SERPENTS.
SERPENTS.
Serpents are characterised by an elongated body, clothed in scales and destitute of limbs, but furnished with a tail. They move by lateral undulations of the body; and in this manner they glide with equal ease along the bare ground, through entangled thickets or water, and up the trunks of trees. They possess the power of fasting a great length of time, and when they feed always swallow their prey whole, which they are enabled to accomplish by their faculty of dilating their bodies to an enormous size. This power is carried to such an extent that a Boa Constrictor can swallow a bullock whole, suffering no other inconvenience than that of lying in a state of torpor while digestion is proceeding. Serpents generally roll themselves up when in a state of repose, with the head in the centre; and when disturbed raise the head before they uncoil the body. The Serpent is often made a subject of poetry; and as it was the form adopted by the arch fiend to seduce Eve, it is generally considered the emblem of insinuation and flattery:
“—— —— —— —— on his rear,
Circular base of rising folds that tower’d
Fold above fold, surprising maze, his head
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes.
With burnish’d neck of verdant gold, erect
Amidst his circling spires that on the grass
Floated redundant; pleasing was his shape
And lovely.... Oft he bow’d
His turret crest and sleek enamell’d neck,
Fawning, and lick’d the ground whereon she trod.”
Paradise Lost.
The ancients paid great honours to Serpents, and sometimes called them good genii: they frequented sepulchres and burying-places, and were addressed like the tutelary divinities of these places. We read, in the fifth book of the Æneid, that when the Trojan hero sacrificed to his father’s ghost, a Serpent of this kind made his appearance:
“—— —— and from the tomb begun to glide
His hugy bulk on seven high volumes roll’d;
Blue was his breadth of back, and streak’d with scaly gold.
Thus riding on his curls he seemed to pass
A rolling fire along, and singe the grass;
More various colours through his body run,
Than Iris when her bow imbibes the sun.
Between the rising altars and around,
The sacred monster shot along the ground;
With harmless play among the bowls he pass’d,
And with his lolling tongue assay’d the taste:
Thus fed with holy food, the wondrous guest
Within the hollow tomb retired to rest.”
Dryden.
This animal was exalted to the honour of being an emblem of prudence, and even of eternity; and is often represented as the latter in Egyptian hieroglyphics, biting his tail, so as to form a circle. Serpents are very numerous in Africa; and Lucan, in his “Pharsalia,” gives us a very extraordinary account of the different species, which he seems to have drawn partly from ancient Greek authors, partly from actual traditions. He says:
“Why plagues like these infect the Libyan air;
Why deaths unknown in various shapes appear;
Why, fruitful to destroy, the cursed land
Is temper’d thus by Nature’s secret hand;
Dark and obscure the hidden cause remains,
And still deludes the vain inquirer’s pains.”
Rowe’s “Lucan."