Even beasts were supposed to have discovered its virtues, so that weasels were gravely said, and this by such men as Pliny, to eat Rue when they were preparing themselves for a fight with rats and serpents. Its especial virtue was an eye-salve, a use which Milton did not overlook—
"To nobler sights
Michael from Adam's eyes the filme removed
Which that false fruit which promised clearer sight
Had bred; then purged with Euphrasie and Rue
The visual nerve, for he had much to see:"
Paradise Lost, book xi.;
and which was more fully stated in the old lines of the Schola Salerni—
"Nobilis est Ruta quia lumina reddit acuta;
Auxilio rutæ, vir lippe, videbis acute;
Cruda comesta recens oculos Caligine purgat;
Ruta facit castum, dat lumen, et ingerit astum;
Cocta facit Ruta et de pollicibus loca tuta."
After reading this high moral and physical character of the herb, it is rather startling to find that "It is believed that if stolen from a neighbour's garden it would prosper better." It was, however, an old belief—
"They sayen eke stolen sede is butt the bette."
Palladius on Husbandrie (c. 1420) iv, 269.
"It is a common received opinion that Rue will grow the better if it bee filtched out of another man's garden."—Holland's Pliny, xix. 7.
As other medicines were introduced the Rue declined in favour, so that Parkinson spoke of it with qualified praise—"Without doubt it is a most wholesom herb, although bitter and strong. Some do rip up a bead-rowl of the virtues of Rue, . . . but beware of the too-frequent or overmuch use therof." And Dr. Daubeny says of it, "It is a powerful stimulant and narcotic, but not much used in modern practise."