Serpent
Serpent is a word of
Latin origin (
serpens, serpentis) that is normally substituted for "
snake" in a specifically
mythic context, in order to distinguish such creatures from the world of
biology.
Serpent: mythology
\nThe serpent is an Ancient Near Eastern and Aegean god of wisdom, who is always, quite naturally, an earth symbol. In Egypt, Ra and Atum ("he who completes or perfects") were the same god, Atum, the "counter-Ra," was associated with earth animals, including the serpent: Nehebkau ("he who harnesses the souls") was the serpent god who guarded the entrance to the underworld. As far away as Fiji, Ratu-mai-mbula is a serpent god who rules the underworld (and makes the sap run).
The speaking Serpent (nachash) in the Garden of Eden brought forbidden knowledge, but is not identified with Satan in the Book of Genesis. Nor is there any indication there in Genesis that the Serpent was a deity in his own right, aside from the fact that the Pentateuch is not otherwise rife with talking animals. And every word the Serpent spoke was in fact true. His information may be illicit, but it is not inaccurate. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God has made," Genesis 3:1 reminded its hearers, and Matthew exhorted his listeners "be ye therefore wise as serpents." (Matthew 10:16).
Though he was cursed for his role in the Garden, this was not the end of the Serpent, who continued to be venerated in the folk religion of Judah and was tolerated by official religion until the in time of king Hezekiah. The 7th century BCE editors of the Book of Numbers apparently provided an origin for an archaic bronze serpent idol that justified it by associating it with Moses, with the following narrative:
- "21.6. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. 7. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 8. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. 9. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."
When the young reforming king Hezekiah came to the throne of Judah in the late 8th cntury:\n:"He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan." (2 Kings 18.4).
The dual
-an ending specifies that the idol was of two snakes upon the pole, the familiar entwined snakes on the staff that survived in Hermes' cadeucis and the staff of Aesclepias. The idea of a serpent idol was shocking to the editors of
Easton's Bible Dictionary, 1897: cf. the entry "
Nehushtan."
In the
Louvre, there is a famous green
steatite vase carved for king
Gudea of
Lagash (dated variously
2200–
2025 BCE), dedicated by its inscription to Ningizzida, "Lord of the Tree of Truth" which bears a relief of serpents twined round a staff, exactly like the
caduceus of Hermes.
At the far western end of the world of Antiquity, in the Garden of the
Hesperides, another serpent tree-guardian, Ladon, protects the golden fruit.
Under yet another Tree of Enlightenment, the
Buddha sat in ecstatic mediation. When a storm arose, the mighty serpent king rose up from his place beneath the earth and enveloped the Buddha in seven coils for seven days, not to break his ecstatic state.
A connection of the Serpent with Satan is strongly made in the
New Testament. In
Matthew, 23:33, Jesus observes, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Gehenna?" ("Hell" is the usual translation of Jesus' word
Gehenna.) The snake is henceforth demonized as a symbol of evil in
Christianity.
The Minoan
Great Goddess may brandish a serpent in either hand, perhaps evoking her role as source of wisdom, rather than her role as Mistress of the Animals (
Potnia theron), with a leopard under each arm. It is not by accident that later the infant
Heracles, a liminal hero on the threshold between the old ways and the new Olympian world, also brandishes the two serpents that "threatened" him in his cradle. Classical Greeks did not perceive that the threat was merely the threat of wisdom. But the gesture is the same as that of the Cretan goddess. The rod that Moses bears is a serpent. When he throws it to the ground, at Yahweh's command, it takes its serpent form. If the identity might not yet be clear enough, when Moses picks up the serpent, it is transformed to a rod once more.
Serpents figure prominently in archaic Greek myths too: the myth-element of
Laocoon, the ancient
Hydra that was battled by Heracles, the serpent of the oldest Delphic oracle.
The image of the serpent as the embodiment of the wisdom transmitted by
Sophia is an emblem used by
gnosticism, especially those sects that the more orthodox characterized as "
Ophites", ("Serpent People"). The chthonic serpent is one of the earth-animals associated with the cult of
Mithras. The
Basilisk, the venomous "king of serpents" with the glance that kills, was hatched by a serpent,
Pliny and others thought, from the egg of a cock. Such fantasies filled the medieval
bestiary.
In
Norse mythology,
Jormungand, the Midgard serpent, encircles the world in the ocean's abyss. In
Dahomey mythology of West Africa, the serpent that supports everything on its many coils is named Dan. Vishnu is said to sleep in Yoga Nidra, floating on the cosmic waters on the serpent Shesha.
Because a snake sheds its skin and comes forth from the lifeless husk glistening and fresh, it is a universal symbol of renewal, and the regeneration that may lead to immortality. In the
Epic of Gilgamesh (of Sumerian origin), Gilgamesh dove to the bottom of the waters to retrieve the plant of life. But while he rested from his labor, the Serpent came and ate the plant. The snake became immortal, and Gilgamesh was destined to die\nOutside Europe, in
Yoruba mythology,
Oshunmare is such a mythic regenerating serpent. The
Vision Serpent is also a symbol of rebirth in
Mayan mythology, fuelling some cross-Atlantic cultural contexts favored in
pseudoarchaeology. Mayan
Gukumatz, the
Feathered Serpent is most familiar under his Aztec name,
Quetzalcoatl.
Sea Serpentss are giant
cryptozoology creatures once believed to live in water, whether sea monsters such as the
Leviathan or
lake monsters such as the
Loch Ness Monster. If they are referred to as "Sea snakes", they are understood to be the actual snakes that live in Indo-Pacific waters (Family
Hydrophiidae).
Serpent: symbol
\nAside from its universal use as a symbol of regeneration and Immortality, the serpent, when forming a ring with its tail in its mouth, is also a clear and widespread symbol of the All-in-All, the totality of existence. See
Amphisbaena,
Ouroboros.
Snakes entwine the staffs both of
Hermes and
Asclepius. A similar conversion was experienced by Moses' brother
Aaron.
Serpent constellations
\nSome of the constellations of the sky are symbolised by serpents.
Serpens represents a snake being tamed by the snake-handler
Ophiuchus.
Hydra is the many-headed serpent killed by
Heracles.
Hydrus, the water snake, is a minor southern constellation.
The
Snake is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the
Chinese zodiac related to the
Chinese calendar.\nIt is thought that each animal in the Chinese zodiac is associated with certain personality traits. See:
Snake (Zodiac).
\n
Serpent: cryptography
\nThe Serpent cipher is a
symmetric key block cipher developed by
Ross Anderson and colleagues for the
AES competition. It was one of the finalists.
Serpent: musical instrument
\nA serpent is a wind instrument with a
mouthpiece like a
brass instrument but side holes like a
woodwind instrument. It is a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the
cornett. It is generally made out of
wood, with
walnut being a particularly popular choice. Despite this and the fact that it has fingerholes rather than valves, it is usually classed as a brass, rather than a woodwind, instrument. The
Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of
musical instrument classification places it alongside
trumpets.
On early models, the fingerholes were keyless, like on a
recorder. Later models, however, add keys, as on a
clarinet. The range varies according to the instrument and the player, but typically covers an
octave either side of
middle C. Some documents from the
18th century, however, state that the instrument can reach notes over two octaves above middle C.
It is thought that the instrument was first used to strengthen the sound of choirs in
plainchant. Around the middle of the
18th century, it began to be used in military bands, but was replaced in the
19th century by valved brass instruments. Since then, it has hardly been used at all, although many original models still survive, and it is sometimes played as part of historically authentic performances.
A variation on the serpent was the
bass horn, which is essentially the same, but is simpler in shape, consisting of a tube folded back on itself (rather like the modern
bassoon), rather than the curvy shape of the original instrument.
A later variation was the
ophimonocleide, a sort of cross between the bass horn and the
ophicleide. It was never common, and today only a few examples of it exist.
See also: Euphonium
External links
\n*Dr Robert T. Mason, "The Divine serpent in myth and legend," 1999\n*
The Serpent Website\n*
Links to further serpent myth
References
\n*Joseph Campbell,
Occidental Mythology: the masks of god,, 1964: Ch. 1, "The Serpent's Bride"\n*Joseph Lewis Henderson and Maud Oakes,
The Wisdom of the Serpent. The tribal initiation of the shaman, the archetype of the serpent, exemplifies the death of the self and a transcendent rebirth. Analytical psychology offers insights on the meaning of death symbolism and the serpent symbol.
