When trampled on by man, to turn again."
The sense of the passage (spoken by Butler) requires that "wurm" should be understood to mean a harmless despised reptile, not a venomous serpent.
It seems that Schiller had Shakspeare in his mind when he wrote the lines in question; indeed, they are almost a copy of Shakspeare's line. I consider them as parallel passages.
It may not be irrelevant to observe that worm in some places still means a serpent; but I believe it has usually a prefix, as "hag-worm" in Westmoreland and the West Riding of Yorkshire; so also in the latter "slow-worm" means a species of small snake or viper found on some of the moors. (For "slow-worm," see "N. & Q.," Vol. viii., pp. 33. and 479.) I have been told that "blind-worm" in Surrey means a viper. I conclude with a Query, Does Wurm in modern German ever mean a serpent?
F. W. J.
"To put a spoke in one's wheel," is not singular in its double entendre (Vol. viii., pp. 262. 351. 464.). "There is no love lost between them" is in a similar predicament. We now speak of no love being lost between A. and B., when we would intimate that the warmth of their mutual affection may be accurately represented by 32° Fahrenheit. That this has not always been the meaning of the phrase, the following verse from the old ballad of The Children in the Wood will testify:
"Sore sick he was, and like to die,
No help that he could have;
His wife by him as sick did lie,
And both possess'd one grave.