Navarette and Barbot both tell us that a certain remedy against the sting of a Scorpion, is to rub the wound with a child's private member. This, the latter adds, immediately takes away the pain, and then the venom exhales. The moisture that comes from a hen's mouth, Barbot says, is also good for the same.
The Persians believe that Scorpions may be deprived of the power of stinging, by means of a certain prayer which they make use of for that purpose. The person who has the power of "binding the Scorpion," as it is called, turns his face toward the sign Scorpio, in the heavens, and repeats this prayer; while every person present, at the conclusion of a sentence, claps his hands. After this is done they think that they are perfectly safe; nor, if they should chance to see any Scorpions during that night, do they scruple to take hold of them, trusting to the efficacy of this fancied all-powerful charm. "I have frequently seen," says Francklin, "the man in whose family I lived, repeat the above-mentioned prayer, on being desired by his children to bind the Scorpions; after which the whole family has gone quietly and contentedly to bed, fully persuaded that they could receive no hurt by them."
Bell says the Persians "have such a dread of these creatures, that, when provoked by any person, they wish a Kashan Scorpion may sting him."
An old story is, that a Scorpion surrounded with live coals, finding no method of escaping, grows desperate from its situation, and stings itself to death. This, though considered a mere fable of antiquity, may still have some truth, if we believe the following from the pen of Ulloa: "We more than once," says this traveler, "entertained ourselves with an experiment of putting a Scorpion into a glass vessel, and injecting a little smoke of tobacco, and immediately by stopping it found that its aversion to this smell is such, that it falls into the most furious agitations, till, giving itself several stings on the head, it finds relief by destroying itself." There is also told a story in the East Indies, that "the scorpion is sometimes so pestered with the pismires, that he stings himself to death in the head with his tail, and so becomes a prey to the pismires."
The Scorpion was an emblem of the Egyptian goddess Selk; and she is usually found represented with this animal bound upon her head.
Aelian mentions Scorpions of Coptos, which, though inflicting a deadly sting, and dreaded by the people, so far respected the Egyptian goddess Isis, who was particularly worshiped in that city, that women, in going to express their grief before her, walked with bare feet, or lay upon the ground, without receiving any injury from them.
The Ethiopians that dwell near the River Hydaspis commonly eat Scorpions and serpents without the slightest harm, "which certainly proceeds from no other thing than a secret and wonderful constitution of the body!" says Mercurialis.
Lutfullah, the learned Mohammedan gentleman, in his Autobiography, relates the following:
"On the morning of the 11th (April, 1839), I ordered my servant boy to shake my bedding and put it in the sun for an hour or so, that the moisture imbibed by the quilt might be dried. As soon as the quilt was removed from its place, what did I behold but an immense Scorpion, tapering towards its tail of nine vertebrae, armed with a sting at the end, crawling with impunity at the edge of the carpet. I had never seen such a large monster before. It was black in the body, with small bristles all over, dark green in the tail, and red at the sting. This hideous sight rendered me and the servant horror-struck. In the mean time, an Afghan friend of mine, by name Ata Mohamed Khan Kakar, a respectable resident of the town, honoured me with a visit, and, seeing the reptile, observed, 'Lutfullah, you are a lucky man, having made a narrow escape this morning. This cursed worm is called Jerrara, and its fatal sting puts a period to animal life in a moment; return, therefore, your thanks to the Lord, all merciful, who gave you a new life in having saved you from the mortal sting of this evil bed-companion of yours.' 'I have no fear of the worm,' replied I, 'for it dare not sting me unless it is written in the book of fate to be stung by it.' Saying this, I made the animal crawl into a small earthen vessel, and stopped the mouth of it with clay; and then making a large fire, I put the vessel therein for an hour or so, to turn the reptile into ashes, which, administered in doses of half a grain to adults, are a specific remedy for violent colicky pains."
The ashes of burnt Scorpions, besides being good for colicky pains, as Lutfullah says, were often prescribed by the ancient physicians for stone in the bladder; and Topsel, quoting Kiranides, has the following: "If a man take a vulgar Scorpion and drown the same in a porringer of oyl in the wane of the moon, and therewithall afterward anoynt the back from the shoulders to the hips, and also the head and forehead, with the tips of the fingers and toes of one that is a demoniack or a lunatick person, it is reported, that he shall ease and cure him in short time. And the like is reported of the Scorpion's sting joyned with the top of basil wherein is seed, and with the heart of a swallow, all included in a piece of harts skin." The oil of Scorpions, Brassavolus says, "drives out worms miraculously;" and oil of Scorpions' and vipers' tongues is a most excellent remedy against the plague, as Crinitus testifies, i. 7. Galen prescribes Scorpions for jaundice, and Kiranides the same for the several kinds of ague. "Plinius Secundus saith, that a quartan ague, as the magicians report, will be cured in three daies by a Scorpion's four last joynts of his tail, together with the gristle of his ear, so wrapped up in a black cloth, that the sick patient may neither perceive the Scorpion that is applied, nor him that bound it on . . . . Samonicus commends Scorpions against pains in the eyes, in these verses:
If but some grievous pain perplex thy sight, Wool wet in oyl is good bound on all night. Carry about thee a live Scorpion's eye, Ashes of coleworts if thou do apply, With bruised frankincense, goat's milk, and wine, One night will prove this remedy divine."
The following Asiatic fable of the Scorpion and the Tortoise is from the Beharistan of Jamy: A Scorpion, armed with pernicious sting and filthy poison, undertook a journey. Coming to the bank of a wide river, he stopped in great perplexity, wanting height of leg to cross over, yet very unwilling to return. A Tortoise, seeing his situation, and moved with compassion, took him on his back, sprang into the river, and was swimming toward the opposite shore, when he heard a noise on his shell as of something striking him; he called out to know what it was; the ungrateful Scorpion answered, "It is the motion of my sting only, I know it cannot affect you, but it is a habit which I cannot relinquish." "Indeed," replied the Tortoise, "then I cannot do better than free so evil-minded a creature from his bad disposition, and secure the good from his malevolence." Saying which he dived under the water, and the waves soon carried the Scorpion beyond the bourn of existence.
When, in this banquet house of vice and strife, A knave oft strikes the various stings of fraud, 'Tis best the sea of death ingulf him soon, That he be freed from man, and man from him.
Topsel, in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, has the following in his chapter on the Scorpion:
"There is a common adage, Cornix Scorpium, a Raven to a Scorpion, and it is used against them that perish by their own inventions: when they set upon others, they meet with their matches, as a raven did when it preyed upon a Scorpion, thus described by Alciatus, under his title Justa ultio, just revenge, saying as followeth:
Raptabat volucer captum pede corvus in auras Scorpion, audaci praemia parta gulae. Ast ille infuso sensim per membra veneno, Raptorem in stygias compulit ultor aquas. O risu res digna! aliis qui fata parabat, Ipse periit, propriis succubuitque dolis.
Which may be Englished thus:
The ravening crow for prey a Scorpion took Within her foot, and therewithal aloft did flie. But he empoysoned her by force and stinging stroke, So ravener in the Stygian Lake did die. O sportfull game! that he which other for bellyes sake did kill, By his own deceit should fall into death's will.
"There be some learned writers, who have compared a Scorpion to an epigram, or rather an epigram to a Scorpion, because as the sting of the Scorpion lyeth in the tayl, so the force and vertue of an epigram is in the conclusion, for vel acriter salse mordeat, vel jucunde atque dulciter delectet, that is, either let it bite sharply at the end, or else delight pleasingly."
Araneidae — True Spiders
A little head and body small, With slender feet and very tall, Belly great, and from thence come all The webs it spins. — Moufet.
"Domitian sometime," says Hollingshed incidentally in his Chronicles of England, "and an other prince yet living, delited so much to see the iollie combats betwixt a stout Flie and an old Spider. Some parasites also in the time of the aforesaid emperour (when they were disposed to laugh at his follie, and yet would seem in appearance to gratifie his fantasticall head with some shew of dutiful demenour) could devise to set their lorde on worke, by letting a fresh flie privilie into his chamber, which he foorthwith would egerlie have hunted (all other businesse set apart) and never ceased till he had caught him in his fingers: whereupon arose the proverbe 'ne musca quidem,' altered first by Vitius Priscus, who being asked whether anie bodie was with Domitian, answered 'ne musca quidem,' whereby he noted his follie. There are some cockes combs here and there in England, learning it abroad as men transregionate, which make account also of this pastime, as of a notable matter, telling what a fight is seene betweene them, if either of them be lustie and couragious in his kind. One also hath mad a booke of the Spider and the Flie, wherein he dealeth so profoundlie, and beyond all measure of skill, that neither he himself that made it, neither anie one that readeth it can reach unto the meaning thereof."
Chapelain, the author of Pucelle, was called by the academicians the Knight of the Order of the Spider, because he was so avaricious, that though he had an income of 13,000 livres, and more than 240,000 in ready money, he wore an old coat so patched, pieced, and threadbare, that the stitches exhibited no bad resemblance to the fibers produced by that insect. Being one day present at a large party given by the great Conde, a Spider of uncommon size fell from the ceiling upon the floor. The company thought it could not have come from the roof, and all the ladies at once agreed that it must have proceeded from Chapelain's wig; — the wig so celebrated by the well-known parody.
The often-told anecdote of the Scottish monarch, Robert Bruce, and the cottage Spider, is thus related in Chambers' Miscellany: While wandering on the wild hills of Carrick, in order to escape the emissaries of Edward, Robert the Bruce on one occasion passed the night under the shelter of a poor deserted cottage. Throwing himself down on a heap of straw, he lay upon his back, with his hands placed under his head, unable to sleep, but gazing vacantly upward at the rafters of the hut, disfigured with cobwebs. From thoughts long and dreary about the hopelessness of the enterprise in which he was engaged, and the misfortunes he had already encountered, he was roused to take interest in the efforts of a poor industrious Spider, which had begun to ply its vocation with the first gray light of morning. The object of the animal was to swing itself, by its thread, from one rafter to another; but in the attempt it repeatedly failed, each time vibrating back to the point whence it had made the effort. Twelve times did the little creature try to reach the desired spot, and as many times was it unsuccessful. Not disheartened with its failure, it made the attempt once more, and, lo! the rafter was gained. "The thirteenth time," said Bruce, springing to his feet; "I accept it as a lesson not to despond under difficulties, and shall once more venture my life in the struggle for the independence of my beloved country." The result is well known.