Serpent

the serpent-born poison rendered powerless.

let no serpent nor water-creature creep upon me.

I have indeed grasped together the heads of serpents and their offspring;

Because even in evil-doings one may find a certain sequence and discernment and composition and conjecture of the things to come.

Well too did Diogenes say to the man who marvelled that he had found the serpent coiled about the pestle:

the other stars, on account of their oblique course, they likened to the bodies of serpents, but the sun to that of the beetle, since it moulds a round shape out of ox-dung and rolls it facing it.

"For their wrath," says the Scripture, "is after the likeness of the serpent, like the deaf asp that stops her ears, which will not hear the voice of the charmers.

but when, yielding to pleasure (the serpent is the allegory of pleasure, creeping upon its belly, an earthly wickedness, fed upon matter), he was led aside by lusts, the child, made manly by disobedience and disobeying his Father, was ashamed before God.

and a consecrated serpent is the badge of the Bacchic orgies.

Taking, then, the serpent as the workshop of his own deceit, through it he spoke with the woman, and, persuading her to eat of that forbidden tree in the hope of becoming a god, through her he deceived Adam also — for so the first-formed man was called.

as one flees from a serpent.

the necks of provoked serpents swell;

so the venom of serpents creeping from their lair does harm, but their fangs are harmless once a frequent biting has drained them.

and when I command the neck of a guilty man to be struck off, when I sew up parricides in the sack, when I send a man to a soldier's punishment, when I set a traitor or a public enemy upon the Tarpeian Rock, I shall be without anger and with the same look and mind with which I strike serpents and venomous creatures.

There is no serpent on the rope — by what cause, then, arises the fear of a snake?

As, in the case of the serpent [imagined] on a rope, there is no [real] cause and no [real] arising or perishing [of it], so here there is neither origination nor destruction of the world, nor any [real] cause [of it].

Water in a mirage, silver in mother-of-pearl, a serpent on a rope — like the double-moon [seen] by one with diseased sight, the entire form of the world is an error ({{adhyāsa / bhrānti|superimposition / illusory error, as a snake on a rope}}).

yet that very milk, drunk by serpents, all the more increases their venom.

and, as you went, you squeezed the fat-cheeked snakes, or brandished them above your head, now shouting your Euoi Saboi!

And he brought forth, when the Fates had perfected him, the bull-horned god, and he crowned him with crowns of snakes, for which reason Maenads cloak their wild prey over their locks.

First they let their hair loose over their shoulders, and secured their fawn-skins, as many of them as had released the fastenings of their knots, girding the dappled hides with serpents licking their jaws.

Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs

The breres augmented with their flying spoils:

Its vestments 'mongst the thorns- for oft we see

and the portent of the serpent and the sparrows is shown to them, and Calchas foretells to them what is to come about.

May the enemies be blind, headless like snakes — of those driven out by Agni, may Indra slay each one.

A king even a slave can kill, and a serpent, and an arrow;

Tiny serpents go unnoticed and are not hunted down by the public;

suppose He had rescinded the liberty of arbitration, while He recalls man from the tree, while He keeps the very circumventing serpent from his meeting with the woman — would not Marcion cry out, "O futile lord, unstable, faithless, rescinding what He instituted!

"Be wise as serpents, and simple as doves.

Let the serpent therefore hide himself as much as he can, and twist all his wisdom in the windings of his hiding-places;

Beasts too change their form in place of dress;

A best of the twice-born, having killed a snake, should give an iron spade;

A twice-born who is unable to make the expiation for the slaying of a snake and the others by a gift should perform a `Kṛcchra` for each one for the removal of his sin.

The slaying of a donkey, a horse, a camel, a deer, or an elephant, and of a goat or a sheep, is to be known as a sin causing a mixture of castes, and likewise of a fish, a snake, or a buffalo.

With those serpents half-emerged and hissing, that bearer of the earth then appeared as if adorned with banners.

"Gandharvas are sharp in their desires, serpents sharp in their anger, beasts sharp in their fears — and we birds are sharp in our hunger.

—as the great mountain's broad plateaus were abandoned, its great serpents lay coiled in hiding, its rocky mountain-peaks and boulders heaved up—such became that great hill.

The heart of an ichneumon, the fruit of the long gourd (Tumbi), and the eyes of the serpent, should all be burnt without letting out the smoke, the ashes should then be ground and mixed in equal quantities with water.