“What shield of Ajax could avoid their death
By th’ Basilisk whose pestilentiall breath
Doth pearce firm Marble, and whose banefull eye
Wounds with a glance, so that the wounded dye.”
The origin of the Cockatrice is, to say the least, peculiar:—“There is some question amongest Writers, about the generation of this Serpent: for some, (and those very many and learned,) affirme him to be brought forth of a Cockes egge. For they say that when a Cocke groweth old, he layeth a certaine egge without
any shell, instead whereof it is covered with a very thicke skinne, which is able to withstand the greatest force of an easie blow or fall. They say, moreover, that this Egge is layd onely in the Summer time, about the beginning of the Dogge-dayes, being not so long as a Hens Egge, but round and orbiculer: Sometimes of a Foxie, sometimes of a yellowish muddy colour, which Egge is generated of the putrified seed of the Cocke, and afterward sat upon by a Snake or a Toad, bringeth forth the Cockatrice, being halfe a foot in length, the hinder part like a Snake, the former part like a Cocke, because of a treble combe on his forehead.
“But the vulger opinion of Europe is, that the Egge is nourished by a Toad, and not by a Snake; howbeit, in better experience it is found that the Cocke doth sit on that egge himselfe: whereof Levinus Lemnius in his twelfth booke of the hidden miracles of nature, hath this discourse, in the fourth chapter thereof. There happened (saith he) within our memory in the Citty Pirizæa, that there were two old Cockes which had layd Egges, but they could not, with clubs and staves drive them from the Egges, untill they were forced to breake the egges in sunder, and strangle the Cockes....
“There be many grave humaine Writers, whose authority is irrefragable, affirming not onely that there be cockatrices, but also that they infect the ayre, and kill with their sight. And Mercuriall affirmeth, that when he was with Maximilian the Emperour, hee saw the carkase of a cockatrice, reserved in his treasury among his undoubted monuments.... Wee doe read that in Rome, in the dayes of Pope Leo the fourth (847 to 855), there was a cockatrice found in a Vault of a Church or Chappell, dedicated to Saint Lucea, whose
pestiferous breath hadde infected the Ayre round about, whereby great mortality followed in Rome: but how the said Cockatrice came thither, it was never knowne. It is most probable that it was created, and sent of God for the punnishment of the Citty, which I do the more easily beleeve, because Segonius and Julius Scaliger do affirme, that the sayd pestiferous beast was killed by the prayers of the said Leo the fourth....
“The eyes of the Cockatrice are redde, or somewhat inclyning to blacknesse; the skin and carkase of this beast have beene accounted precious, for wee doe read that the Pergameni did buy but certaine peeces of a Cockatrice, and gave for it two pound and a halfe of Sylver: and because there is an opinion that no Byrd, Spyder, or venomous Beast will endure the sight of this Serpent, they did hang uppe the skinne thereof stuffed, in the Temples of Apollo and Diana, in a certaine thinne Net made of Gold; and therefore it is sayde, that never any Swallow, Spider, or other Serpent durst come within those Temples; And not onely the skinne or the sight of the Cockatrice worketh this effect, but also the flesh thereof, being rubbed uppon the pavement, postes, or Walles of any House. And moreover, if Silver bee rubbed over with the powder of the Cockatrices flesh, it is likewise sayde that it giveth it a tincture like unto Golde: and, besides these qualities, I remember not any other in the flesh or skinne of this serpent....