What horse, cow, bear, fox, dog and sheep signify in Hebrew.

We must next speak of some particular signs about which nothing has yet been taught. In this treatment it is especially necessary for you who boast of skill in the science of signs and wish to be called signators to understand us correctly. Here we shall write practically, not theoretically, setting out our thought briefly in a few words. Know first that the art of signs teaches how true and genuine names are to be given to all things. Adam, the first-formed human, knew all these truly and completely. Immediately after creation he gave each thing its proper name: animals, trees, herbs, roots, stones, minerals, metals, waters and the other fruits of earth, water, air and fire. The names he gave were ratified and approved by God, for they were taken from a true and inward foundation, not opinion but predestined knowledge, namely the art of signs. Adam was therefore the first signator. Nor can it be denied that genuine names flow from the Hebrew language and are given to each thing according to its nature and condition. Names given from Hebrew simultaneously indicate the thing’s virtue, power and property.

Thus when we say, “This is a pig, horse, cow, bear, dog, fox or sheep,” the name pig indicates a foul and unclean animal; horse, a strong and enduring animal; cow, a greedy and insatiable animal; bear, a powerful, victorious and untamed animal; fox, a shrewd and cunning animal; dog, one unfaithful to its own kind; and sheep, a gentle, useful animal harmful to nobody. Hence a person is sometimes called a pig because of a filthy, swinish life; a horse because of exceptional endurance; a cow because of insatiable eating and drinking and an unrestrained stomach; a bear for being larger and stronger than others; a fox for being crafty and deceitful, adapting to everyone and not readily offending anyone; a dog for being faithful only to his own mouth and showing himself undutiful and untrustworthy towards everyone; and a sheep for harming only himself and being useful to everyone rather than himself.

In which herbs signature is found.

In this way many herbs and roots have also acquired their names. Euphrasia, or eyebright, is so called because it heals sick and injured eyes; sanguinaria, the blood-root, because it stops blood better than other roots; and scrophularia, lesser celandine, because it heals haemorrhoids better than other herbs. The same should be understood of many other herbs, an immense class of which I could recount, all named and designated from their virtue and faculty, as is taught more fully in our Herbarius. Many herbs and roots are named not only from their inborn virtue and faculty but also from their figure, form and image, such as devil’s-bit, cinquefoil, hound’s-tongue, adder’s-tongue, horsetail, liverwort, bugloss, toothwort, calcarippa or royal comfrey, perforata, satyrion or orchis, victorialis, syderica, perfoliata, prunella, heliotrope and many others, to be listed separately in the Herbarius rather than here.

What signature is in animals.

The liver is the source of blood.

The same must be held concerning the signs of animal things: all diseases hidden in a human being are likewise known from the blood and its ring, and from urine and its ring. From the liver of a slaughtered animal all its flesh is judged, whether it is wholesome to eat or not. If the liver is not clear and red but livid, yellow, rough and full of holes, the animal is judged sick and its flesh therefore unwholesome. It is not surprising that the liver indicates this by its natural signs, for blood originates in the liver, flows from there through the veins into the whole body and coagulates into flesh. Thus a sick and disordered liver cannot produce healthy fresh blood, nor can wholesome flesh coagulate from diseased blood. Flesh and blood can nevertheless also be judged without the liver. If both are healthy, they have their true natural colour, purple and shining, without any foreign colour such as yellow or lividness. Those foreign colours always indicate diseases and infirmities.

What knots in infants’ umbilical cords indicate.

There are other signs too, certainly worthy of great wonder, when the Archaeus is the signator and marks the offspring with little knots in the umbilical cord, from which one can conjecture what offspring the mother has borne or will yet bear.

Branches of a stag’s antler signify its years.

Rings on a cow’s horns, and so forth.