Seriswattee, the Janus of Hindû mythology.
The Serpent and Satan. There is an Arabian tradition that the devil begged all the animals, one after another, to carry him into the garden, that he might speak to Adam and Eve, but they all refused except the serpent, who took him between two of its teeth. It was then the most beautiful of all the animals, and walked upon legs and feet.—Masudi, History, 22 (A.D. 956).
The Serpent’s Punishment. The punishment of the serpent for tempting Eve was this: (1) Michael was commanded to cut off its legs; and (2) the serpent was doomed to feed on human excrements ever after.
Serpent d’Isabit, an enormous monster, whose head rested on the top of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, its body filled the whole valley of Luz, St. Sauveur, and Gèdres, and its tail was coiled in the hollow below the cirque of Gavarnie. It fed once in three months, and supplied itself by making a very strong inspiration of its breath, whereupon every living thing around was drawn into its maw. It was ultimately killed by making a huge bonfire, and waking it from its torpor, when it became enraged, and drawing a deep breath, drew the bonfire into its maw, and died in agony.—Rev. W. Webster, A Pyrenean Legend (1877).
Served My God. Wolsey said, in his fall, “Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies.”—Shakespeare, Henry VIII. act iii. sc. 2 (1601).
Samrah, when he was deposed from the government of Basorah by the Caliph Moawiyah, said, “If I had served God so well as I have served the caliph, He would never have condemned me to all eternity.”
Antonio Perez, the favorite of Philip II. of Spain, said, “Mon zele etoit si grand vers ces benignes puissances [i.e. Turin] qui si j’en eusse eu autant pour Dieu, je ne doubte point qu’il ne m’eut deja recompensé de son paradis.”
The earl of Gowrie, when, in 1854, he was led to execution, said, “If I had served God as faithfully as I have done the king [James VI.], I should not have come to this end.”—Spotswood, History of the Church of Scotland, 332, 333 (1653).
Sesostris (The Modern), Napoleon Bonaparte (1769, 1804-1815, 1821).
But where is he, the modern, mightier far,
Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;
The new Sesostris, whose unharnessed kings,
Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings,
And spurn the dust o’er which they crawled of late,
Chained to the chariot of the chieftain’s state?
Byron, Age of Bronze (1821).