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 præmia parta gulæ. Ast ille infuso sensim per membra venemo, 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.”[1124] Araneidæ--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.[1125] “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.”[1126]