Why is that when we wish to denigrate someone we don't say He's a real Hitler in the grass or He's a real Pol Pot in the grass or He's a real politician in the grass? These, after all, presumably had/have some sort of moral sense, however perverted.
Instead, we castigate someone we don't like as a real snake in the grass. What have snakes, which have no moral sense (so we suppose--this may be mere speciesism on our part, though), ever done to deserve this? Most of the 2900 species of snakes with which humans (often grudgingly) share this planet are non-venomous, and the ones that are venomous use that venom for self-defense or to subdue prey. (Such venom may even have led to some of the medicines in your medicine cabinet. The "super aspirin" Aggrastat, for example, which is used to prevent blood clots, is one of many medicines derived from studies of snake venom.)
So if you want to disparage someone, maybe you should reference the idiots who think nothing of wiping out entire populations of innocent civilians because they worship a different deity or speak a different language. Leave snakes out of it:
Snakes haven't always been viewed as the bad boys of the natural world. Many cultures over the centuries have in fact worshiped snakes. Snakes were revered in ancient Greece, for example, and they are featured prominently and favorably in religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Christianity, alas, is another matter.
This love-hate relationship that humans have carried on with snakes over the millenia has given rise to a vast and fascinating literature, and folks interested in building a private library around this subject have lots of collecting paths from which to choose.
If one has very deep pockets and considerable patience, early natural history books that feature snakes make for compelling collectibles. The image below, for example, is from the 1603 German edition of Badli Angeli Abbatii's De Admirabili Viperae natura. First published in 1589, it is the earliest known monograph on rattlesnakes (the image below is from the copy held by Dresden's Sächsische Landesbibliothek:)
Many early natural history books about snakes feature extraordinary hand-colored engravings, such as the horned nose snake below (from George Shaw & Frederic Nodder's Naturalist's Miscellany, published in 287 monthly parts from 1789-1813), and for that reason many early books about snakes have been long since been broken so the plates could be sold as stand-alone prints:
Most of these early books sought simply to describe and illustrate as fully as possible the snakes found in particular environments, and their modern equivalents are the many excellent encyclopedias and handbooks which examine snakes both globally and particularly:
Similar books are regularly published for the juvenile market:
An interesting collecting scheme would be to shelve such books near books which reflect the ignorance that too often gives rise to Ophidiophobia. Many of these titles, understandably, are pure fiction....
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