Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/516

342 for diverse uses, and enter into many soveraigne antidots and confections. But here it is to bee noted, that although these troches bee called theriaci, yet are they made of viper's flesh onely. Some there be, who after a viper is cleansed, as is above said take out the fat, and seeth it with a sextar of oile untill the one halfe bee consumed: which serveth to drive away all venomous beasts, if three drops of this ointment be put into oile, and therewith the bodie be anointed all over." Pliny's Nat. Hist. b. 29. c. iv. trans, by Philemon Holland. Ed. 1601.

This figment is clearly eastern. There is a similar story in the veritable "Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandevile."

"There was a man that was called Catolonapes, he was ful rich, and had a fair castle on a hill, and strong, and he made a wal all about y$e$ hill right strong and fayre, within he had a fair gardeine wherein were many trees bearing all maner of fruits y$t$ he might fynd, and he had planted therin al maner of herbs of good smel and that bare flowers, and