Cæruleæ cui terga notæ, maculosus & auro
Squamam incendebat fulgor; ceu nubibus arcus
Mille trahit varios, adverso sole colores.
Thus Lucan,
Serpitis aurato nitidi fulgore dracones.
——cristis præsignis & auro.
Igne micant oculi—— Ovid. Met. 3.
Of Cadmus’s snake.
Hephæstion II. writes concerning the Hydra of Hercules, that half his head was of gold. I saw a snake of such exquisite beauty in Surrey. The motion and the appearance or bright golden colour, being so like to angelick, seraphick beings; no wonder the ancients conceiv’d so high a regard for the serpent, as to reckon it a most divine animal. There is a kind of them bred in Arabia and Africa, of a shining yellow colour, like brass, or burnish’d gold, which in motion reflects the sun-beams with inconceivable lustre. Some of them are said to have wings, called Seraphs, Saraphs, Seraphim, mention’d Deut. xii. 15. this is the name given to the brazen serpent. And equally to the angels and celestial messengers, who are described of this appearance, in scripture. So the cherubim that supported the Shechinah in Ezekiel i. 7. “sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.” The divine appearance between the candlesticks in Apocalypse i. 15. “His feet were like to fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace.” Hence his ministers are called a flame of fire. Psalm civ. 4.
Secondly, consider the motion of a serpent,’tis wonderful; perform’d without the help of legs, nay incomparably quicker than their kindred of the crocodile and lizard kind, which have four legs: ’tis swift, smooth, wavy, and beautiful. The ancients conceiv’d it to be like the walking of the gods; whence the notion of deify’d heroes, with serpents’ feet. Pherecydes Syrus says, the gods have snakes’ feet: meaning their motion was smooth and sweeping, without the alternate use of legs.