The Poets' Snakes. 79 



Its third aspect, and the only one in which the poets 

 regard it, is diabolical ; typifying a malignant darkness that 

 is hurtful to man, and symbolising every wicked mood or 

 motive, every misery, in human nature. 



"Slander's serpent mark," says one; and in Keats' 

 tragedy of " Otho," the fair Auranthe and her brother 

 who calumniate the Princess, are " those two vipers from 

 whose jaws a deadly breath went forth to taint and blast 

 the guileless lady." 



Envy is very often the motive for slander, so this also is 

 another of the " serpentine obliquities of life." 



" Envy, with serpent eye, 

 Marks each praise that soars on high." 



It is "snake-hung," "hissing," and (from the mystic pro- 

 perties of serpents) " wizard " envy is armed with " venomed 

 teeth." Personified as a hideous hag, it lives in gloomy 

 dens and is " black envy," except when, as in the " Davideis," 

 she is described as the direst fiend in Hell. Pride and 

 envy are not unnaturally associated : 



1 ' From what cause can envy spring ? 

 Or why embosom we a viper's sting? 

 'Tis envy stings our darling passion Pride." 



Here the poetical diagnosis goes one step further back. 

 A man's ideas of his own merit often make him resent 

 the recognition of another's, whence, no doubt, slanderous 

 depreciation. Being serpentine it is secret, whether lurking 

 in some "cave," or cherished in the heart. 



" In his bosom secretly there lay 

 An hateful snake." 



This, again, leads on to the fancy of man taking a sin to his 

 heart for his own destruction, as in ^Esop's fable of the 

 Countryman and the Viper : 



