I greatly enjoyed the exchange about the snake in the grass and its
evolution as described by Peter Bryant:
So it seems that by the Renaissance ,if not earlier, Virgil's snake
which in the context of the original poem was merely a dangerous
reptile, has in its long life as as a Latin tag and
Well, here's one example of how the phrase is currently understood:
Who has not known the fear of trust betrayed, when a cuckoo is uncovered
in the nest, a viper in the bosom, a snake in the grass? (Louise Guinness,
reviewing Sophia Watson's novel The Perfect Treasure in Literary Review,
May
Learned? I can't vouch for this adjective being applicable to my response;
but of the cuckoo, I believe she means sexual betrayal: to be cuckholded, to
find someone else in your bed with your lover.
As for the viper in the busom, I think this is easily understood; and it
sounds very like Lady
