Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of "The Natural History of Iceland," from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly (Ch. lxxii. _Concerning snakes_) thus: "There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island."
Among all snakes there is not one that is good.
The savage, like the child, borrows the capital he needs, and, at any rate, intentionally, does nothing towards repayment; it would plainly be an improper use of the word "produce" to say that his labour in hunting for the roots, or the fruits, or the eggs, or the grubs and snakes, which he finds and eats, "produces" or contributes to "produce" them. The same thing is true of more advanced tribes, who are still merely hunters, such as the Esquimaux. They may expend more labour and skill; but it is spent in destruction.
Avaler des couleuvres=--To put up with abuse (
Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science, as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules.
Oh, but to get through this night. Why won’t sleep come? What’s bothering me here in the dark? It’s not the badgers, it’s not the snakes. What’s bothering me? Something darker is worrying a hole inside me—look how my legs are trembling. Stop moving, Tatiana. That’s how the carnivores find you, by the flash of life on your body, they find you and eat you while you sleep. Like venomous spiders, they’ll bite you first to lull you into sleep—you won’t even feel it—and then they will gnaw your flesh until nothing remains. But even the animals eating her alive was not the thing that worried the sick hole in Tatiana’s stomach as she lay in the leaves with her face hidden from the forest, with her arms over her head, in case anything decided to fall on her. She should’ve made herself a shelter but it got dark so fast, and she was so sure she would find the lake, she hadn’t been thinking of making herself more comfortable in the woods. She kept walking and walking, and then was downed and breathless and unprepared for pitch black night. To quell the terror inside her, to not hear her own voices, Tatiana whimpered. Lay and cried, low and afraid. What was tormenting her from the inside out? Was it worry over Marina? No... not quite. But close. Something about Marina. Something about Saika... Saika. The girl who caused trouble between Dasha and her dentist boyfriend, the girl who pushed her bike into Tatiana’s bike to make her fall under the tires of a downward truck rushing headlong... the girl who saw Tatiana’s grandmother carrying a sack of sugar and told her mother who told her father who told the Luga Soviet that Vasily Metanov harbored sugar he had no intention of giving up? The girl who did something so unspeakable with her own brother she was nearly killed by her own father’s hand—and she herself had said the boy got worse—and this previously unmentioned brother was, after all, dead. The girl who stood unafraid under rowan trees and sat under a gaggle of crows and did not feel black omens, the girl who told Tatiana her wicked stories, tempted Tatiana with her body, turned away from Marina as Marina was drowning...who turned Marina against Tatiana, the girl who didn’t believe in demons, who thought everything was all good in the universe, could she . . . What if...? What if this was not an accident? Moaning loudly, Tatiana turned away to the other side as if she’d just had a nightmare. But she hadn’t been dreaming. Saika took her compass and her knife. But Marina took her watch. And there it was. That was the thing eating up Tatiana from the inside out. Could Marina have been in on something like this? Twisting from side to side did not assuage her torn stomach, did not mollify her sunken heart. Making anguished noises, her eyes closed, she couldn’t think of fields, or Luga, or swimming, or clover or warm milk, anything. All good thoughts were drowned in the impossible sorrow. Could Marina have betrayed her?
You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?
Uxorem, Posthume, ducis? / Dic qua Tisiphone, quibus exagitare colubris=--Are you marrying a wife, Posthumous? By what Fury, say, by what snakes are you driven mad?
The ark lands after The Flood. Noah lets all the animals out. Says he, "Go and multiply." Several months pass. Noah decides to check up on the animals. All are doing fine except a pair of snakes. "What's the problem?" says Noah. "Cut down some trees and let us live there", say the snakes. Noah follows their advice. Several more weeks pass. Noah checks on the snakes again. Lots of little snakes, everybody is happy. Noah asks, "Want to tell me how the trees helped?" "Certainly", say the snakes. "We're adders, and we need logs to multiply."
QOTD: The forest may be quiet, but that doesn't mean the snakes have gone away.
A young honeymoon couple were touring southern Florida and happened to stop at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road. After seeing the sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes. "Gosh!" exclaimed the new bride. "You certainly have a dangerous job. Don't you ever get bitten by the snakes?" "Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler. "Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by a snake?" "I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then suck the poison from the wound." "What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally *sit* on a rattler?" persisted the woman. "Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn who my real friends are."
When he got in trouble in the ring, [Ali] imagined a door swung open and inside he could see neon, orange, and green lights blinking, and bats blowing trumpets and alligators blowing trombones, and he could hear snakes</p> screaming. Weird masks and actors' clothes hung on the wall, and if he stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing himself to destruction. -- George Plimpton
St. Patrick was a gentleman who through strategy and stealth drove all the snakes from Ireland. Here's a toasting to his health -- but not too many toastings lest you lose yourself and then forget the good St. Patrick and see all those snakes again.
"I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts... I despise it, I defy it, and I hate it." -- Robert G. Ingersoll
[District Attorneys] learn in District Attorney School that there are two sure-fire ways to get a lot of favorable publicity: (1) Go down and raid all the lockers in the local high school and confiscate 53 marijuana cigarettes and put them in a pile and hold a press conference where you announce that they have a street value of $850 million. These raids never fail, because ALL high schools, including brand-new, never-used ones, have at least 53 marijuana cigarettes in the lockers. As far as anyone can tell, the locker factory puts them there. (2) Raid an "adult book store" and hold a press conference where you announce you are charging the owner with 850 counts of being a piece of human sleaze. This also never fails, because you always get a conviction. A juror at a pornography trial is not about to state for the record that he finds nothing obscene about a movie where actors engage in sexual activities with live snakes and a fire extinguisher. He is going to convict the bookstore owner, and vote for the death penalty just to make sure nobody gets the wrong impression. -- Dave Barry, "Pornography"
"All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right hands." -- Saint Patrick
Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ... [EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important world events such as agriculture, we're going to delete the next few square feet of the woman's skin. Thank you.] ... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is even more interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is a fact. Your skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the older veteran cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and obtained offices with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the window head first, without so much as a pension plan, by younger hotshot cells moving up from below. -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
-- Indiana Jones, "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
Thus equal deaths are dealt with equal chance; By turns they quit their ground, by turns advance: Victors and vanquish'd, in the various field, Nor wholly overcome, nor wholly yield. The gods from heav'n survey the fatal strife, And mourn the miseries of human life. Above the rest, two goddesses appear Concern'd for each: here Venus, Juno there. Amidst the crowd, infernal Ate shakes Her scourge aloft, and crest of hissing snakes.
These haughty words Alecto's rage provoke, And frighted Turnus trembled as she spoke. Her eyes grow stiffen'd, and with sulphur burn; Her hideous looks and hellish form return; Her curling snakes with hissings fill the place, And open all the furies of her face: Then, darting fire from her malignant eyes, She cast him backward as he strove to rise, And, ling'ring, sought to frame some new replies. High on her head she rears two twisted snakes, Her chains she rattles, and her whip she shakes; And, churning bloody foam, thus loudly speaks: "Behold whom time has made to dote, and tell Of arms imagin'd in her lonely cell! Behold the Fates' infernal minister! War, death, destruction, in my hand I bear."
No sooner landed, in his den they found The triple porter of the Stygian sound, Grim Cerberus, who soon began to rear His crested snakes, and arm'd his bristling hair. The prudent Sibyl had before prepar'd A sop, in honey steep'd, to charm the guard; Which, mix'd with pow'rful drugs, she cast before His greedy grinning jaws, just op'd to roar. With three enormous mouths he gapes; and straight, With hunger press'd, devours the pleasing bait. Long draughts of sleep his monstrous limbs enslave; He reels, and, falling, fills the spacious cave. The keeper charm'd, the chief without delay Pass'd on, and took th' irremeable way. Before the gates, the cries of babes new born, Whom fate had from their tender mothers torn, Assault his ears: then those, whom form of laws Condemn'd to die, when traitors judg'd their cause. Nor want they lots, nor judges to review The wrongful sentence, and award a new. Minos, the strict inquisitor, appears; And lives and crimes, with his assessors, hears. Round in his urn the blended balls he rolls, Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls. The next, in place and punishment, are they Who prodigally throw their souls away; Fools, who, repining at their wretched state, And loathing anxious life, suborn'd their fate. With late repentance now they would retrieve The bodies they forsook, and wish to live; Their pains and poverty desire to bear, To view the light of heav'n, and breathe the vital air: But fate forbids; the Stygian floods oppose, And with circling streams the captive souls inclose.
Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on every old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things; and when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, on account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtlesthey would slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of them. We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them.
Thus having said, she sinks beneath the ground, With furious haste, and shoots the Stygian sound, To rouse Alecto from th' infernal seat Of her dire sisters, and their dark retreat. This Fury, fit for her intent, she chose; One who delights in wars and human woes. Ev'n Pluto hates his own misshapen race; Her sister Furies fly her hideous face; So frightful are the forms the monster takes, So fierce the hissings of her speckled snakes. Her Juno finds, and thus inflames her spite: "O virgin daughter of eternal Night, Give me this once thy labor, to sustain My right, and execute my just disdain. Let not the Trojans, with a feign'd pretense Of proffer'd peace, delude the Latian prince. Expel from Italy that odious name, And let not Juno suffer in her fame. 'T is thine to ruin realms, o'erturn a state, Betwixt the dearest friends to raise debate, And kindle kindred blood to mutual hate. Thy hand o'er towns the fun'ral torch displays, And forms a thousand ills ten thousand ways. Now shake, out thy fruitful breast, the seeds Of envy, discord, and of cruel deeds: Confound the peace establish'd, and prepare Their souls to hatred, and their hands to war."
We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she allowed these lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we ever loaded up the place again with them. I didn't mind the lickings, because they didn't amount to nothing; but I minded the trouble we had to lay in another lot. But we got them laid in, and all the other things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when they'd all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim didn't like the spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay for him, and make it mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats and the snakes and the grindstone there warn't no room in bed for him, skasely; and when there was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was always lively, he said, because _they_ never all slept at one time, but took turn about, so when the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so he always had one gang under him, in his way, and t'other gang having a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a new place the spiders would take a chance at him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got out this time he wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary.
"and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for company for Jim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come before we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us and let drive at us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path and let them go by, and when the dogs come they warn't interested in us, but went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by ourselves, and _wasn't_ it bully, Aunty!"
She became so excited and agitated during all these explanations and confessions that General Epanchin was highly gratified, and considered the matter satisfactorily arranged once for all. But the once bitten Totski was twice shy, and looked for hidden snakes among the flowers. However, the special point to which the two friends particularly trusted to bring about their object (namely, Gania's attractiveness for Nastasia Philipovna), stood out more and more prominently; the pourparlers had commenced, and gradually even Totski began to believe in the possibility of success.
Sacred to Vulcan's name, an isle there lay, Betwixt Sicilia's coasts and Lipare, Rais'd high on smoking rocks; and, deep below, In hollow caves the fires of Aetna glow. The Cyclops here their heavy hammers deal; Loud strokes, and hissings of tormented steel, Are heard around; the boiling waters roar, And smoky flames thro' fuming tunnels soar. Hether the Father of the Fire, by night, Thro' the brown air precipitates his flight. On their eternal anvils here he found The brethren beating, and the blows go round. A load of pointless thunder now there lies Before their hands, to ripen for the skies: These darts, for angry Jove, they daily cast; Consum'd on mortals with prodigious waste. Three rays of writhen rain, of fire three more, Of winged southern winds and cloudy store As many parts, the dreadful mixture frame; And fears are added, and avenging flame. Inferior ministers, for Mars, repair His broken axletrees and blunted war, And send him forth again with furbish'd arms, To wake the lazy war with trumpets' loud alarms. The rest refresh the scaly snakes that fold The shield of Pallas, and renew their gold. Full on the crest the Gorgon's head they place, With eyes that roll in death, and with distorted face.
I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and say one had bit him on the cheekbut I couldn't see no snakes. He started and run round and round the cabin, hollering "Take him off! take him off! he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting; then he rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and saying there was devils a-hold of him. He wore out by and by, and laid still a while, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By and by he raised up part way and listened, with his head to one side. He says, very low:
So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim would have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised he would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim's coffee-pot, in the morning. Jim said he would "jis' 's soon have tobacker in his coffee;" and found so much fault with it, and with the work and bother of raising the mullen, and jews-harping the rats, and petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things, on top of all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and journals, and things, which made it more trouble and worry and responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he was just loadened down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name for himself, and yet he didn't know enough to appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him. So Jim he was sorry, and said he wouldn't behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed.
"Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you're so bull-headed about it. We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on their tails, and let on they're rattlesnakes, and I reckon that 'll have to do."
Smear'd as she was with black Gorgonian blood, The Fury sprang above the Stygian flood; And on her wicker wings, sublime thro' night, She to the Latian palace took her flight: There sought the queen's apartment, stood before The peaceful threshold, and besieg'd the door. Restless Amata lay, her swelling breast Fir'd with disdain for Turnus dispossess'd, And the new nuptials of the Trojan guest. From her black bloody locks the Fury shakes Her darling plague, the fav'rite of her snakes; With her full force she threw the poisonous dart, And fix'd it deep within Amata's heart, That, thus envenom'd, she might kindle rage, And sacrifice to strife her house husband's age. Unseen, unfelt, the fiery serpent skims Betwixt her linen and her naked limbs; His baleful breath inspiring, as he glides, Now like a chain around her neck he rides, Now like a fillet to her head repairs, And with his circling volumes folds her hairs. At first the silent venom slid with ease, And seiz'd her cooler senses by degrees; Then, ere th' infected mass was fir'd too far, In plaintive accents she began the war, And thus bespoke her husband: "Shall," she said, "A wand'ring prince enjoy Lavinia's bed? If nature plead not in a parent's heart, Pity my tears, and pity her desert. I know, my dearest lord, the time will come, You in vain, reverse your cruel doom; The faithless pirate soon will set to sea, And bear the royal virgin far away! A guest like him, a Trojan guest before, In shew of friendship sought the Spartan shore, And ravish'd Helen from her husband bore. Think on a king's inviolable word; And think on Turnus, her once plighted lord: To this false foreigner you give your throne, And wrong a friend, a kinsman, and a son. Resume your ancient care; and, if the god Your sire, and you, resolve on foreign blood, Know all are foreign, in a larger sense, Not born your subjects, or deriv'd from hence. Then, if the line of Turnus you retrace, He springs from Inachus of Argive race."
He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it. Jim told me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and said it would help cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too. He said that that would help. Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.
At twelve this man was replaced by another functionary, and Danglars, wishing to catch sight of his new guardian, approached the door again. He was an athletic, gigantic bandit, with large eyes, thick lips, and a flat nose; his red hair fell in dishevelled masses like snakes around his shoulders. "Ah, ha," cried Danglars, "this fellow is more like an ogre than anything else; however, I am rather too old and tough to be very good eating!" We see that Danglars was collected enough to jest; at the same time, as though to disprove the ogreish propensities, the man took some black bread, cheese, and onions from his wallet, which he began devouring voraciously. "May I be hanged," said Danglars, glancing at the bandit's dinner through the crevices of the door,--"may I be hanged if I can understand how people can eat such filth!" and he withdrew to seat himself upon his goat-skin, which reminded him of the smell of the brandy.
Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit--strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?--Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter around every neck, as you may say.