|  My
topic this week is snakes. The snake has been a powerful image
for humanity from the earliest times: perhaps the strongest image
is that of Leviathan, the giant sea-serpent. The word 'leviathan'
in Hebrew means approximately "that which gathers itself
into folds" or "that which is drawn out". There
is much confusion about the translocation of the word in its Biblical
context, however, and theologians have to differ about its meaning,
though the general idea is that it refers to some huge animal,
almost certainly linked with water (Fred Gettings, Dictionary
of Demons, 1988). The leviathan appears four times in
the Old Testament, and is treated rather differently in each.
In the Book of Job, the next-to-last Chapter is 41, God’s
power in the leviathan. Here are some of the verses:
1. Canst
thou draw out leviathan with a hook? or his tongue with a cord
which thou lettest down?
2. Canst thou put a hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through
with a thorn?
14. Who
can open the doors of his face? His teeth are terrible round
about.
15. His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close
seal.
16. One is so near to another that no air can come between them.
19. Out
of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.
20. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot
or cauldron.
21. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth.
33. Upon
earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.
He is mentioned
twice in the Psalms: In Psalm 74, A complaint born of faith,
the animal is regarded as a food source. The ‘dragons’ referred
to here are thought to be crocodiles.
Thou didst
divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the
dragons in the waters.
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him
to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Psalm 104,
God’s preservation of nature, is rather kinder:
O Lord,
how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all:
the earth is full of thy riches.
So is this great and wide sea, where are things creeping innumerable,
both small and great beasts.
There go the ships: there is that leviathan, who thou hast made
to play therein.
 The
really horrifying view of the fate of the leviathan is that of
Isaiah, in Chapter 27:
In that
day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall
punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked
serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.
The image
of the great sea-serpent appears in other mythologies – Fafnir
in the Norse legends for example; and the Kraken; here is Tennyson’s
view of him:
Below the
thunders of the upper deep,
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant fins the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battering upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by men and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
 Tennyson
also uses an image of the sea-serpent in his poem The Mermaid;
here is the third stanza:
I would
be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low
adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and
around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill
inner sound
Over
the throne
In the midst
of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.
However,
the primary image we have from the Bible of the snake (or the
serpent) is that from the temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden,
and this has inspired many poets over the ages. Here is John Milton
(1608 – 1674) from Paradise Lost (Book I, line 34):
Say first,
for Heav’n hides nothing from thy view
Nor the deep Tract of Hell, say first what cause
Mov’d our Grand Parents in that happy State,
Favour’d of Heav’n so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his Will
For one restraint, Lords of the World besides?
The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,
Stirr’d up with envy and revenge, deceiv’d
The mother of mankind.
The idea
that the serpent thus represents the evil in the world appears
again and again. Here is a couplet from Thomas Moore (1779 – 1852),
in Lalla Rookh:
Some flow’rets
of Eden ye shall inherit,
But the trail of the serpent is over them all.
And an interesting
concept from Robert Frost (1874-1963) in The Ax-Helve
(1923):
But how
he brushed the shavings from his knee
And stood the ax there on its horse's hoof,
Erect, but not without its waves, as when
The snake stood up for evil in the Garden -
Top-heavy with a heaviness his short,
Thick hand made light of, steel-blue chin drawn down
And in a little - a French touch in that.
Baptiste drew back and squinted at it, pleased:
“See how she's cock her head!”
Samuel Butler
(1612-1680) wrote a sarcastic poem about intellectuals, called
Sir Hudibras, His Passing Worth which has some relevance
to this point; here is a fragment:
He knew
the Seat of Paradise,
Could tell in what degree it lies:
And, as he was dispos'd, could prove it,
Below the Moon, or else above it:
What Adam dreamt of when his Bride
Came from her Closet in his side:
Whether the Devil tempted her
By a High Dutch Interpreter:
If either of them had a Navel;
Who first made Musick malleable:
Whether the Serpent at the fall
Had cloven Feet, or none at all,
All this without a Gloss or Comment,
He would unriddle in a moment
In proper terms, such as men smatter
When they throw out and miss the matter.
 After
the unfortunate episode in the Garden of Eden, perhaps the first
relationship between man and snakes that one thinks of is envenomation
from poisonous snakebite. The likelihood of any individual human
encountering a venomous snake during his lifetime has been reduced
to almost zero as a result of the tremendously increased world
population, the concentration of humans in cities, where poisonous
snakes cannot survive, and the reduction in overall numbers of
snakes as a consequence of the invasion and destruction of their
habitats by man. At the same time, the likelihood of any one poisonous
snake, sometime during its life, finding itself in a position
in which it must bite a human in self-defense increases geometrically,
as a consequence of the enormously inflated human population,
man's ever-increasing mobility, and the increased utilization
of remote areas for recreation purposes of all sorts. One of these
likelihoods is offset by the other, and the overall number of
bites per year by venomous snakes around the world remains rather
constant, at about 1,000,000 per year. Of this 1,000,000, perhaps
30,000 to 40,000 result in death, with most of the deaths occurring
in areas such as tropical Africa and Asia because of the inadequate
medical facilities for proper treatment. It has been estimated
that in the United States about 1,000 bites occur each year, with
approximately 15 resulting in death. Records for bites by the
viper in England indicate that only seven deaths occurred between
1899 and 1945 and only one death between 1945 and 1960, with the
latter a consequence of treatment rather than of the bite. (This
last section I took from a source whose identity I have lost.
To whoever the author was, I apologize!
Another aspect
of the snake is its shedding of its skin. The technical term for
this is ecdysis, and in the past the term ‘ecdysiast’ was used
for a stripper! William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) mentions the
snake’s ecdysis, in Oberon’s well known speech in A Midsummer’s
Night’s Dream, where he is planning the deception of his
wife, Titania (Act II, scene I, 249; 1595 – 1596):
OBERON:
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Percy Bysshe
Shelley (1792 – 1822) uses this image in his later poem Hellas
(1821), to describe the cyclic nature of life on the earth; here
is a brief section, starting with line 1060:
The world's
great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn;
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter
Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star;
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier
Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies;
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.
 Here
are some notes by Ian Lancashire, of the Department of English,
University of Toronto, describing the background to the poem.
(There are also extensive notes on the poem in Mary Wolstonecraft
Shelley’s collection of her husband’s work.) “Written at Pisa
in the autumn of 1821 and published in 1822, Hellas is
a "lyrical drama" treating of the contemporary struggle
for freedom in Greece and dedicated to Prince Mavrocordato, whom
Shelley met in exile at Pisa and who had returned to Greece in
June 1821 to take part in the revolution against the Turks. Shelley
writes in a Preface: "The Persae of Aeschylus afforded
me the first model of my conception, although the decision of
the glorious contest now waging in Greece being yet suspended
forbids a catastrophe parallel to the return of Xerxes and the
desolation of the Persians. I have, therefore, contented myself
with exhibiting a series of lyric pictures ... [suggesting] the
final triumph of the Greek cause as a portion of the cause of
civilization and social improvement." The action takes place
in the palace of the Turkish king, where he receives reports on
the progress of the war from messengers and prophecies of doom
from visionary visitors. The last news, however, is of a Turkish
victory, to the dismay of the Greek slaves who act as chorus throughout
the play. "The final chorus," according to Shelley's
note, "is indistinct and obscure, as the event of the living
drama whose arrival it foretells. Prophecies of wars, and rumours
of wars, etc., may safely be made by poet or prophet in any age,
but to anticipate however darkly a period of regeneration and
happiness is a more hazardous exercise of the faculty which bards
possess or feign. It will remind the reader 'magno nec
proximus intervallo' of Isaiah and Virgil, whose ardent spirits
overleaping the actual reign of evil which we endure and bewail,
already saw the possible and perhaps approaching state of society
in which the 'lion shall lie down with the lamb,' and 'omnis feret
omnia tellus.' Let these great names be my authority and excuse."
The world's
great age: the "annus magnus" at the end of which, according
to an idea of the ancients, all the heavenly bodies would return
to their original positions, and when, in consequence, the history
of the world would begin to repeat itself.”
Another aspect
of the snake is its flexibility, and its cold inhumanity. I have
quoted earlier Emily Dickinson’s(1830 – 1886) poem A narrow
Fellow in the Grass:
A narrow
Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides -
You may have met Him —did you not
His notice sudden is –
The Grass
divides as with a Comb -
A spotted shaft is seen –
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on –
He likes
a Boggy Acre
A Floor too cool for Corn -
Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot –
I more than once at Noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash –
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone –
Several
of Nature’s People
I know, and they know me -
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality –
But never
met this Fellow
Attended, or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Bone –
 The
snake had a fascination for her, it seems: she wrote several more
poems on the subject; here is another:
Sweet is
the swamp with its secrets,
Until we meet a snake;
'Tis then we sigh for houses,
And our departure take
At that
enthralling gallop
That only childhood knows.
A snake is summer's treason,
And guile is where it goes.
Theodore
Roethke (1908 – 1963) wrote a remarkably similar poem:
I saw a
young snake glide
Out of the mottled shade
And hang, limp on a stone:
A thin mouth, and a tongue
Stayed, in the still air.
It turned;
it drew away;
Its shadow bent in half;
It quickened and was gone
I felt
my slow blood warm.
I longed to be that thing.
The pure, sensuous form.
And I may
be, some time.
In this area,
perhaps the most important snake poem is that by D.H. Lawrence
(1885 – 1930). Entitled simply Snake
it was published in 1923, and some critics regard it as his best
poem. It is our first poem of this week.
 Chongju
So (1915 - 2000) was born in Kochang, North Cholla Province, Korea.
He was educated at Central Buddhist College. He made his literary
debut in Donga Ilbo with Wall in 1936, using the pen
name Midang.. He was a fellow member of Shiin Burak with
Kwanggyun Kim and Tongni Kim. After retiring from the Dongguk
University, he was professor emeritus and a member of the National
Academy of Arts. He won the Republic of Korea Academy of Arts
Award in 1967.
He was regarded
as one of the most accomplished Korean poets of his time. He was
primarily a lyric poet; his main themes are based on oriental
animism and humanism. Selecting ordinary words and inspiring them
with poetical meaning, he opened new horizons in the world of
poetry based on traditional aestheticism.
His death
in 2000 was followed by the emergence of a number of criticisms,
condemning on the one hand Midang's stance as a collaborationist
with the Japanese imperial power during the colonial era and,
on the other hand, his lack of engagement in the socio-political
issues throughout the politically volatile postcolonial era. In
part, this appears to have been due to reconciling his lyricism
with the different tone of modern Korean literature.
His first
collection of poems was The
Flower Snake (1941), and the poem of this name is our
second poem of this week.
William Carlos
Williams (1883 – 1963) wrote an interesting poem about a snake:
Let the
snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
—through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.
Another
aspect of the snake is the oriental ‘charming’ of snakes by itinerant
musicians: it is generally believed that the snake (typically
a cobra) has poor hearing, and reacts to the motion of the instrument
in the hands of the snake charmer. The lithe motion of the erect
portion of the snake has drawn the attention of poets, and here
is a brief section from Macavity the Mystery Cat, by
T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965):
Macavity's
a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly doomed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he's half asleep, he's always wide awake.
Macavity,
Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square--
But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there!
My last poem
of this week is by Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963); Snakecharmer.
You may remember
that in a piece in this series that spoke about St.
Patrick and Ireland I discussed the fable that he had driven
the snakes from the country. Here is what may have been the first
report of this: it is from Bede (c. 672 – c. 735), usually called
The Venerable Bede, in Ecclesiastical History of the English
People, Book 1, chapter 1:
“No reptiles
are found there, and no snake can live there; for, though often
carried thither out of Britain, as soon as the ship comes near
the shore, and the scent of the air reaches them, they die.”
You may also
remember that the general belief is that the attribution of this
to St. Patrick is nonsense: there is no evidence that there were
ever snakes in Ireland. However, Bede’s explanation about how
they continue not to be there is interesting!
Ralph Waldo
Emerson (1803 – 1882) wrote an Ode Inscribed to W. H. Channing
that contains an interesting image – here is the stanza:
What boots
thy zeal,
O glowing friend,
That would indignant rend
The northland from the south?
Wherefore? To what good end?
Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
Would serve things still:
Things are of the snake.
I have a number of other interesting poems about snakes and serpents,
but they will have to wait until we visit this subject again.
I am going to close with a poem by Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953),
Incarnate Devil:
Incarnate
devil in a talking snake,
The central plains of Asia in his garden,
In shaping-time the circle stung awake,
In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple,
And God walked there who was a fiddling warden
And played down pardon from the heavens' hill.
When we
were strangers to the guided seas,
A handmade moon half holy in a cloud,
The wisemen tell me that the garden gods
Twined good and evil on an eastern tree;
And when the moon rose windily it was
Black as the beast and paler than the cross.
We in our
Eden knew the secret guardian
In sacred waters that no frost could harden,
And in the mighty mornings of the earth;
Hell in a horn of sulphur and the cloven myth,
All heaven in the midnight of the sun,
A serpent fiddled in the shaping-time.
I hope you
find our subject this week interesting – and perhaps just a little
disturbing!
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