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Achates, Agate

Achates, Agate Page of 453 Adamas, Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
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ACHATES.
derful occult virtue inherent in the substance thus signalled out.5 Thus Orpheus sings (230) how " if thou wearest a piece of the Tree-Agate on thy hand, the immortal Gods shall be pleased with thee: if the same be tied to the horns of thy oxen when ploughing, or round the ploughman's sturdy arm, wheat-crowned Ceres shall descend from heaven with full lap upon thy fur­rows." And again (604), how every kind is an antidote to the asp's bite, if taken in wine: but the more potent Brocatella, if merely tied on the wound, cures the scorpion's bite ; enables the wearer to gain the love of all women ; obtain all his petitions from the powerful; and cure the sick man whose thread is not ac­tually severed by Clotho. And Pliny jestingly quotes the Magi as teaching that, besides these virtues, " in Persia," by burning them, storms could be averted, and thunderbolts to boot: the proof of their efficacy being that, if thrown into a caldron of boiling water, they immediately cooled it; but in order to do good they must be strung on the hair of a lion's mane. The stone coloured like a hyaena's skin they, on the contrary, viewed with horror as the cause of domestic strife. The Corallachates was an anti­dote against spider and scorpion bites ; the Tree-Agate good for the sight.
Achates, Agate Page of 453 Adamas, Diamond
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