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From "The Cask of Amontillado" by E. A. Poe :

"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent
rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel."

Maybe the most famous description of a human foot trampling
a snake in the worldwide litterature. Is it a woman's foot...? I like to think it is...

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From "The Italian in England" by Robert Browning :

But when I saw that woman's face,
Its calm simplicity of grace,
Our Italy's own attitude
In which she walked thus far, and stood,
Planting each naked foot so firm,
To crush the snake and spare the worm -

A simple and kind description. By clicking here You'll see a beautiful italian
peasant-girl portrayed by the french painter Bouguereau,
that could be a perfect "actress" for those verses...

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From "A une Madone" by Charles Baudelaire :

Je mettrai le serpent qui me mord les entrailles
Sous Tes talons, afin que Tu foules et Tu railles
Reine victorieuse et féconde en rachats
ce monstre tout gonflé de haine et de crachats -
( I'll put the snake that bites my interiors/under Your heels, so that You trample and mock/
Victorious Queen and redemption's Maker,/that monster filled with hate and spits)


Apparently dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, in reality this poem was
composed for a woman the poet liked so much.

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From "Lucile" by Owen Meredith :

The mission of the Woman : permitted to bruise
the head of the serpent, and sweetly infuse[...]
the blessing which mitigates all...

A forgotten - and tiring, to be honest - victorian poem, with this interesting "flash"..

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"In Desert and Wilderness" by Henryk Sienkiewicz

In this novel by Sienkiewicz - the author of "Quo Vadis" - which tells the adventures
of two children lost in 1880 Sudan, an elephant ( named King by the girl) becomes friend
to the two young people, and crushes for fun a python underfoot.
Very good description !

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