Audio denique et aquam vitae, ut vocant, eis let{h}alem esse. Ex Sambuco magis canoram buccinam, tubamque eodem referente[1], fieri credit pastor, si ibi caedatur, ubi Gallorum cantum frutex ille non exaudiat. Quae res ad quandam pariter antipathiam referri potest: sunt tamen qui physicam illius rationem talem assignent. Materies, inquiunt, sambuci mire firma traditur: constat enim ex cute, et ossibus: quare venabula ex ea facta praeferunt omnibus. {Quondam} <Quoniam>[2] vero loca sylvestria, qualia sunt, in quibus Gallorum cantus non auditur, sicciora sunt, ligna etiam illic sicciora, solidioraque fiunt, et ex tali materia tibiam magis canoram tornari credibile est, cum unumquodque corpus eo magis sonorum sit, quo siccius, simulque solidius. Eandem etiam rationem Caelius Calcagninus[3], quosdam assignavisse, scribit, postquam aliorum sententiam examinasset, suamque diversimodam attulisset, his verbis. Cur id fiat{:} (si modo verum est,) nemo facile dixerit. Sunt qui hoc non simpliciter, sed συμβολικῶς traditum putent, more Pythagorico[4], ut multum diversum, quam dicitur, intelligatur, sicut proditum est, non ex omni ligno Mercurium debere fieri: Deum non populari ritu, sed electo, ac religioso colendum esse. Sic non vulgari sed remotiori musicae incumbendum esse admonentes, non ex obvia quaque Sambuco tibiam, sambucamque coagmentari oportere dixerunt, et expedire ut remotiora petantur, atque inde decerpatur, ubi Galli cantus non obstrepat.

Finally, I hear that also the whisky - or usquebaugh, or aqua vitae -, as they call it, is lethal to chickens. Pliny reports that the shepherd believes a more resounding buccin and trumpet can be made from the elder tree if this shrub would be cut down where it does not can hear the roosters' crowing. This fact can be referred to a certain antipathy as well: there are some, however, who assign a physical reason for it. According to what they affirm, the wood of the elder tree, they say, is very solid: for it is made of bark and hard central portions: therefore they prefer hunting spits made of it than all others. But since woodland places, as are those where the roosters’ crowing is not heard, are dryer, here the wood grows more dry and more compact, and it is likely that from such a wood a more resounding flute can be lathed, since whatever structure is the more sonorous the more dry it is and solid at the same time. Celio Calcagnini writes that some people assigned the same reason, and after he examined the opinion of other men and brought forward his own which sounds in a different way, using the following words. Why this happens (if it is true) no one could easily say. Some think that this has not been handed down in a naked way, but symbolikôs - allegorically, in a Pythagorean manner, so that it is understood in a very different way than it is said, such as it has been handed down that Mercury ought not to be made from whatever kind of wood: a god is not to be commonly worshipped, but specially and respectfully. So, exhorting that we must devote ourselves not to a common music but farer from common use, they said that a flute and a sambuca ought to be constructed not from any elder tree coming to hand, and that it is worthwhile that more fine things are searched, and that it must be got thence where rooster’s crowing does not resound.

Nam sic hodie quoque locum longe sepositum, ad quem nemo adeat significantes, dicunt in eo, ne Gallum quidem unquam exauditum. Aut certe stridula illa, atque admodum obstrepera vox Galli hebetare, et stridore suo quodammodo diffindere, et convellere potest penetrabilem ac fungosam sambuci materiem, utpote qua leo etiam tantae animal constantiae consternetur. Alii sunt, qui eo dicto nil praeterea ostendi putent, quam sylvestrem sambucum sativae multo esse praeferendam: quod ea procul, locisque abditis, haec prope intra nostra septa adolescat. Quae postrema sententia cum priori conformis est, quam a viris doctis examinari ventilarique velim.

For alike also today, when they want to mean a very secluded place where nobody can go, they say that nor a rooster has never been heard there. At least that shrill and quite noisy rooster’s voice can weaken and break and tear in some way with its screeching the penetrable and spongy wood of elder tree, since even the lion, an animal of such a great fearlessness, is frightened by it. Others, according to what has been said, think that does not need further demonstration the fact that the wild elder is to be much preferred to the cultivated one: since the former grows far off and in remote places, while the latter grows near, within our fences. The latter statement is similar to the previous one, which I should like to be examined and discussed by learned people.

Insigne contra immunitatis privilegium Gallinis (sic enim apud Dioscoridem[5] {ὄρνιθες} <ὀρνίθια> transfero) accessit, cum impune baccis taxi, quae alioqui reliquis animalibus pestiferae sunt, vescantur. Quae itaque venena, non venena in illis esse voluit prudentissima natura, eadem contra quae non venena sunt, pestifera illis esse voluit, sparti semine depasto eas emori cupiens, item hominis excremento, qui Helleborum <album>[6] biberit, ut Avicenna testatur.

On the contrary an exceptional privilege of immunity happened to hens (for I translate in such way orníthia in Dioscorides) since they safely eat the berries of yew tree, which are otherwise lethal to other animals. Then the most wise Nature did want that what is a poison is not a poison for them, but on the contrary, that which is not a poison she did want to be lethal to them, wishing them to die after ate the seeds of the esparto, likewise the excrement of a human being who drank white hellebore - or white veratrum? - as Avicenna testifies.

Albertus quaedam urticarum genera pullis mortifera esse scribit, Gallinamque earum malignitatis consciam eas evellere conari{,}<.> Verum quae hae urticae sint, non explicat. Tradunt item Gallum contra orobanchen herbam[7] circumferri, vel semina terrae mandanda Gallinaceo sanguine rigari, tanquam et herba leo (nam ita etiam vocatur) non minus, quam animal a Gallo abhorreat[8]. Oderunt quidem merito hanc herbam agricolae, quoniam cannabi, in quam spem omnem lucri ponunt, nutrimentum eripit, et quo minus ad optatam altitudinem excrescat, impedit, ad radices eius enascens. Poterunt ergo eiusmodi remedium experiri.

Albertus writes that some species of nettles are deadly to chicks, and the hen, aware of their harmfulness, gets busy to uproot them. But he does not explain what nettles they are. Likewise, they say the rooster has to be taken around in order to fight the herb orobanchen, or that the seeds which have to be entrusted to earth are irrigated with rooster's blood, as also the herb lion (for it is so called) had an aversion to the rooster no less than toward the animal with the same name. For rightly the farmers hate this herb since it draws away nourishment from the hemp plant in which they put all hope of profit, and because, taking birth stuck on its roots, keeps it from growing to its proper height. They can therefore experiment such a remedy.

Praeterea Gallinae metallorum regi auro venenum sunt, si Plinio[9] credimus, qui alibi ita scribit. Auro liquescenti si Gallinarum membra misceantur, consumunt id in se. Ita hoc venenum auri est. Quod si verum est, inquit Scaliger[10] sane sic praesentius, et commodius adipiscemur aurum esculentum, quam ex inani Cardani indicatione, aurum potabile. Falsum vero vanumque esse medicina posterior innumeris experimentis comperit. Etenim ad deploratos morbos[11] Gallinaceas carnes incoquunt, aurumque adijciunt, quod tamen absumi non videtur. Sed videndum foret, num periclitantes aurum prius liquidum reddere deberent, quando id de liquescenti auro Plinius prodidit: quinim<m>o sunt, qui eam dictionem (liquescenti) exponunt in oleo per artem chymicam redactum, quasi Plinius huius artis non fuerit ignarus: quod alioqui mihi nunquam lectum. Ut ut est, inde saltem excogitata medicis ratio est parandi iuscula ἀναληπτικά[12] cum carne Gallinae, et auri foliis.

Furthermore, hens are a poison for the king of metals, the gold, if we believe Pliny, who elsewhere writes as follows: If pieces of hens are mixed with melting gold, they absorb it in themselves. Thus this is a poison of the gold. If this is true, says Giulio Cesare Scaligero, we really may obtain thus more quickly and easily an eatable gold rather than, from Gerolamo Cardano’s groundless statement, a drinkable gold. For the subsequent medicine through innumerable experiments checked that this is false and devoid of contents. For against incurable illnesses they cook the gallinaceous fleshes and add gold to them, which nevertheless does not seem to be incorporated into them. But it should be taken into consideration whether experimenters ought first to melt the gold, since Pliny reported this speaking of gold which is melting: or rather there are men who do interpret that word (liquescenti - melting) as to be transformed into oil by a chemical artifice, as if Pliny were not unaware of this artifice: but, besides, I have never read this. However it is, hence by physicians has been devised the way to prepare little analëptiká – fortifying - broths with hen flesh and gold leaves.

Postremo cum tonitru Gallinae dissident. Quandoquidem si cum incubant, tonuerit, non modo ova pereunt, ut Aristoteles[13], et Plinius[14] tradunt: verumetiam, teste Columella[15], semiformes pulli interimuntur, antequam toti partibus suis consummentur. Ne itaque tanto detrimento afficiantur agricolae, malo huic obviam ire debent. Remedium autem contra tonitru<m>, teste Plinio, clavus ferreus sub stramine ovorum positus, aut terra ex aratro. Plurimos etiam scribit Columella {intra} <infra> cubilium stramenta, graminis aliquid, et ramulos lauri, nec minus allii capita una cum clavis ferreis subijcere: quod haec cuncta remedia credantur esse adversus eadem tonitrua.

Finally, hens don’t get on well with thunder. Since if it thundered when they are brooding, the eggs not only get spoilt, according to Aristotle and Pliny, but, according to Columella, the growing chicks are killed before they can be completed in all their parts. Therefore, lest the farmers be afflicted with so great a damage, they must find a remedy for this disaster. Against thunder, as Pliny reports, the remedy is an iron nail placed under eggs bed, or earth from the plow. Columella writes that many people also place under the nest straw some couch grass and laurel branches, as well as garlic heads along with iron nails: because all these things are believed to be remedies against the thunders themselves.