death-darting

Updated: August 19, 2026

The eye of the living cockatrice was believed to be so deadly as to kill by a look, to which Shakspere alludes in Twelfth Night, and again in Romeo and Juliet: “Say thou but I, And that base vowel I shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.”

F. W. (Frederick William) Fairholt - Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places: Being Papers on Art, in Relation to Archaeology, Painting,: Art-Decoration, and Art-Manufacture