elanya

Well, I know some people have been confused by our euphamism, so I went and found the appropriate passage from Pliny's Natural History of the World or Natural History or whatever you want to call it. Book seven, chapter fifteen, aharr.

I'm not actually killing any bees at the moment, but something on Shan's page made me think to do this.



This passage is from a 1601 edition, edited by Philemon Holland and available on the internet, arr.

But to come againe to women, hardly can there be found a thing more monstrous than is that fluxe and course of theirs. For if during the time of this their sicknesse they happen to approch or goe over a vessel of wine, bee it never so new, it will presently soure: if they touch any standing corne in the field, it will wither and come to no good. Also, let them in this estate handle any grasses, they will die upon it: the hearbes and young buds in a garden if they doe but passe by, will catch a blast, and burne away to nothing. Sit they upon or under trees whiles they are in this case, the fruit which hangeth upon them will fall. Doe they but see themselves in a looking glasse, the cleare brightnesse therof turneth into dimnesse, upon their very sight. Look they upon a sword, knife, or any edged toole, be it never so bright, it waxeth duskish, so doth also the lively hue of yvorie. The very bees in the hive die. Yron and steele presently take rust, yea, and brasse likewise, with a filthie, strong, and poysoned stinke, if they lay but hand thereupon. If dogs chance to tast of womens fleures, they runne mad therewith: and if they bite any thing afterwards, they leave behind them such a venome, that the wounds are incurable: nay the very clammie slime Bitumen, which at certaine times of the yeere floteth and swimmeth upon the lake of Sodome, called Asphaltites in Iurie, which otherwise of the owne nature is pliable enough, soft and gentle, and ready to follow what way a man would have it, cannot be parted and divided asunder, (for by reason of the viscositie, it cleaveth and sticketh like glew, and hangeth all together, plucke as a man will at it) but onely by a thred that is stained with this venomous bloud. Even the silie Pismires (the least of all others) hath a perceivance & sence of this poyson, as they say: for they cast aside and will no more come to that corne, which they have once found by tast to bee infected with this poyson. This maladie, so venomous and hurtfull as it is, followeth a woman still every thirtie daies: and at three moneths end, if it stay so long, it commeth in greater abundance. And as there be some women that have it oftener than once a month, so there are others againe that never see ought of it. But such lightly are barren, and never bring children. For in very deed, it is the materiall substance of generation: and the mans seed serveth in steed of a runnet to gather it round into a curd: which afterwards in processe of time quickeneth and groweth to the forme of a bodie: which is the cause that if women with child have this fluxe of the moneths, their children are not long lived, or else proove feeble, sickly, and full of filthie humors, as Nigidius writeth.

Emphasis mine ;)



And there you have it folks.