The action figured in this Emblem is spoken of in the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act iii. sc. 2, l, 254, vol. ii. p. 241). Puck has laid the “love-juice” on the wrong eyes, and in consequence Lysander avows his love for Helen instead of for Hermia; and the dialogue then proceeds,— _Dem._ I say I love thee more than he can do. _Lys._ If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too. _Dem._ Quick, come! _Her._ Lysander, whereto tends all this? _Lys._ Away, you Ethiope! _Dem._ No, no; he’ll ... Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow, But yet come not: you are a tame man, go! _Lys._ Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose, Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!” Cardinal Pandulph, the Pope’s legate, in _King John_ (act iii. sc. 1, l. 258, vol. iv. p. 42), urges King Philip to be champion of the Church, and says to him,— “France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue, A chafed lion by the mortal paw, A fasting tiger safer by the tooth, Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.” King Richard’s address to the “gentle earth,” when he landed in Wales (_Richard II._, act iii. sc. 2, l. 12, vol. iv. p. 164), calls us to the Emblem of the snake entwined about the flower,— “Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth, Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense; But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom, And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way, Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet Which with usurping steps do trample thee: Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies; And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower, Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.” “The Engineer hoist with his own petar” may justly be regarded as a proverbial saying. It finds its exact correspondence in Beza’s 8th Emblem (edition 1580), in which for device is a cannon bursting, and with one of its fragments killing the cannonier. [Illustration: _Beza_, 1580.] “_Cernis ut in cœlum fuerat quæ machina torta, Fit iaculatori mors properata suo? In sanctos quicunque Dei ruis impie seruos, Conatus merces hæc manet vna tuas._” Thus rendered into French in 1581,— “Vois tu pas le canon braqué contre les cieux, En se creuant creuer celui la qui le tire? Le mesme t’aduiendra, cruel malicieux, Qui lasches sur les bons les balles de ton ire.”