Snakes in Tradition. 69 



This is a poetical rule to which there is no exception. It is 

 Biblical, Homeric, heraldic, but none the less preposterous. 

 No snake has a crest. Some have inflations of the neck 

 below the head : a few very small vipers have prickles upon 

 their heads. But there is nothing in all herpetology to 

 warrant the " koruthaiolos " idea in which poets delight. 

 Classical tradition, however, abounds with it. So Milton 

 adopts it, and all others follow his example. But this and 

 other varieties of the poetic " basilisk " will be found duly 

 treated of in their proper places among the Fauna of Fancy. 

 Among the individual snakes of tradition, foremost, 

 perhaps, are those of the Furies 



"Revenge! Revenge! Timotheus cries ; 

 See the furies arise ! 

 See the snakes that they rear, 

 How they hiss in their hair ! 

 And the sparkles that flash 



From their eyes ! " 



more ancient than the Olympian gods, living in dark 

 Tartarus, but issuing thence to punish the infamous with 

 perpetual unrest and successive miseries. Tisiphone, too 



"A hundred snakes her gloomy visage shade, 

 A hundred serpents guard her horrid head." 



and "fierce Alecto," with snaky tresses that listen and watch 

 while she sleeps ; and Megaera 



" Tossing her vipers round, 

 Which, hissing, pour their poison on the ground." 



The Gorgon again, "terrible Medusa," with her " long snaky 

 locks of adder-black hair " 



" His dark hair 



That pale brow wildly wreathing round, 

 As if the Gorgon there had bound 

 The sablest of the serpent-braid 

 That o'er her fearful forehead stray'd. " Byron. 



Surely one of the saddest, most unfortunate of maidens, 



