I am not sure that anyone has actually answered the original question
of the context of the Latin tag in Virgil's poem. To hope that the
following might be of use to the person who put the question to the
Mantovani.
1. THE ORIGINAL CONTEXT OF "LATET ANGUIS IN HERBA"(Eclogues III.93)
The Third Eclogue of Virgil,tells how two herdsmen,
Menalcas and
Dam¦tas, meet and trade insults, before deciding on an am¦bæan singing
match to be umpired by Palæmon, a third herdsman. The singing match
takes place, but Palæmon cannot decide on a winner, and praises both
contestants.
The quotation "latet anguis in herba" is part of a line in
the
singing contest between two herdsmen, Menalcas and Dam¦tas, who are
trying to outdo one another in inventing lines "ex tempore". In these
rustic singing-matches, the contestants were to sing an equal number of
verses alternately. The first singer suggested a subject in his verses
which his rival had to try and outdo in as many verses on the same or a
similar subject. At one point in the contest,Dam¦tas sings "Qui legitis
flores et humi nascentia fraga,/frigidus,o pueri, fugite hinc, latet
anguis in herba"(III.92-93), the gist of which is " O herd-boys picking
flowers and strawberries,beware of the snake lurking in the grass!".
Menalcas replies "Parcite,oves,nimium procedere:non bene ripæ /
creditur:ipse aries etiam nunc vellera siccat."(III.94-95), the gist of
which is "O Sheep, beware of going too close to the water, the river
bank is dangerous (and the ram has already fallen in)!" Thus there are
dangers on land for the shepherds in Dam¦tas' lines, and dangers in the
water for the sheep in Menalcas' lines. The snake has no deeper
significance here than as an example of a natural danger on land.
2.THE LATIN TAG "LATET ANGUIS IN HERBA"(Eclogues III.93)
However, taken out of context, this quotation from Virgil has
become
almost proverbial as a Latin tag about hidden danger, ambush, deceit or
simply "Beware!".
My "Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Classical Quotations" edited by
H.P.Jones (1923)glosses the Latin as "A Hidden Danger", while "Bohn's
Dictionary of Classical Quotations"(1895) comments on the Latin
that"Individuals, like armies,suffer most from perils that lie in
ambush."
Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable"(5th edition,1959) explains
the English phrase"A snake in the grass" as "A hidden or hypocritical
enemy, a disguised danger." and tells us that the phrase is from Virgil.
[Under the entry "snake" he explains that the word "snake" was ( or
still is) rhyming slang "for a looking -glass,the missing portion being
'in the grass'"!]
My "Roget's Thesaurus"(1852) gives "a snake in the grass" as a phrase
denoting "a source of danger"[667] along with "the sword of Damocles"
and"proximus ardet Ucalegon"(see Æneid II.311-2).
It is also listed as an English proverb in the form "There is a snake
in the grass"["Bohn's Handbook of Proverbs"(1855)p.521;G.L. Apperson
"Wordsworth Dictionary of Proverbs"(1994)p.583.]
In the English emblem book "A Choice of Emblemes"(1586) by Geffrey
Whitney (1548-1603) the Virgilian tag "latet anguis in herba" appears
with a magnificent woodcut of a snake curled around a strawberry plant,
but no grass is depicted. (p.24). These strawberries are Virgilian (see
III.92 "fraga"). [It may be that "in herba" is here meant to be taken to
mean the strawberry plant itself, but I am not sure if "herba" can have
this meaning("plant") in Neo-Latin] The accompanying verses explain that
the snake and the strawberry symbolise deceitful and false friends of
whom one should be beware.
"Of flatteringe speeche, with sugred words beware,
Suspect the harte,whose face doth fawne, and smile,
With trusting theise, the worlde is clog'de with care,
And fewe there bee can scape theise vipers vile:
With pleasinge speeche they promise, and protest,
When hatefull hartes lie hidd within their brest.
The faithfull wight,dothe neede no collours brave,
But those that truste, in time his truthe shall trie,
Where fawning mates,can not theire credit save,
Without a cloake, to flatter, faine, and lye:
No foe so fell, nor yet soe hard to scape,
As is the foe, that fawnes with freindlie shape."
Cesare Ripa's "Iconologia" (first edition 1593, I am using Edward A.
Maser's translation (Dover Books 1971) of the 1758-60 Hertel edition
based on Ripa's 1603 edition for its text ) depicts Deceit ("Falsitas")
as a woman with a mask and various other attributes, including "a
bouquet of flowers in which a snake is hidden" which is interpreted as
representing "the misleading sweet perfume of apparent goodwill which
hides the poison of an enemy"(p.127). Here again there is no grass but
the flowers are Virgilian (see Eclogue III.92 "flores")
Serpents and flowers are a symbol of deceit in Shakespeare too, consider
Lady Macbeth's advice to her husband:"looke like th'innocent flower,/But
be the Serpent under't." ("Macbeth" Act I,sc.v,66-7)
So it seems that by the Renaissance ,if not earlier, Virgil's snake
which in the context of the original poem was merely a dangerous
reptile, has in its long life as as a Latin tag and English proverb
and phrase become conflated with the Biblical"old serpent,which is the
Devil,andSatan"(Revelation.XX.2) to symbolise deceit. In other words I
doubt if Virgil considered the snake to be evil, merely dangerous.
Peter JVD Bryant
Perth
Western Australia
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