nry IV." (i. 2)
Falstaff alludes to the sea being governed "by our noble and chaste
mistress, the moon;" and in "Richard III." (ii. 2) Queen Elizabeth says:

"That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world."

[118] See Swainson's "Weather-Lore," 1873, pp. 182-192.

We may compare, too, what Timon says ("Timon of Athens," iv. 3):

"The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears."

The expression of Hecate, in "Macbeth" (iii. 5):

"Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a vaporous drop profound,"

seems to have been meant for the same as the _virus lunare_ of the
ancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular
herbs, when strongly solicited by enchantment. Lucan introduces Erictho
using it ("Pharsalia," book vi. 669): "Et virus large lunare ministrat."

By a popular astrological doctrine the moon was supposed to exercise
great influence over agricultural operations, and also over many "of the
minor concerns of life, such as the gathering of herbs, the killing of
animals for the table, and other matters of a like nature." Thus the
following passage in the "Merchant of Venice" (v. 1), it has been
suggested, has reference to the practices of the old herbalists who
attributed particular virtues to plants gathered during particular
phases of the moon and hours of the night. After Lorenzo has spoken of
the moon shining brightly, Jessica adds:

"In such a night
Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs,
That did renew old AEson."

And in "Hamlet" (iv. 7) the description which Laertes gives of the
weapon-poison refers to the same notion:

"I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death."

The sympathy of growing and declining nature with the waxing and waning
moon is a superstition widely spread, and is as firmly believed in by
many as when Tusser, in his "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,"
under "February" gave the following advice:

"Sow peason and beans in the wane of the moon,
Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soon,
That they with the planet may rest and arise,
And flourish, with bearing most plentifull wise."

Warburton considers that this notion is allu