ON THE SERPENT

IN GENERAL.

Chapter One.

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EQUIVOCALS.

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SINCE this name (Serpent) among the Latins is not situated outside the mark of all ambiguity, it will concern us at first sight to rescue it from every equivocation. For sometimes "Serpent" is a participle derived from the verb serpo (to creep), and it indicates all that which creeps and wanders further and wider. Otherwise, it is a substantive noun of common gender, and it encompasses all terrestrial living creatures which, in moving, do not raise themselves, but creep upon the ground; even if they are marked by four feet, such as the Seps,

The Seps and Salamander are called serpents.

and the Salamander, and even those endowed with many feet, such as the Scorpion and the Scolopendra. Wherefore Cornelius Celsus is wrongly criticized by some who once counted scorpions and spiders among serpents. Pliny also called salamanders serpents. Indeed, among some, lice have been nicknamed serpents; since some have written that Pherecydes of Syros, the teacher of Pythagoras, died from serpents, and yet it is clearly established that he was consumed by the louse disease. The Greeks also, not only called those small creatures that creep in the manner of serpents, such as worms,

By what names the Greeks call snakes.

herpetika and herpeta, but also small quadrupeds which, resting upon shorter feet, seem to creep in a certain way. For herpein in the schools of the Greeks, although it properly applies to the gait of serpents and worms, nevertheless seems to befit even those walking on foot that move slowly. Hence herpetos (reptile) originates: which word properly comprises serpents, but improperly includes lizards, scorpions, and other small animals of this kind. Otherwise, by the name of serpent must be understood a blooded and oviparous animal, which creeps without the use of feet, and only by the force of its ribs; in which sense it was accepted by Aristotle in his books On the Generation of Animals, and by Galen in his book On Theriac to Piso. This understanding, however,

Book 29.

is more consonant with our history. Unless, as Pliny testifies, "Serpent" is taken for one species only, such as ophis among the Greeks, namely for the viper, which Oppian did when he spoke of the meeting of the moray and the serpent. Furthermore, it is to be noted that

Idyll. 13.

"Serpent" in this meaning also denotes a celestial star, which is placed by Ausonius among the northern constellations, while he sings:

To the parts of Boreas, the Great Bear and the serpent are joined.

Sometimes "Serpent" is customarily used by poets for any venomous animal whatsoever, which Virgil did when he wrote:

Eclogues 4.

And the serpent shall perish, and the treacherous herb of poison
Shall perish; the Assyrian Amomum shall grow everywhere.

Afterwards, by metaphor, a malignant man is called a serpent, one who attempts to deceive the minds of others with insidious enticements and most empty fabrications: for this reason Christ,

Chapter 23.

in Matthew, called the Pharisees serpents with these words: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, and a little lower down: Serpents, brood of vipers. Likewise, this word

Serpent, the name of a man and of a river.

ophis, which among the Greeks indicates a serpent, is not without ambiguity. Primarily, it is the proper name of a certain man, of whom Eustathius makes mention; then it is the name of a river in Pontus flowing through the region of the Colchians, as Arrian attests in his Periplus of the Euxine Sea. Furthermore,