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Basilisk

legendary reptile in European mythology

In European bestiaries and legends, a basilisk is a legendary reptile reputed to be a serpent king, who causes death to those who look into its eyes. According to the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder, the basilisk of Cyrene is a small snake, "being not more than twelve inches in length", that is so venomous, it leaves a wide trail of deadly venom in its wake, and its gaze is likewise lethal.

I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk
  —Shakespeare
An Animal that will not suffer itself to be touch'd by a Man
  —Voltaire

Quotes

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  • The basilisk serpent also has the same power [as the catoblepas]. It is a native of the province of Cyrenaica, not more than twelve inches long, and adorned with a bright white marking on the head like a sort of diadem. It routs all snakes with its hiss, and does not move its body forward in manifold coils like the other snakes but advancing with its middle raised high. It kills bushes not only by its touch but also by its breath, scorches up grass and bursts rocks. Its effect on other animals is disastrous: it is believed that once one was killed with a spear by a man on horseback and the infection rising through the spear killed not only the rider but also the horse. Yet to a creature so marvellous as this – indeed kings have often wished to see a specimen when safely dead – the venom of weasels is fatal: so fixed is the decree of nature that nothing shall be without its match. They throw the basilisks into weasels' holes, which are easily known by the foulness of the ground, and the weasels kill them by their stench and die themselves at the same time, and nature's battle is accomplished.
  • Wherever you see or hear a Jew teaching, do not think otherwise than that you are hearing a poisonous Basiliskus who with his face poisons and kills people.
  • I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
  • O, no, no, no! 'tis true. Here, take this too;
    [Gives the ring]
    It is a basilisk unto mine eye,
    Kills me to look on't.
    • Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act 2, Scene 4
  • Gloucester: Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.
    Lady Anne: Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!
    • Shakespeare, Richard III, Act 1, Scene 2
  • The basilisk his nature takes from thee,
      Who for my life in secret wait dost lie,
      And to my heart sendst poison from thine eye:
    Thus do I feel the pain, the cause, yet cannot see.
  • Man may escape from Rope and Gun;
    Nay, some have out liv'd the Doctor's Pill;
    Who takes a Woman must be undone,
    That Basilisk is sure to kill.
    • John Gay, The Beggar's Opera, Act 2, Air XXV
  • The smiling infant in his hand shall take
    The crested basilisk, and speckled snake;
    Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,
    And, with their forked tongue, shall innocently play.
  • See how she rears her head,
    And rolls about her dreadful eyes,
    To drive all virtue out, or look it dead!
    'Twas sure this basilisk sent Temple thence ...
  • As Zadig was traversing a verdant Meadow, he perceiv'd several young Female Syrians, intent on searching for something very curious, that lay conceal'd, as they imagin'd, in the Grass. He took the Freedom to approach one of them, and ask her, in the most courteous Manner, if he might have the Honour to assist her in her Researches. Have a care, said she. What we are hunting after, Sir, is an Animal, that will not suffer itself to be touch'd by a Man. 'Tis somewhat surprizing, said Zadig. May I be so bold, pray, as to ask you what you are in Pursuit after, that shuns the Touch of any Thing but the Hands of the Fair Sex. 'Tis, Sir, said she, the Basilisk: A Basilisk, Madam, said he! And pray, if you will be so good as to inform me, with what View, are you searching after a Creature so very difficult to be met with? 'Tis, Sir, said she, for our Lord and Master Ogul, whose Castle, you see, situate on the River-side, at the Bottom of the Meadow. We are all his Vassals. Ogul, you must know, is in a very bad State of Health, and his first Physician has order'd him, as a Specific, to eat a Basilisk, boil'd in Rose water: And as that Animal is very hard to be catch'd, and will suffer nothing to approach it, but one of our Sex, our dying Sovereign Ogul has promis'd to honour her, that shall be so happy as to catch it for him, so far as to make her his Consort. The Case, being thus circumstantiated, Sir, I hope you will not interrupt me any longer, lest my Rivals here in the Field should happen to circumvent me.
    Zadig withdrew, and left the Syrian Ladies in Quest of their imaginary Booty, in order to pursue his intended Journey.
  • Be thou like the imperial basilisk,
    Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!
    Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk,
    Aghast she pass from the earth’s disk.
    Fear not, but gaze,—for freemen mightier grow,
    And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe.
  • Those deserts of immeasurable sand,
    Whose age-collected fervours scarce allowed
    A bird to live, a blade of grass to spring,
    Where the shrill chirp of the green lizard’s love
    Broke on the sultry silentness alone,
    Now teem with countless rills and shady woods,
    Cornfields and pastures and white cottages;
    And where the startled wilderness beheld
    A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood,
    A tigress sating with the flesh of lambs
    The unnatural famine of her toothless cubs,
    Whilst shouts and howlings through the desert rang,—
    Sloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn,
    Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles
    To see a babe before his mother’s door,
    Sharing his morning’s meal
    With the green and golden basilisk
    That comes to lick his feet.
    • Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Queen Mab" (1813)
  • For see, my friend goes shaking and white;
    He eyes me as the basilisk:
    I have turned, it appears, his day to night,
    Eclipsing his sun's disk.
  • But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the great sandstone obelisks,
    And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have looked on Hippogriffs.
  • Minos frowned frightfully. "I resume," he said. "You have said that it is false that the basilisk is the king of serpents, under the name of cockatrice."
    "Very reverend sir," said Ursus, "so little did I desire to insult the basilisk that I have given out as certain that it has a man's head."
    "Be it so," replied Minos, severely; "but you added that Poerius had seen one with the head of a falcon. Can you prove it?"
    "Not easily," said Ursus.
    Here he had lost a little ground.
  • A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workman had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead.
  • Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.
    • J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998), Ch. 16
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