Saturday, October 27, 2007

Nemo Me Impune Lacessit (With a Snake)

None provokes me unpunished - Well, I will. This snake is awful, so is the sign. Is he trying to scare those who criticise his tattoo ?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well you're right about the snake... But you must remember that "Nemo Me Impune Lacessit" isn't just a random spew of Latin but is, in fact, the national motto of Scotland. So the use of that phrase is probably not meant just to look tough so much as to show the ancestral/national pride of the bearer.

But that's where the artist messed up: he's mixing emblems. The snake looks like a St. Andrew's blue version of the Gasden Flag rattler, which is usually accompanied by "Don't Tread On Me!", and with it connotations of George Washington, not of William Wallace. Instead, a better choice would be the Scottish thistle emblem, which is often accompanied by the former phrase.

Anonymous said...

The motto also appears (spelled "Nemo Me Impune Lacesset") above an American Timber Rattlesnake on a 1778 $20 bill from Georgia as an early example of the colonial use of the coiled rattlesnake symbol, which later became famous on the Gadsden flag.

Unknown said...

Learn your american history before you criticize.

Anonymous said...

Trimbandit - it still sucks American History or not.

Anonymous said...

also, this isn't to mention the possible Poe allusion ... Amontillado, anyone?

Anonymous said...

The guy probably just wanted to colorize the Metallica black album snake.

Shuk said...

Though the coloring is faded and it looks a bit old and stretched - the snake itself looks fairly accurate to the actual image he wanted done. Though, there are plenty of horribly ignorant comments on here from 'critics' who have no idea what they are commenting on most of the time.

Anonymous said...

Im glad i wasnt the first to make the Poe connection...

The phrase appears in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado"

Anonymous said...

Okay, idiot who talked about Metallica: Notice all that talk of the "Don't Tread On Me" ties to American history? Have a look at the track listing for the black album.