Psellus on more Cesti paradoxes: fields, gorgonion, and hair

And from the dung of cows that have coupled, and from urine, he makes a man defecate and a woman urinate when he would, and laugh very greatly. He works a technical, or rather a magical, fertility for fields, and the opposite barrenness from antipathies. He collects aphroselenon from the dew of plants and the moon’s rays. He keeps those who spend the night in wine amethystous (not drunk).

He tells wonders of certain helps from a tortoise, from a bear’s genitals, from other animals and beasts. He has also made a thinning drug of excess flesh. He also makes disappear the little animals in vegetables, proposing certain new methods.

He also speaks about the gorgonion: this is a plant mostly underground. He says that if a girl should couple near it as Aphrodite’s custom, the plant comes up to the sight and watches the happening curiously. He also makes eyelash-beautifying drugs and scrying ones. It is also very easy for him to make a woman who has been rolled with many men a virgin again.

He also puts a parasite to sleep, and what happens is for him a source of cheer. He also checks the hold of dreams, and very easily brings down the afterbirth and blacks grey eyes. He also has a key of veins for slips, and something else night-shining. He both kindles loves and quenches them. And white hairs he blacks, and black he whites. And other such things this man in his Cesti tells as wonders and goes through.