Serpent symbolism

The serpent, or snake, is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. The word is derived from Latin serpens, a crawling animal or snake. Snakes have been associated with some of the oldest rituals known to humankind and represent dual expression of good and evil. The historian of religions Mircea Eliade observed in The Myth of the Eternal Return, "the serpent symbolizes chaos, the formless and nonmanifested." In The Symbolism of the Cross, Traditionalist René Guénon contended that "the serpent will depict the series of the cycles of universal manifestation," "the indefinitude of universal Existence," and "the being's attachment to the indefinite series of cycles of manifestation." Recent academic book length treatments of serpent symbolism include James H. Charlesworth's The Good and Evil Serpent (2010) and Charles William Dailey's The Serpent Symbol in Tradition (2022).