Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art Part 9

The well-known historic device, the _Biscia_ or serpent devouring a child, of the dukedom of Milan is of much interest. There are many stories as to the origin of this singular bearing. Some writers a.s.sign it to Otho Visconti, who led a body of Milanese in the train of Peter the Hermit, and at the crusades fought and killed in single combat the Saracen giant Volux, upon whose helmet was this device, which Otho afterwards a.s.sumed as his own. Such is the version adopted by Ta.s.so, who enumerates Otho among the Christian warriors:

"Otho fierce, whose valour won the shield That bears a child and serpent on the field."

_Gerusalemme Liberata_, cant. i. st. 55.

(Hoole's translation.)

From another legend we learn that when Count Boniface, Lord of Milan, went to the crusades, his child, born during his absence, was devoured in its cradle by a huge serpent which ravaged the country. On his return, Count Boniface went in search of the monster, and found it with a child in its mouth. He attacked and slew the creature, but at the cost of his own life.

Hence it is said his posterity bore the serpent and child as their ensign.

A third legend is referred to under Wyvern (which see).

Menestrier says that the first Lords of Milan were called after their castle in Angleria, in Latin _anguis_, and that these are only the _armes parlantes_ of their name.[9] Be this as it may, "_Lo Squamoso Biscion_"

(the scaly snake) was adopted by all the Visconti lords, and by their successors of the House of Sforza.

"Sforza e Viscontei colubri."

_Orlando Furioso_, cant. xiii. 63.

And again in the same poem (cant. iii. 26. Hoole's translation):

"Hugo appears with him, his valiant son Who plants his conquering snakes in Milan's town."

Dante also refers in "Purgatorio" to this celebrated device.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Arms of Whitby Abbey.]

The "_three coiled snakes_," which appear in the arms of Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire, really represent _fossil ammonites_, which are very plentiful in the rocky promontories of that part of the English coast, and on that account were no doubt adopted in the arms of the Abbey, and afterwards of the town of Whitby.

The arms are: _Azure three snakes coiled or encircled two and one, or_.

Popular legend, however, ascribes their origin to the transformation of a mult.i.tude of snakes into stone by _St. Hilda_, an ancient Saxon princess.

The legend is referred to by Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion":

"_How of a thousand snakes each one Was changed into a coil of stone While Holy Hilda prayed._"

It is, however, more than likely that the arms suggested the legend of the miracle.

The ancient myth of the _deaf adder_ seems to have been a favourite ill.u.s.tration of the futility of unwelcome counsel.

"What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?

Be poisonous too."

_2 King Henry VI._ Act ii. sc. 2.

"Pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders To the voice of any true decision."

_Troilus and Cressida_, Act ii. sc. 2.

"He flies me now--nor more attends my pain Than the deaf adder heeds the charmer's strain."

_Orlando Furioso_, cant. x.x.xii. 19.

(Hoole's translation.)

A serpent or adder stopping his ears, by some writers termed "_an adder obturant his ear_" from the Latin _obturo_, to shut or stop, is a very ancient idea. It is said that the asp or adder, to prevent his hearing unwelcome truths, puts one ear to the ground and stops the other with his tail, a device suggested by Psalm lviii. 4,5: "They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely."

Alessandro d'Alessandri (+ 1523), a lawyer of Naples, of extensive learning, and a member of the Neapolitan Academy, took for device a serpent stopping its ears, and the motto, "Ut prudentia vivam" ("That I may live wisely"), implying that as the serpent by this means refuses to hear the voice of the charmer, so the wise man imitates the prudence of the reptile and refuses to listen to the words of malice and slander.

It is said that the _cerastes_ hides in sand that it may bite the horse's foot and get the rider thrown. In allusion to this belief, Jacob says, "Dan shall be ... an adder in the path, that his rider shall fall backward" (Gen. xlix. 17).

_Asp._--According to Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, the ancient Egyptian kings wore the asp, the emblem of royalty, as an ornament on the forehead. It appears on the front of the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Many terms have been invented by the heralds to express the positions serpents may a.s.sume in arms. Berry's "Encyclopaedia of Heraldry"

ill.u.s.trates over thirty positions, the terms of blazon of which it is impossible to comprehend, and hardly worth the inquiry. Few of these terms are, however, met with in English heraldry.

Two serpents erect in pale, their tails "nowed" (twisted or knotted) together, are figured in the arms of Caius College, Cambridge. In the words of the old grant, they are blazoned "_gold, semied with flowers gentil, a sengreen_ (or houseleek) _in chief, over the heads of two whole serpents in pale, their tails knit together (all in proper colour), resting upon a square marble stone vert, between a book sable, garnish't gul, buckled, or_."

Fruiterers' Company of London.--_On a mount in base vert, the tree of Paradise environed with the serpent between Adam and Eve, all proper._ Motto: _Arbor vitae Christus, fructus perfidem gustamus._

_Nowed_ signifies tied or knotted, and is said of a serpent, wyvern, or other creature whose body or tail is twisted like a knot.

_Annodated_, another term for nowed; bent in the form of the letter S, the serpents round the caduceus of Mercury may be said to be annodated.

_Torqued_, _torgant_, or _targant_ (from the Latin _torqueo_, to wreathe), the bending and rebending, either in serpents, adders or fish, like the letter S.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Serpent, nowed, proper. Crest of Cavendish.]

_Voluted_, _involved_ or _encircled, gliding_, and several terms used in blazon explain themselves, as _erect_, _erect wavy_, &c.

In blazoning, the terms _snake_, _serpent_, _adder_, appear to be used indiscriminately.

_A serpent nowed, proper_, is the crest of Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire.

_Gules, three snakes nowed in triangle argent_ (Ednowain Ap Bradwen, Merionethshire).

_Or, three serpents erect wavy sable_ (Codlen, or Cudlen).

_Remora_ is an old term in heraldry for a serpent entwining.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Amphiptere, or flying serpent.]

Serpents are also borne entwined round pillars and rods, &c., and around the necks of children, as in the arms of Vaughan or Vahan Wales: _Azure, three boys' heads affronte, couped at the shoulders proper, crined or, each enveloped or enwrapped about the neck with a snake vert_. Entwisted and entwined are sometimes used in the same sense.

_The amphiptere_ is a winged serpent. _Azure, an amphiptere or, rising between two mountains argent_, are the arms of Camoens, the Portuguese poet.

As a symbol in heraldry the serpent does not usually have reference to the mythical creature, as in Early Christian Art, its natural qualities being more generally considered.

The Scorpion

The reptile of this name, carrying a virulent and deadly sting in its tail, is generally borne erect. When it is borne with the head downwards, it is described as reversed. One branch of the family of Cole bears: _argent, a fesse between three scorpions erect sable_; and another branch of the same family, _argent a chevron gules between three scorpions reversed, sable_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Scorpion.]