For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
Ver. 17. For they eat the bread of wickedness.] As Tartarians feed upon dead carcasses of horses, asses, cats, dogs, yea, when they stink, and are full of maggots, and hold them as dainty as we do venison. a As spiders feed upon aconite; b as Mithridates, and the maid in Pliny, upon spiders; or as the Turkish galley slaves upon opium - they will eat near an ounce at a time, as if it were bread (the tithe whereof would kill him that is not accustomed to it), and can neither sleep nor live without it.
a Petcham's Valley of Vanity.
b A genus of poisonous plants, belonging to the family Ranunculaceae. esp. the common European species Aconitum Napellus, called also Monk's-hood and Wolf's-bane. Also applied loosely or erroneously to other poisonous plants.