Despite the fact that snakes are widely reviled as icky, especially by girls, tame snakes make excellent pets. Actually, no snakes are domesticated persay, but most snake species raised with human contact are extremely sociable. A good snake only needs to be fed once a week and is very clean and low-maintenance. They are not slimy--their skin is very smooth and dry. You can cuddle with your snake and it will enjoy it just as much as you. Assuming you don't have a viper or an eight foot boa, they are safer than dogs or cats around children. While their faces are incapable showing quite as much emotion as the mammalians, the presence of a snake happily basking around ones neck, wrapping and flicking its tongue and looking with its beady eyes is a joyful experience indeed.
A snake came to my water-trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree I came down the steps with my pitcher And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough And rested his throat upon the stone bottom, And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness, He sipped with his straight mouth, Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body, Silently.
Someone was before me at my water-trough, And I, like a second comer, waiting.
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do, And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do, And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment, And stooped and drank a little more, Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking. The voice of my education said to me He must be killed, For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
But must I confess how I liked him, How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless, Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured? I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices: If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more That he should seek my hospitality From out the dark door of the secret earth.
He drank enough And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black, Seeming to lick his lips, And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, And slowly turned his head, And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole, And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther, A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole, Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after, Overcame me now his back was turned.
I looked round, I put down my pitcher, I picked up a clumsy log And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
I think it did not hit him, But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste. Writhed like lightning, and was gone Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front, At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
And immediately I regretted it. I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act! I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross And I wished he would come back, my snake.
For he seemed to me again like a king, Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld, Now due to be crowned again.
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords Of life. And I have something to expiate: A pettiness.
- D.H. Lawrence
D.H. Lawrence's "Snake": An Analysis
D.H. Lawrence, in his poem, "Snake," uses symbolism to create an extended metaphor to express the incorrupt man. To do this, he uses nature as his subject and his relation to it. His use of the snake marks a symbolic meaning that could not be proven by any other measure.
The snake is his most obvious symbol; it reflects on the dangerous passions that man engulfs himself in that grow unacceptably by societ. The snake tempts one to rebel from his abandonment of "inclinations". It is hidden, and upon being exposed, may either be observed in awe, or brutally murdered. The speaker of the poem is aware of the snake, and doesn't wish to harm it--or even disregard it, but rather take in the beauty of it all.
The second symbol, the conflicting symbol, is the log which the speaker throws at the water trough. This was a representation of his logic and its shortcomings in his attempt to preserve the scene of the snake, which to him, was only evanescent. He threw it with some knowledge of the disturbance it would cause, but being incapable of exercising the freedom of his propensity, his attempts fail.
He also repeats to himself his need to kill the snake, possibly in defiance of unwritten law, and his intimidation. As he finally says, "If you were not afraid, you would kill him," (line 36) he notes on his weakness and the regret he feels for respecting danger. And though he feels he has overcome his loss by his actions, his recollection of the event and his repetition of his ideas to kill him prove that he has not gotten over this.
He emphasizes the almost surreptitious lifestyle, hidden in the darkness of life, wallowing in the emptiness of life. One of Lawrence's most dramatic lines was, "For he seemed to me like a king. Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld." (lines 69 and 70), which express that the speaker knew the true nature of the snake, but feigned ignorance throughout the whole poem.
Lawrence changes his imagery throughout the entire poem to put a new perspective on each stanza. Doing so, he has clearly made use of symbolism and repetition.
-Aimee Ault
The Grass divides as with a Comb-- A spotted shaft is seen-- And then it closes at your feet And opens further on--
He likes a Boggy Acre A Floor too cool for Corn-- Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot-- I more than once at Noon Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash Unbraiding in the Sun When stooping to secure it It wrinkled, and was gone--
Several of Nature's People I know, and they know me-- I feel for them a transport Of cordiality--
But never met this Fellow Attended, or alone Without a tighter breathing And Zero at the Bone--
--Emily Dickinson
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A snake is a reptile without legs, which may sometimes have a venomous bite, poisonous to humans. Other snakes kill their prey by constriction. All snakes are carnivorous.
The skin is covered in scales.Most snakes use their scales to move, gripping surfaces. They shed their skin periodically. Detailed vision is limited, but does not prevent detection of movement. Hearing is restricted to the sensing of ground vibrations. A snake smells through its nose, and the tongue passes airborne particles to special organs in the mouth for examination. The left lung is very small or even absent. The snake has two penises; for more information on a snake's sexual organs, see hemipenis.
Snake blood has an almost mythical reputation in Asia. The snake is also one of the animal symbols used in the Chinese Lunar Calendar.
Snake nodes on E2:
Species of snake: Adder Anaconda Beaked Sea Snake black mamba Black Rat Snake Black snake boa constrictor Brown snake Bushmaster Coachwhip snake Cobra de capello Congo snake coral snake Corn Snake Death Adder Eastern hognose snake Fierce Snake gaboon viper green mamba hoop snake King Cobra Mamba North Eastern King Snake python rattlesnake reticulated python rhinoceros viper Sea adder Sea snake Spitting Cobra South Eastern Corn Snake Taipan Viper Water adder Water snake
Miscellaneous snake nodes: Are King Cobras Really Smart bungarotoxin How to catch a snake How to treat a poisonous snake bite Is this Australian snake poisonous? serpent Snake blood snake charmer snake handlers Snake Priest Snakes of Hawaii snake trap top 10 world's deadliest snakes The Water-snakevenom
The premise is this: you control a snake (a line of pixels) who has to eat some sort of fruit (represented by more pixels) and the more you eat, the longer you become making the game more and more difficult.
There are multiple levels of difficulty and on the higher ones, you travel faster but this is compensated for by the fact that you recieve more points for each apple you get.
You die if you hit yourself or a wall, and the keys are as follows:
2 = up 8 = down 4 = left 6 = right
Of course, more advanced users (not me) can use 1, 3, 7 and 9 to move diagonally, but this gets pretty complicated.
The game is stunningly addicitve, helped by the addition of a 'high score' screen which prompts the user to keep on playing until he/she beats his old record. The game's success relies on the fact that it was firstly the best game available when Nokias were released and so it was the only thing available, but also by the fact it followed the rules that all great games follow.
It was simple, the screen wasn't cluttered and there was an incentive to keep playing.
Pure genius.
Snake (?), n. [AS. snaca; akin to LG. snake, schnake, Icel. snakr, snkr, Dan. snog, Sw. snok; of uncertain origin.] Zool.
Any species of the order Ophidia; an ophidian; a serpent, whether harmless or venomous. See Ophidia, and Serpent.
⇒ Snakes are abundant in all warm countries, and much the larger number are harmless to man.
Blind snake, Garter snake, Green snake, King snake, Milk snake, Rock snake, Water snake, etc. See under Blind, Garter, etc. -- Fetich snake Zool., a large African snake (Python Sebae) used by the natives as a fetich. -- Ringed snake Zool., a common European columbrine snake (Tropidonotus natrix). -- Snake eater. Zool. (a) The markhoor. (b) The secretary bird. -- Snake fence, a worm fence (which see). [U.S.] -- Snake fly Zool., any one of several species of neuropterous insects of the genus Rhaphidia; -- so called because of their large head and elongated neck and prothorax. -- Snake gourd Bot., a cucurbitaceous plant (Trichosanthes anguina) having the fruit shorter and less snakelike than that of the serpent cucumber. -- Snake killer. Zool. (a) The secretary bird. (b) The chaparral cock. -- Snake moss Bot., the common club moss (Lycopodium clavatum). See Lycopodium. -- Snake nut Bot., the fruit of a sapindaceous tree (Ophiocaryon paradoxum) of Guiana, the embryo of which resembles a snake coiled up. -- Tree snake Zool., any one of numerous species of colubrine snakes which habitually live in trees, especially those of the genus Dendrophis and allied genera.
© Webster 1913.
Snake, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Snaked (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Snaking.]
1.
To drag or draw, as a snake from a hole; -- often with out.
Bartlett.
2. Naut.
To wind round spirally, as a large rope with a smaller, or with cord, the small rope lying in the spaces between the strands of the large one; to worm.
Snake, v. i.
To crawl like a snake.
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