Crocodile Tears

Et Phisologus dit que cocodrillus
En l'eve naist del Nil, e mult est beste vil …
S'il pot hom devur, quant manget ad si plure.

Physiologus* also says that the crocodile is bred in the water of the Nile, and it is a very vile creature … If it manages to devour a man, after it has eaten him it weeps at the deed.

Philippe de Thaon

from Bestiaire (c. 1120)

***

Le cocadrille est beste fere …
S'il home encontre e il le veint,
Mangue le, ren n'en remeint;
Mes toz jors puis apres le plore,
Tantdis com en vie demore.

The crocodile is a fierce beast … If it encounters a man and vanquishes him, it eats him, leaving nothing behind; but ever afterwards, for as long as it lives, it weeps for him.

Guillaume Le Clerc

from Bestiaire divin (c. 1210–1211)

I recommend, to those who don't know it, David Badke's excellent Medieval Bestiary site. There you will find, among many other marvels, a fifteenth-century manuscript illumination of a crocodile mournfully devouring a human being.

The Aberdeen Bestiary project is another magnificent site. No crocodile pictures, but here is a very fine wolf.