Nevus

Nevus (plural: nevi) is a nonspecific medical term for a visible, circumscribed, chronic lesion of the skin or mucosa. The term originates from nævus, which is Latin for "birthmark"; however, a nevus can be either congenital (present at birth) or acquired. Common terms, including mole, birthmark, and beauty mark, are used to describe nevi, but these terms do not distinguish specific types of nevi from one another.

Quotes

• Now, until the break of day,
  Through this house each fairy stray.
  To the best bride-bed will we,
  Which by us shall blessèd be;
  And the issue there create
  Ever shall be fortunate.
  So shall all the couples three
  Ever true in loving be;
  And the blots of Nature’s hand
  Shall not in their issue stand:
  Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
  Nor mark prodigious, such as are
  Despisèd in nativity,
  Shall upon their children be.
  • Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, 5:2
• Some vicious mole of nature
  • Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1:4

• That lovely spot which thou dost see
  In Celias bosome was a Bee,
  Who built her amorous spicy nest
  I’th Hyblas of her either breast,
  But from close Ivery Hyves, she flew
  To suck the Arromattick dew
  Which from the neighbour vale distils,
  Which parts those two twin-sister hils.
  There feasting on Ambrosiall meat,
  A rowling file of Balmy sweat,
  (As in soft murmurs, before death,
  Swan-like she sung,) chokt up her breath,
  So she in water did expire,
  More precious than the Phœnix fire;
    Yet still her shaddow there remaines
  Confind to those Elizian plaines;
  With this strict Law, that who shall lay
  His bold lips on that milky way,
  The sweet, and smart, from thence shall bring
  Of the Bees Honey, and her sting.
  • Thomas Carew, "Vpon a Mole in Celias bosome"
  • Variants: 1. That (42): The (MS.); 5. close (42, H35): those (W); 8. hils.] hils (42, some copies)
  • Rhodes Dunlap, ed., The Poems of Thomas Carew (Oxford, 1949), pp. 113–14

• I saw Elysium and the milky way
    Fair-opening to the shades beneath her breast;
  In Venus’ lap the struggling wanton lay,
    And, while she strove to hide, reveal’d the rest.
  A mole, embrown’d with no unseemly grace,
  Grew near, embellishing the sacred place.
  • Samuel Croxall, "On Florinda, Seen while she was bathing" (1765)