in the cynopaste; Josephus in the root bauras; Homer in the plant moly.  They were all wrong.  The spirits in herbs are not gods but devils.  I have tested this fact.  It is not true that the serpent which tempted Eve had a human face, as Cadmus relates.  Garcias de Horto, Cadamosto, and John Hugo, Archbishop of Treves, deny that it is sufficient to saw down a tree to catch an elephant.  I incline to their opinion.  Citizens, the efforts of Lucifer are the cause of all false impressions.  Under the reign of such a prince it is natural that meteors of error and of perdition should arise.  My friends, Claudius Pulcher did not die because the fowls refused to come out of the fowl house.  The fact is, that Lucifer, having foreseen the death of Claudius Pulcher, took care to prevent the birds feeding.  That Beelzebub gave the Emperor Vespasian the virtue of curing the lame and giving sight to the blind, by his touch, was an act praiseworthy in itself, but of which the motive was culpable.  Gentlemen, distrust those false doctors, who sell the root of the bryony and the white snake, and who make washes with honey and the blood of a cock.  See clearly through that which is false.  It is not quite true that Orion was the result of a natural function of Jupiter.  The truth is that it was Mercury who produced this star in that way.  It is not true that Adam had a navel.  When St. George killed the dragon he had not the daughter of a saint standing by his side.  St. Jerome had not a clock on the chimney-piece of his study; first, because living in a cave, he had no study; secondly, because he had no chimney-piece; thirdly, because clocks were not yet invented.  Let us put these things right.  Put them right.  O gentlefolks, who listen to me, if any one tells you that a lizard will be born in your head if you smell the herb valerian; that the rotting carcase of the ox changes into bees, and that of the horse into hornets; that a man weighs more when dead than when alive; that the blood of the he-goat dissolves emeralds; that a caterpillar, a fly, and a spider, seen on the same tree, announces famine, war, and pestilence; that the falling sickness is to be cured by a worm found in the head of a buck—­do not believe him.  These things are errors.  But now listen to truths.  The skin of a sea-calf is a safeguard against thunder.  The toad feeds upon earth, which causes a stone to come into his head.  The rose of Jericho blooms on Christmas Eve.  Serpents cannot endure the shadow of the ash tree.  The elephant has no joints, and sleeps resting upright against a tree.  Make a toad sit upon a cock’s egg, and he will hatch a scorpion which will become a salamander.  A blind person will recover sight by putting one hand on the left side of the altar and the other on his eyes.  Virginity does not hinder maternity.  Honest people, lay these truths to heart.  Above all, you can believe in Providence in either of two ways, either as thirst believes in the orange, or as the ass believes in the whip.  Now I am going to introduce you to my family.”