A basilisk
from an old illuminated Bestiary
1. Fabulous reptile hatched by a serpent from a cock's egg, with lethal breath and look;
basilisk-glance etc., (figurative) evil eye, person or thing that blasts (reputation etc.)
2. (heraldry) cockatrice ; (zoology) small American lizard of genus Basiliscus, with a hollow crest which can be inflated at will.
[ME, f. L. f. Gk. basiliskos (dim. of basileus king) kinglet, serpent, golden-crested wren]
(Concise Oxford English Dictionary)
PROVERBS, Chapter XXIII, 32 (margin): "At last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder [or a cockatrice]."
ISAIAH, Chapter XI, 8: "And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den."
ISAIAH, Chapter XIV, 29: "Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery serpent."
ISAIAH, Chapter LIX, 3-5: "For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. / None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. / They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave spiders' web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper."
JEREMIAH, Chapter VIII, 17: "For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices,
among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the
Lord."
When they wish to symbolize Eternity, they draw the sun and the moon,
because they are eternal elements. But when they wish to represent Eternity
differently, they draw a serpent with its tail concealed by the rest of
its body. This the Egyptians call Ouraion, but the Greeks a Basilisk.
They make this of gold and put it on the [heads of the] gods. [It symbolizes
Eternity] because, of the three kinds of serpents, this alone is immortal,
the others being mortal. Should it blow upon any other animal, even without
biting it, its victim dies. Wherefore, since it seems to have power over
life and death, they put it on the heads of the gods." (pg. 57,
The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo)
A basilisk
from an old illuminated Bestiary
Carving of
a cockatrice reproduced in Tales Told In Church Stones: Symbolism and Legend
in Medieval Architecture and Handicrafts by Freda Derrick (The Lutterworth
Press, London, 1935). "The cockatrice, or basilisk, was another surprising creature
inherited from antiquity and made to preach a quaint sermon. Its origin, which
taxed even the medieval credulity at times, was said to be from an egg laid by
a cock in its seventh year, hatched by a serpent or toad. It was usually represented
with the fore part of a cock, and the hind part of a serpent, and looking extremely
fierce and venomous, as indeed it was. It spent its life lurking in holes, for
if it saw a man before he saw it, it slew him with the poison darted from its
eyes. According to some, the only way for a man to overcome it was to hold a vessel
of crystal before its face; this reflected its poison back upon itself, and killed
the cockatrice. The moralists, who saw the history of man's Fall and Redemption
writ large on every page of creation, very naturally interpreted the monster as
symbolizing the Devil, the vessel clearer than glass was the Blessed Virgin through
whom came salvation; and Christ descended into the pit, in which like the cockatrice
the Devil had concealed himself, when He harrowed Hell. This pious if far-fetched
interpretation was probably fairly well known when the carver decorated a bench-end
at Stowlangtoft with the cockatrice." (pg. 118)
Drawing of
a basilisk by German artist Albrecht Dürer, from the George Boas translation
of The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo (Pantheon Books, New York, 1950).
Dürer's illustrations to this text were drawn on the back of a Latin translation
made by the artist's friend Pirkheimer.
"61. A MAN REVILED BY DENUNCIATION AND GROWN SICK FROM IT
When they wish to indicate a man who has been reviled and denounced and has fallen sick because of it, they draw a basilisk. For by his breath the basilisk kills those who approach him." (pg. 98)
Illustration by American artist Mahlon Blaine of a basilisk, from Alraune
by Hanns Heinz Ewers (The John Day Company, New York, 1929). "...When the
pale night has fallen, then the basilisk comes slinking by. It is he who
in a most curious fashion was fathered by the cold Moon, eternal spirit
of infertility, and mothered by the arid sand herself, no less fertile
than the Moon. He is the secret of the desert. Some say he is an animal,
but that is not true. He is a thought and he grew up suddenly where there
was neither earth nor seed. He is a thought sprung out of envious eternal
infertility, and he must therefore take on a chaotic form, unknown to orderly
life. And that is why no one can describe this creature, for he is as indescribable
as nothingness itself...."
The cockatrice is sometimes mentioned in our Authorised Version of the Bible, with an adder generally as the alternative translation (cp. Jer. viii. 17, Prov. xxiii. 32 (margin), Is. xi. 8, lix. 5, xiv. 29). The Revised Version uses the word basilisk either in the text or margin of these passages. The chief characteristic of the basilisk or cockatrice in the Bible is its bite or sting, but there is not much in the Bible to give encouragement to the strong imagination of the Bestiaries. This little lizard is held to be the king of serpents, hence its name. The wart or hood on its head was thought to resemble a crown. In the thirteenth century Bestiary at the British Museum (Harl. 4751) the basilisk is depicted crowned, and serpents are coming to do homage, or else it may be starting up in fear.
The way the basilisk comes into the world is as follows. When a cock is seven years old it will find itself one day in the greatest agony, because it is about to lay an egg. The cock seeks some place to secrete the egg in, but a toad anxiously watches the proceedings. When the cock has laid the egg, the toad comes and sits upon it until it is hatched. The resulting creature has the head of a cock and the body of a reptile. It is a deadly animal. It will go and hide in a crevice or an old cistern, so that no one can see it. For it is of such a character that if it is seen by a man before it can see him itself, the cockatrice must die, and vice versâ.
In the event of the cockatrice getting the all-important first look, it will dart venom from its eyes, deadly enough to kill any living creature. The touch of a cockatrice will deprive any tree of the power of bearing fruit.
A way has been discovered in which its venom can be rendered powerless. Since the game of "I spy" would be one in which the advantage would be all on the side of the serpent, the hunter must equip himself with a crystal vase, and hold it in front of his face. In this way the venom is thrown back upon the cockatrice, which succumbs to its own poison. This serpent has great beauty of form and colour, and his symbolism is bad, for as these sage old moralists affirmed, beauty is often associated with badness.
The symbolism is as follows. The cockatrice is the devil, who has been the enemy of man for thousands of years, and has constantly been poisoning him. The Son of the King was sorry that everybody was being killed, so he determined that the beast should be rendered harmless. The King, therefore, placed His Son in a vessel of the purest Crystal, i.e., in the body of the blessed Virgin Mary.
When the cockatrice looked on the vessel which contained the Son of God, it could do no more evil. When the Son was laid in the sepulchre, He took out of the pit all the victims of the cockatrice which had been thrown there, so despoiling hell of its tenants.
Mr. E. P. Evans gives two illustrations of a cockatrice from capitals in the Abbey of Vezelai. In one case it has a cock's head and wings, with the tail and forepart of a dragon. In the other case it has a dragon's head instead of a cock's. In these cases either a man or a sphinx is holding the crystal vase as a form of self-protection.
It is also represented in a Flemish Bestiary of the thirteenth century in the British Museum...."
from Symbolism of Animals and Birds represented in English
Church Architecture by Arthur H. Collins (Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons,
London, 1913) pp. 145-150.
