Various 
John Webster (1580?–1634).  The Duchess of Malfi.
 The Harvard Classics.  1909–14.
    
 FERD.  To drive six snails before me from this town to Moscow; neither use goad nor whip
   to them, but let them take their own time;—the patient’st man i’ th’ world match me for an
   experiment:—an I ’ll crawl after like a sheep-biter. 

Surely, of all creatures we eat, we are most brutal to snails. Helix optera is dug out
of the earth where he has been peacefully enjoying his summer sleep, cracked like
an egg, and eaten raw, presumably alive. Or boiled in oil. Or roasted in the hot
ashes of a wood fire.... If God is a snail, Bosch’s depictions of Hell are going to
look like a vicarage tea-party.

   
Angela Carter (1940–1992)



Back to snails in literature
Back to main page