asp (snake)

{{About|the Anglicised word for various species of snake|the species known as the "European asp"|Vipera aspis{{!}}Vipera aspis}}

File:ViperaAspis 1469AE.jpg]]

Asp is the modern anglicisation of the word "aspis", which in antiquity referred to any one of several venomous snake species found in the Nile region.{{cite book|title = Shorter Oxford English Dictionary|date =2007|location = Oxford, UK|isbn = 978-0199206872|publisher = Oxford University Press}} The specific epithet, aspis, is a Greek word that means "viper".Gotch AF. 1986. Reptiles – Their Latin Names Explained. Poole, UK: Blandford Press. 176 pp. {{ISBN|0-7137-1704-1}}. It is believed that aspis referred to what is now known as the Egyptian cobra.{{cite journal |last=Schneemann |first=M. |author2=R. Cathomas |author3=S.T. Laidlaw |author4=A.M. El Nahas |author5=R.D.G. Theakston |author6=D.A. Warrell |date=August 2004 |title=Life-threatening envenoming by the Saharan horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) causing micro-angiopathic haemolysis, coagulopathy and acute renal failure: clinical cases and review |journal=QJM: An International Journal of Medicine |volume=97 |issue=11 |pages=717–27 |doi=10.1093/qjmed/hch118 |pmid=15496528 |quote=Whether Cleopatra used a snake as the instrument of her suicide has been long debated. Some favour the idea that she chose C. cerastes, but its venom is insufficiently potent, rapid and reliable. A more plausible candidate is the Egyptian cobra or 'asp' (Naja haje). |doi-access=free|url=http://doc.rero.ch/record/293684/files/hch118.pdf }}

__TOC__

Historic representation

Throughout dynastic and Roman Egypt, the asp was a symbol of royalty."Battle of Actium (31 B.C.)". The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. Don Nardo. Ed. Robert B. Kebric. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. 71-72. World History in Context. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.\ Moreover, in both Egypt and Greece, its potent venom made it useful as a means of execution for criminals who were thought deserving of a more dignified death than that of typical executions.

In some stories of Perseus, after killing Medusa, the hero used winged sandals to transport her head to King Polydectes. As he was flying over Egypt, some of her blood fell to the ground, which spawned asps and amphisbaena.Lucan, Pharisaical, (c.61-65), trans. Robert Graves, book IX

According to Plutarch, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, in preparing for her own suicide, tested various deadly poisons on condemned people and concluded that the bite of the asp (from the Greek word aspis, usually meaning an Egyptian cobra in Ptolemaic Egypt, and not the European asp) was the least terrible way to die; the venom brought sleepiness and heaviness without spasms of pain.{{cite web |last=Crawford |first=Amy |title=Who Was Cleopatra? Mythology, propaganda, Liz Taylor and the real Queen of the Nile |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/biography/cleopatra.html |date=April 1, 2007 |publisher=Smithsonian.com |access-date=4 September 2009}} Some believe it to have been a horned viper,{{cite journal |last=Kinghorn |first=A. M. |date=March 1994 |title='All joy o' the worm' or, death by asp or asps unknown in act v of Antony and Cleopatra |journal=English Studies |volume=75 |issue=2 |pages=104–9 |doi=10.1080/00138389408598902 |quote=The venomous reptile commonly known today as 'Cleopatra's asp' is a Cobra (Cerastes cornutus)}} though in 2010, German historian Christoph Schaefer and toxicologist Dietrich Mebs, after extensive study into the event, came to the conclusion that rather than enticing a venomous animal to bite her, Cleopatra actually used a mixture of hemlock, wolfsbane and opium to end her life.{{cite news | url= http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-30/world/cleopatra.suicide_1_cleopatra-snake-cobra?_s=PM:WORLD | title= Poison, not snake, killed Cleopatra, scholar says - Cleopatra died a quiet and pain free death, historian alleges. | publisher= CNN | author= Melissa Gray | date= 2010-06-30 | access-date= 2012-04-13 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120912193217/http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-30/world/cleopatra.suicide_1_cleopatra-snake-cobra?_s=PM:WORLD | archive-date= 2012-09-12 | url-status= dead }}

Nonetheless, the image of suicide-by-asp has become inextricably connected with Cleopatra, as immortalized by William Shakespeare:

With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate

Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool

Be angry, and dispatch.

:—Cleopatra, Act V, scene II

:Antony and Cleopatra

Othello also famously compares his hatred for Desdemona as being full of "aspics' tongues" in Act 3, Scene III of Shakespeare's play Othello.

Legend

The hypnalis is a legendary creature described in medieval bestiaries. It is described as a type of asp that kills its victim in their sleep.{{Cite book|last=Grant|first=Robert McQueen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ds4cpDsVJn0C&dq=hypnalis%2520snake&pg=PA139|title=Early Christians and Animals|date=2002|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-203-01747-0|page=139}} "Cleopatra placed it on herself (at her breasts) and thus was freed by death as if by sleep."{{cite book |last1=Clark |first1=Willene B. |title=A Medieval Book of Beasts: The Second-family Bestiary : Commentary, Art, Text and Translation |date=2006 |publisher=Boydell Press |isbn=9780851156828 |page=198 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0olPRmCoE8MC&dq=hypnalis&pg=PA198 |accessdate=25 August 2020}}