-
"Degli elementi quattro principali,
Che son la Terra, e l'Acqua, e l'Aria, e'l Foco,
Composti sono gli universi Animali,
Pigliando di ciascuno assai o poco."
(Dati, La Sfera, p. 9.)
Zurficar in the next sentence is a Mahomedan name, Zu'lfikar, the
title of [the edge of] Ali's sword.
NOTE 5. - Here the G. Text adds: "Et je meisme le vi," intimating, I
conceive, his having himself seen specimens of the asbestos - not to his
having been at the place.
NOTE 6. - The story of the Salamander passing unhurt through fire is at
least as old as Aristotle. But I cannot tell when the fable arose that
asbestos was a substance derived from the animal. This belief, however,
was general in the Middle Ages, both in Asia and Europe. "The fable of the
Salamander," says Sir Thomas Browne, "hath been much promoted by stories
of incombustible napkins and textures which endure the fire, whose
materials are called by the name of Salamander's wool, which many, too
literally apprehending, conceive some investing part or integument of the
Salamander.... Nor is this Salamander's wool desumed from any animal, but
a mineral substance, metaphorically so called for this received opinion."
Those who knew that the Salamander was a lizard-like animal were indeed
perplexed as to its woolly coat. Thus the Cardinal de Vitry is fain to say
the creature "profert ex cute quasi quamdam lanam de qua zonae
contextae comburi non possunt igne." A Bestiary, published by Cahier and
Martin, says of it:
