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Seps (legendary creature)

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Seps (Bestiary Harley MS 3244, ff 36r-71v, 13th century, British Library)
Seps (Royal Bestiary MS 12 C XIX; 1200-1210)

A seps is a legendary snake from medieval bestiaries. They were said to have extremely corrosive venom that liquified their prey.[1]

The seps is described as a "a small snake which consumes with its poison not just the body but the bones" in the medieval Aberdeen Bestiary,[2] and Lucan's Pharsalia refers to its appearance and the effects of its poison.[3]

Shelley in Prometheus Unbound writes:

...all my being,
Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw
Into a dew with poison, is dissolved...[4]

References

  1. ^ "Seps". The Medieval Bestiary. Retrieved 2008-12-28.
  2. ^ Aberdeen Bestiary, folio 69v.
  3. ^ Lucan, Pharsalia Book 9 ll. 723, 764 (line numbers in the original Latin).
  4. ^ Percy Bysshe Shelley (1820), Prometheus Unbound, Act III, scene 1.

See also

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