animal
Serpent
A snake. Healing, danger, wind, and rebirth have all been attached to it; those attachments do not cancel one another, and they are not one symbol.
Also known as snake
Hellenic religion
Serpent is associated with Knowledge.
Pausanias describes Asklepieia where the god of healing was approached; the serpent is part of that cultic furniture. Healing here is Greek temple medicine, not a global serpent-essence.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Serpent is associated with Dream incubation.
At Epidaurus, as Pausanias tells it, the sick slept in the sanctuary of Asklepios. The serpent belongs to that Asklepian house, not to every snake.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Serpent is associated with Delphi.
Pausanias records the story of a serpent at Delphi slain so that the oracle could be established. The Python is a local opponent, not Quetzalcoatl.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Serpent is associated with Healing.
Greek Asklepian cult pairs the serpent with a healing god. Keep this pairing separate from Apep’s hostility and from the Nahua feathered serpent.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Serpent appears in Hellenic religion.
Pausanias seats serpents among Asklepian and sanctuary animal speech. A named serpent in that periegesis, not the asklepios→serpent edge alone reprinted and not Pliny pharmacy or Florentine/Nahua serpent walks.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Asklepios is associated with Serpent.
The serpent belongs to Asklepian cult as Pausanias and later images show it. It is not Apep and not Quetzalcoatl.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Healing is associated with Serpent.
Asklepian healing keeps a serpent in the sanctuary. Healing and the snake meet there as Greek temple medicine, not as a global serpent-essence.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Apollo is associated with Serpent.
Pausanias records a serpent at Delphi slain so the oracle could be established. Apollo’s house is founded against a local snake, not Asklepios’s tame one.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Egyptian religion
Serpent is associated with Death.
Egyptian tradition treats Apep as a serpent of chaos opposed to the sun’s order. Danger here is cosmic opposition, not Asklepian healing and not a feathered serpent of wind.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Serpent is opposed to Sun.
Apep’s opposition is to the sun’s night journey. Keep this hostility separate from the Nahua feathered serpent, which is not an enemy of the sun in the same plot.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Serpent is opposed to Ra.
Apep’s opposition is to the sun’s order. Danger here is an Egyptian night-road hostility, not Asklepian medicine.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
opposed to · partially sourced · culturally specific
Serpent appears in Egyptian religion.
Herodotus notes winged snakes and Egyptian serpent speech in the traveler ethnography. A named serpent in that speech, not a generic snake dump and not Pliny/Florentine/Norse serpent walks alone.
from Herodotus · Histories, c. 440s BCE
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Alchemy
Serpent is associated with Rebirth.
Later alchemy uses the circling serpent (ouroboros) as a picture of a work that returns on itself. That is a laboratory emblem, not Egyptian Apep and not Asklepios.
from Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet), medieval Latin tradition (Arabic antecedents)
associated with · interpretive · modern interpretation
Serpent is associated with Transformation.
Alchemical writing treats matter as something that can be cooked into another state. The serpent-circle is one picture of that claim, not a biological fact about snakes.
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Serpent is associated with Water.
Snakes swim and live at wells and rivers in many local stories. The association is ecological and folkloric, not a single sacred water-serpent.
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Serpent is used in Medicine.
Pliny’s Natural History treats snakes among venomous animals whose parts and antidotes enter Roman pharmacological speech. A named serpent in that encyclopedia, not hydra / Jörmungandr already walked elsewhere and not basilisk ash already filed.
from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE
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Serpent is associated with Cross.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, the Tau cross of the Old Testament is supposed to be like that on which the brazen serpent was raised, and early basilicas were built on that plan — the serpent is raised on that cross form.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Serpent is associated with Crucifixion.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, the brazen serpent raised for healing is illustrated by our Lord’s Crucifixion — the serpent type meets that Crucifixion.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Serpent is historically related to Dragon.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, sin is embodied in the form of the dragon almost as frequently as in that of the serpent, both drawn from scripture naming Satan as great dragon and serpent — the serpent is paired with that dragon form.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Serpent is historically related to Apple.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, Eve appears giving the apple to the serpent to eat — the serpent takes that apple.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Serpent is historically related to Tree.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, the serpent has its natural form entwined round the stem of the tree beside Adam and Eve — the serpent coils that tree.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Serpent is historically related to Crown.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, a Ceadmon MS. figure changes the serpent into an angel with wings and a crown on his head persuading Eve — the serpent form wears that crown.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Eagle is historically related to Serpent.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, an evangelist eagle is shown grasping a serpent in its claws to express victory over sin — the eagle holds that serpent.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Dove is historically related to Serpent.
In Twining Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, a capital at Amiens combines the serpent's tail with the dove to illustrate wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Lion is historically related to Serpent.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, the evil-spirit plate on the lion and the dragon notes that sin is embodied as the dragon almost as often as the serpent.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Circle is historically related to Serpent.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, the circle of eternity frequently appears as the serpent holding its tail in its mouth on an early Gnostic gem.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Nahua tradition
Serpent appears in Nahua tradition.
Sahagún’s Florentine Codex records coatl in Book 11 snake chapters — named serpent/snake natural-history speech. A colonial-era Nahua ethnographic attestation, not a pan-Mesoamerican essence and not an unfiltered pre-invasion voice.
from Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators · Florentine Codex, c. 1577
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Quetzalcoatl is associated with Serpent.
The name Quetzalcoatl joins the quetzal and the serpent. This is a Nahua naming, not the Greek Asklepios snake and not Apep.
from Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators · Florentine Codex, c. 1577
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Norse tradition
Serpent appears in Norse tradition.
Snorri’s Gylfaginning seats the Midgard Serpent among the sea-encircling serpent of that cosmology, and Nidhogg among the ash’s gnawers. A named serpent-kind in that prose, not jormungandr as the named being already walked and not a generic snake dump.
from Snorri Sturluson · Gylfaginning, c. 1220
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Shinto
Serpent appears in Shinto.
The Kojiki seats the eight-forked Yamata serpent as the foe Susanoo kills in Izumo, from whose tail the grass-cutting sword is drawn. A named serpent in that court compilation, not Asklepios’s temple snake and not Apep.
from Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation) · Kojiki, 712 CE; Philippi trans. 1968
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Islam
Serpent appears in Islam.
The Qur’an has Mūsā’s staff become a serpent (and later a snake that swallows the sorcerers’ ropes). A named serpent in that revelation, not the staff-of-musa object already walked as identity, and not Nehushtan without a Bible source.
from M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (translation) · The Qur’an, 2004 (this translation); Arabic text 7th century CE
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Roman religion
Serpent appears in Roman religion.
Virgil’s Aeneid Book 2 seats the twin sea-serpents that kill Laocoön and his sons at Troy. Named serpents in that Roman sack narrative, not snake as a second id and not a generic omen dump.
from Virgil · Aeneid, 19 BCE (unfinished at the poet’s death)
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Mesopotamian tradition
Serpent appears in Mesopotamian tradition.
The Epic of Gilgamesh has a serpent take the plant of youth and shed its skin. A named serpent in that Mesopotamian epic, not Asklepios’s temple snake and not Apep.
from Epic of Gilgamesh, c. 1200 BCE (this recension)
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Vedic tradition
Serpent appears in Vedic tradition.
The Ṛgveda names the serpent adversary (Ahi/Vṛtra) among Indra’s combat speech. A named Vedic serpent in that corpus, not nāga as a later being-class stretch and not Asklepian healing serpent.
from Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation) · The Rigveda, 2014 (this translation); hymns much older
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European folklore
European dragon is historically related to Serpent.
European dragons inherit older serpent-combat stories. A wyrm is not automatically a Chinese lóng and not Quetzalcoatl.
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sources
- Description of Greece · Pausanias
Pausanias, Description of Greece.
- Book of the Dead · Raymond O. Faulkner (translation)
Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
- Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet)
Tabula Smaragdina, medieval Latin Emerald Tablet.
- Natural History · Pliny the Elder
Pliny, Naturalis Historia.
- Florentine Codex · Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators
Bernardino de Sahagún, General History of the Things of New Spain (Florentine Codex).
- Gylfaginning · Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, in the Prose Edda.
- Kojiki · Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation)
Donald L. Philippi, Kojiki.
- The Qur’an · M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (translation)
M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an (Oxford).
- Aeneid · Virgil
Virgil, Aeneid.
- Histories · Herodotus
Herodotus, Histories.
- Epic of Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh, Standard Babylonian version (flood tablet; underworld material).
- The Rigveda · Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation)
Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India.
- Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art · Louisa Twining
Louisa Twining, Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art.