Oxford and Cambridge Club.
_Serpent with a human Head_ (Vol. iv., pp. 191. 331.).--Perhaps the most
ancient representations of this figure are to be found in those papyri of
the ancient Egyptians, called the Ritual, or prayers of the dead, in which
are depicted the progress or peregrination of the soul through the regions
of the nether world, or Hades, to a future state of existence. Fac-similes
of the Ritual have been published in Rosellini's _Monumenti dell' Egitto_,
Dr. Lepsius's _Todten-Buch_, the plates of Lord Belmore's _Collection of
Hieroglyphic Monuments_, and in the great French work entitled _Description
de l'Egypte_. A similar form occurs also in several of the woodcuts
inserted in the _prose_ version, (printed at Paris by Antoine Verard in
1499) of Guillaume de Guileville's poem entitled _Le Pélerinaige de l'Ame_,
a monastic legend of the fourteenth century, evidently founded on the old
Egyptian belief. At the end of the pilgrimage represented in the Egyptian
papyri, the soul is conducted by her guardian angel into the great Hall of
Judgment, where the deeds done in the body are placed in the balance in the
presence of Osiris, the judge of the assize, who passes sentence. A
representation of the same scene became a favourite decoration in mediæval
Christian churches, of which many vestiges have been discovered of late
years in this country; with this difference, that in these fresco-paintings
St. Michael was substituted, as judge of the tribunal, for Osiris. In the
woodcuts above mentioned, published by Verard, _the woman-headed serpent_
pursues the soul, like an accusing spirit, into the Hall of Judgment, seats
herself even in one of the scales of the balance to counterpoise the good
deeds placed in the opposite scale by the soul, telling her at the same
time that her name is Sinderesis, or the WORM _of Conscience_. Thus, by a
circuitous route, we arrive at the signification of the original Egyptian
symbol.