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Christmas is coming. Just sayin’

poisonbible

Here something awesome I found when I was looking for something else. It’s an object that was up for auction in Germany. I tried to find a follow up to see how much it went for, but all I found was other assassin-wannabes drooling over it.

Anyhoo, it’s a Bible from 1600 that’s been hollowed out and the pages replaced with a wooden cabinet. The clever little drawers are neatly labeled with the names of herbal poisons. Empty, presumably.

The bigger green glass bottle in the center is labeled “Statutum hominibus semel mori” — It is given to a man to die.

The print inside the lid is described as 1682. If so, it’s a late edition — that there is a page out of Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica from 1543. I know this because reasons.

It’s hard to know what the hell this is all about. I can’t imagine any self-respecting poisoner leaving such a tangible lump of incriminatory evidence, nor yet someone commissioning such a beautiful object only to keep it hidden. I’m going to guess it was a prop, probably out of some gentleman’s cabinet of curiosities.

Even so, you’d have to assume our forebears were a lot less superstitious about blasphemy than we think.

Oh, and speaking of death (she said cheerily), Dead Pool Round 79. Tomorrow six sharp WBT. Be here or we’ll put something in your beer!

Comments


Comment from mojo
Time: October 30, 2015, 1:11 am

That’s the book you use to charge up your flip-top ring with the Poison du Jour.


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: October 30, 2015, 2:00 am

I bet Uncle B could make you one.


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: October 30, 2015, 2:18 pm

This case makes me think of this, from the master of the narrative poem, Robert Browning:

“Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
“May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely,
“As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—
“Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?”

. . .

“That in the mortar—you call it a gum?
“Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!
“And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
“Sure to taste sweetly,—is that poison too?”

. . .

“Not that I bid you spare her the pain!
“Let death be felt and the proof remain;
“Brand, burn up, bite into its grace—
“He is sure to remember her dying face!”
*
*
Hard to believe that Browning’s contemporaries and critics didn’t appreciate his work.


Comment from iamfelix
Time: October 31, 2015, 1:25 am

That is intensely cool.

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