CHAP. IX.
Of Inchanting or Bewitching Eyes.
MAny Writers agree with Virgil & Theocritus in the effect of bewitching eyes, affirming that in Scythia there are women called Bithiae,* 1.1 having two bals or rather blacks in the apple of their eyes. And as Didymus, reporteth, some have in the one eye two such bals, and in the other the image of a Horse. These (forsooth) with their angry looks do bewitch and hurt not only young Lambs, but young Children. There be other that retain such venom in their Eyes, and send it forth by beams and streams so violently, that therewith they annoy not only them with whom they are conversant continually; but also all other whose company they frequent, of what age, strength or complexion so∣ever they be, as Cicero, Plutarch, Philarchus, and many others give out in their writings.
This Fascination (saith John Baptista Porta Neapolitanus) though it begin by touching or breathing, is alwayes accomplished and finished by the Eye,* 1.2 as an extermination or expulsion of the Spirits through the Eyes, approaching to the heart of the bewitched, and infecting the same, &c. Whereby is cometh to pass, that a child, or a young man endued with a clear, whole, subtil and sweet blood, yieldeth the like spirits, breath, and vapours springing from the purer blood of the heart. And the lightest and finest spirits, ascending into the highest parts of the head, do fall into the Eyes, and so are from thence sent forth, as being of all other parts of the body the most clear, and fullest of veins and pores, and with the very spirit or vapour proceeding thence, is conveyed out as it were by beams and streams a certain fiery force; whereof he that beholdeth sore Eyes shall have good experience. For the poyson and disease in the Eye infecteth the air next unto it, and the same proceedeth further,* 1.3 carrying with it the vapour and infection of the corrupted blood, with the contagion whereof the Eyes of the beholders are most apt to be infected. By this same means it is thought that the Cockatrice depriveth the life, and a Wolf taketh away the voyce of such as they suddenly meet withal and beholds.
Old women, in whom the ordinary course of nature faileth in the office of purg∣ing their natural monthly humors, shew also some proof hereof. For (as the said J. B.P.N. reporteth, alledging Aristotle for his Author) they leave in a Looking-glass a certain froth, by means of the gross vapours proceeding out of their Eyes, which cometh so to pass, because those vapours or spirits, which so abundantly come from their Eyes, cannot pierce and enter into the Glass, which is hard and without pores, and therefore resisteth: but the beams which are carryed in the chariot of conveyance of the spirits, from the Eyes of one body to another,* 1.4 do pierce to the inward parts, and there breed infection, whilest they search and seek for their proper region. And as these beams and vapours do proceed from the heart of the one, so are they turned into blood about the heart of the other, which blood disagreeing with the nature of the bewitched party, infeebleth the rest of his body, and maketh him sick; the contagion whereof so long continueth as the distempered blood hath force in the members. And because the infection is of blood, the feaver or sickness will be continual; whereas if it were of cho∣ler, or flegm, it would be intermittent or alterable.