A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.”
And another, bearing the name of York, in 2 Henry VI. (act. iii. sc. 1, l. 343, vol. v. p. 162), declares to the nobles,—
“I fear me, you but warm the starved snake,
Who, cherish’d in your breasts, will sting your hearts.”
Also Hermia, Midsummer Night’s Dream (act. ii. sc. 2, l. 145, vol. ii. p. 225), when awakened from her trance-like sleep, calls on her beloved,—
“Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.”
Whitney combines Freitag’s and Reusner’s Emblems under one motto (p. 189), In sinu alere serpentem,—“To nourish a serpent in the bosom,”—but applies them to the siege of Antwerp in 1585 in a way which Schiller’s famous history fully confirms:[[112]]—“The government of the citizens was shared among too many hands, and too strongly influenced by a disorderly populace to allow any one to consider with calmness, to decide with judgment, or to execute with firmness.”
The typical Sinon is here introduced by Whitney,—
“Thovghe, cittie stronge the cannons shotte dispise,