The dragon has long been a prominent figure in stories and legends. Tales of giant serpents are known of in most parts of the world. They are often used as the classical representation of the ultimate evil or sin and are typically greedy, cruel, and prideful beasts. For this reason, the dragon plays a central role in Henry Peacham's Emblem 58, Pulchritudo foeminea (female beauty).
Emblem 58 shows a naked virgin seated upon a dragon, holding a mirror in one hand and a dart in the other, with a garland upon on her head. The verse explains point by point the meaning of the elements.
This woman is the epitome of beauty, and thus she needs no 'art' or wiles to inspire love. The mere sight of her, as the mirror shows, moves men's hearts to love. However, this sudden inspiration of love is not without dangers. The dart she holds is a clear threat that is not immediately evident. The hidden wounds of the dart and the slow poison of the dragon combine to destroy, not necessarily love itself, but the people involved. Finally, the garland upon her head shows the weakness of womanly pride, because just as the flowers of the garland will quickly wilt and die away, so shall woman's pride.
When first looking at this emblem, one notices the dragon almost immediately, because it is such a prominent figure, both in this emblem and in popular legends, but it is not an element commonly seen in emblems. The dragon is closely related to the serpent, both biologically, according to Pliny, and mythologically.
In Pliny's Natural History, he states that the dragon is found mostly in India and Ethiopia, where it is warm year round, and that they can reach up to twenty cubits in length. They often cross the seas in fours and fives, all wrapped up together in a lattice form, using their heads as sails (Pliny Bk 8, Ch. 13), which may be where the legends of sea serpents come from. Additionally, it is written in the Aberdeen Bestiary that, "The dragon is bigger than all other snakes or all other living things on earth. (Aberdeen Bestiary 66l)" In fact, the dragon is the only animal which the elephant, with its overwhelming size, must fear. The Aberdeen Bestiary also gives a complete physical description which raises several issues.
The dragon has a crest, a small mouth, and narrow blow-holes through which it breathes and puts forth its tongue. Its strength lies not in its teeth but in its tail, and it kills with a blow rather than a bite. It is free from poison. They say that it does not need poison to kill things, because it kills anything around which it wraps its tail.
(Aberdeen Bestiary 66r)
This description departs from many traditional Western descriptions showing the dragon as a huge winged beast and also contradicts Peacham's use of the dragon to represent poison. It clearly states that the dragon "is free from poison." The dragon attacks the elephant by wrapping it in its coils and suffocating it. This image of the dragon is more akin to a huge boa constrictor than a poisonous viper, or a fire-breathing beast.
The dragon has many mythological references, ranging from the Bible, to the Greeks, to The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spencer. The strongest image of the dragon or great serpent has always been its representation of Satan. The serpent's appearances in the biblical books Genesis and Revelation have dominated Western Literature and its interpretations of the devil.
The serpent first appears in Genesis 3 and is described as "more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made." It proceeds to tempt Eve through reason and a desire to be like God. When God is punishing Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit he also curses the serpent for his role in the act. From this account, John Milton wrote his epic poem Paradise Lost.
The image of the devil as a serpent or dragon prevails in these poem, from the description of the fall to descriptions of his works and coming return. The most horrifying image of the dragon is given in Paradise Lost Book X, when Milton describes the transformation of the Lucifer and his kin into serpents:
The devil, being the greatest of the servants is described as "Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the Sun/Engendered in the Pythian Vale on slime, /Huge Python," which is a reference to the immense snake that the Greek god Apollo slew with a hundred silver arrows. A secondary usage of the term dragon within Paradise Lost refers to Pharaoh, the river-dragon, who sits at the head of the Nile, and is a lesser known characterization of the devil, but which appears in Ezekiel 27.
Sir Edmund Spenser also used the dragon as the icon of the ultimate evil in his epic poem The Faerie Queene. In Book I, the knight of Holiness, Sir Redcrosse, is given a quest by the queen of the faerie lands. He must slay the dragon that holds the parents of his companion, Una, captive. For Spenser, the poem was an allegory for contemporary England and the struggle of the Protestants versus the Catholic Church. Spenser's dragon is more characteristic of Western interpretations, as he describes it as,
This passage is the climactic scene of the first book and ties together all of Spenser's political, religious, and historical references. The dragon represents three ideas in Spenser's work: it is the devil, sin, and also the Catholic Church, and the knight represents Christ, the individual Christian, and the Protestants in their respective triumphs. The knight also happens to represent the story of St. George the Dragonslayer, patron saint of England.
The largest inspiration for the image of the devil as a dragon most likely stems from the Book of Revelation. Starting in Book 12 there is a description of a dragon playing the role of Satan in man's history (or future).
Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.
(Rev. 12:3-4)
This passage again emphasizes the power of the dragon's tail, as it is able to sweep the star from the sky. The crowns on its heads represent the temporal power it will have over the nations, if only for a short time. It also brings in the color of the dragon, red, which is now the color which is commonly used for Satan. This powerful imagery in one of the older and more influential works of history is most certainly the base for many of the later legends on evil dragons that sprang up in Europe.
The dragon has made many appearances in literature and mythology in history, almost always representing a great evil of some sort. It is always described with the most awesome, terrifying, and grotesque imagery, meant to instill fear in the hearts of men. Given that it usually characterizes the devil, the fear that this immense beast inspires is not necessarily misplaced. It will certainly continue to be such a symbol for many, many years.
-Rich Novak