THE SCORPION. 317

you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
And again, in Revelation ix.: “And they had tails like
unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails; and
their power was to hurt men five months.”

That these creatures were familiar to the ancients, we have
proofs from profane as well as sacred writers. The zodiacal
constellation of the Scorpion was so named, it is said, from
the sting being inflicted by that animal as it retreats ; this
bearing a fancied resemblance to autumn, which was sup-
posed to leave a train of diseases as it disappeared. In the
Egyptian mythology the scorpion is the symbol of evil.