of Wales (Henry V., act i. sc. 1, l. 35, vol. iv. p. 493), on his father’s death, it is said,—
“Never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat and all at once
As in this king.”
This section of our subject is sufficiently ample, or we might press into our service a passage from Timon of Athens (act iv. sc. 3, l. 317, vol. vii. p. 281), in which the question is asked, “What wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy power?” and the answer is, “Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men.”
In the wide range of the pre-Shakespearean Emblematists and Fabulists we might peradventure find a parallel to each animal that is named (l. 324),—