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Notes
1 Hillyard, Paul. Citation1995. The Book of the Spider: From Arachnophobia to the Love of Spiders. London: Pimlico, p. 43.
2 ‘Australia: Where Spiders Rain Down from the Sky—Video Report’, http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/may/18/australia-where-the-rain-is-sometimes-made-of-spiders-video-report (accessed 30 August 2017).
3 ‘Austrochilidae Missing Link Spiders’ http://www.arachne.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=2586 (accessed 30 August 2017).
1 Arachnologist Paul Hillyard tells us that in Medieval Italy it was believed that the bite of the Lycosa Tarantula (or wolf-spider) caused, amongst other physical symptoms, ‘shameless exhibitionism, acute melancholia and delirium, leading to death if untreated’ (The Book of the Spider, Hillyard Citation1995, 55). The treatment for this ‘delirium’ was ‘music and dancing, which had to be prolonged and strenuous, resulting in copious sweating’. Musicians travelled around the country offering aid to the victims, who were able to choose the tune to which they would dance. If they died, states Hillyard, it was ‘either laughing or crying’. Perhaps the ‘old-world tarantula’ in this poem is Lycosa Tarantula? Certainly, after being ‘bitten’ by it, the subject experiences a kind of delirium, ‘a mania’, in which she manifests the symptoms Hillyard describes. (It turns out, however, that Lycosa Tarantula was falsely accused—it was no more than a sheep-spider in wolf-spider’s clothing. The real biter is Latrodectus tredecimguttatus, the Mediterranean black widow.)