Seps (legendary creature)

For similar terms, see Tetradactylus and SEPS.

A seps is a legendary snake from medieval bestiaries. They were said to have extremely corrosive venom that liquefied their prey.^[1]

Seps (Bestiary Harley MS 3244, ff 36r-71v, 13th century, British Library).

Seps (Royal Bestiary MS 12 C XIX; 1200-1210).

Lucan's Pharsalia refers to its appearance and the effects of its poison.

... Clinging to his skin
A Seps with curving tooth, of little size,
He seized and tore away, and to the sands
Pierced with his javelin. Small the serpent's bulk;
None deals a death more horrible in form.
For swift the flesh dissolving round the wound
Bared the pale bone; swam all his limbs in blood;
Wasted the tissue of his calves and knees:
And all the muscles of his thighs were thawed
In black distilment, and file membrane sheath
Parted, that bound his vitals, which abroad
Flowed upon earth: yet seemed it not that all
His frame was loosed, for by the venomous drop
Were all the bands that held his muscles drawn
Down to a juice; the framework of his chest
Was bare, its cavity, and all the parts
Hid by the organs of life, that make the man.^[2]

Shelley in Prometheus Unbound writes:

...all my being,
Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw
Into a dew with poison, is dissolved...^[3]

Similarly, the seps is described as "a small snake which consumes with its poison not just the body but the bones" in the medieval Aberdeen Bestiary.^[4]

See also

• Tetradactylus seps
• Chalcides sepsoides