ing to its
value, for their own greater profit do the very same which is told us of
the recreation of the three fatal sister Parcae, or of the nocturnal
exercise of the noble Circe, or yet of the excuse which Penelope made to
her fond wooing youngsters and effeminate courtiers during the long absence
of her husband Ulysses.

By these means is this herb put into a way to display its inestimable
virtues, whereof I will discover a part; for to relate all is a thing
impossible to do. I have already interpreted and exposed before you the
denomination thereof. I find that plants have their names given and
bestowed upon them after several ways. Some got the name of him who first
found them out, knew them, sowed them, improved them by culture, qualified
them to tractability, and appropriated them to the uses and subserviences
they were fit for, as the Mercuriale from Mercury; Panacea from Panace, the
daughter of Aesculapius; Armois from Artemis, who is Diana; Eupatoria from
the king Eupator; Telephion from Telephus; Euphorbium from Euphorbus, King
Juba's physician; Clymenos from Clymenus; Alcibiadium from Alcibiades;
Gentiane from Gentius, King of Sclavonia, and so forth, through a great
many other herbs or plants. Truly, in ancient times this prerogative of
imposing the inventor's name upon an herb found out by him was held in a so
great account and estimation, that, as a controversy arose betwixt Neptune
and Pallas from which of them two that land should receive its denomination
which had been equally found out by them both together--though thereafter
it was called and had the appellation of Athens, from Athene, which is
Minerva--just so would Lynceus, King of Scythia, have treacherously slain
the young Triptolemus, whom Ceres had sent to show unto mankind the
invention of corn, which until then had been utterly unknown, to the end
that, after the murder of the messenger, whose death he made account to
have kept secret, he might, by imposing, with the less suspicion of false
dealing, his own name upon the said found out seed, acquire unto himself an
immortal honour and glory for having been the inventor of a grain so
profitable and necessary to and for the use of human life. For the
wickedness of which treasonable attempt he was by Ceres transformed into
that wild beast which by some is called a lynx and by others an ounce.
Such also was the ambition of others upon the like occasion, as appeareth
by that very sharp wars a