Snakes in Tradition. 75 



One round her legs, her thighs, her waist, 



Had twin'd his fatal wreath : 

 The other close her neck embrac'd, 



And stopt her gentle breath. 



The snakes, being from her body thrust, 



Their bellies were so^fill'd, 

 That with excess of blood they burst, 



Thus with their prey were kill'd." 



But distinct from all others is the tradition of the Lamia 



" Thou smoothed-lipped serpent surely high-inspired, 

 Thou beauteous wreath with melancholy eyes." 



" Philostratus, in his fourth book, hath a memorable instance 

 in this kind, which I may not omit, of one Menippus 

 Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that, going 

 betwixt Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in 

 the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which, after taking him by 

 the hand, carried him home to her house, in the suburbs of 

 Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if 

 he would tarry with her he would hear her sing and play, 

 and drink such wine as never any drank, and no man 

 should molest him ; but she, being fair and lovely, would 

 die with him, that was fair and lovely to behold. The 

 young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able 

 to moderate his passions, though not that of love, tarried 

 with her awhile to his great content, and at last married 

 her, to whose wedding, among other guests, came Apoll- 

 onious, who, by some probable conjectures, found her out 

 to be a serpent, a Lamia; and that all her furniture was, 

 like Tantalus' gold described by Homer, no substance, but 

 mere illusions. When she saw herself descried she wept, 

 and desired Apollonius to be silent, but he would not be 

 moved, and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in 

 it, vanished in an instant ; many thousands took notice of 

 this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece." 



This tradition, a favourite with the poets, has its finest I 



