“The sad father
That sees his son stung by a snake to death,
May, with more justice, stay his vengeful hand,
And let the worm escape, than you vouchsafe him
A minute to repent.”[575]
There was an old notion that the serpent caused death without pain, a popular fancy which Shakespeare has introduced in his “Antony and Cleopatra” (v. 2):
“Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there,
That kills and pains not?”
The term “worm” was also occasionally used to signify a “poor creature,” as also was the word “snake.” Thus, in the “Taming of the Shrew” (v. 2), Katharina says:
“Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason, haply, more.”
So, in “As You Like It” (iv. 3), Rosalind uses “snake” in the sense of reproach: “Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a tame snake.”
The serpent, as the emblem of ingratitude, is alluded to by King Lear (ii. 4), who, referring to his daughter, says how she
“struck me with her tongue,
Most serpent-like, upon the very heart:—
All the stor’d vengeances of heaven fall
On her ingrateful top!”
According to a popular belief, still credited, a poisonous bite could be cured by the blood of the viper which darted the poison. Thus, in “Richard II.” (i. 1), Mowbray says:
“I am disgrac’d, impeach’d, and baffled here,
Pierc’d to the soul with slander’s venom’d spear,
The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood
Which breath’d this poison.”