Rosanne said:
Poor Ophiucus poisoned by a snake and bitten on the toe too!
Actually, I just went through a whole post on Ophiucus...if we go by the actual Greek myth, he wasn't poisoned by a snake--rather, he had a snake wrapped around a staff as his symbol of being a healer. This was, in part, because he had the blood of Medusa (serpent-headed) which allowed him to heal or poison folk.
The interesting thing is that the snake about the staff symbol became mixed up with Hermes' wand--which was originally a messanger wand with two ribbons. Those ribbons were replaced by snakes, and Hermes/Mercury, who was Lord of Alchemists, became the god of healers, his wand the symbol of doctors--thanks, in part, to the mix-up with Ophiucus-the-doctor-god's staff.
Which is why the Magician in the Tarot stands for doctors if one is using a deck where the Magician is ruled by Mercury.
I also note some fascinating recursion of myths here. Like the mention of Phorbas who cleansed a Greek Isle of serpents (can we say, "St. Patrick"?), like the staff with it's serpent being related to the staff-turned-to-serpent trick that Moses pulls off, and also to the serpent in Hindu which goes up the spine, Chakra to Chakra. I note that in this constellation, the serpent is wrapped about the guy rather than about a staff, more like the Serpent wrapped about the branches of the Tree of Knowledge.
And, finally, this very much explains why Scorpio is often related to serpents--not only the relationship of poisons but the closeness of Scorpio to this constellation, so close that there's some confusion about which should be the Zodiac sign!
All really fascinating stuff! Wouldn't that have been interesting if the Ophiucus constellation had been picked over Scorpio to be the sign...In some ways, it really suits Scorpio: can poison or heal.