Theouroboros (/ˌʊərəˈbɒrəs/[2]) oruroboros (/ˌjʊərəˈbɒrəs/[3]) is an ancientsymbol depicting asnake ordragon[4]eating its own tail. The ouroboros entered Western tradition viaancient Egyptian iconography and theGreek magical tradition. It was adopted as a symbol inGnosticism andHermeticism and, most notably, inalchemy. Some snakes, such asrat snakes, have been known to consume themselves.[5]
The term derives from Ancient Greek οὐροβόρος,[6] fromοὐράoura 'tail' plus-βορός-boros '-eating'.[7][8]
Theouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or acycle of life, death and rebirth; the snake'sskin sloughing symbolises thetransmigration of souls. The snake biting its own tail is a fertility symbol in some religions: the tail is aphallic symbol and the mouth is ayonic or womb-like symbol.[9]
One of the earliest known ouroborosmotifs is found in theEnigmatic Book of the Netherworld, anancient Egyptian funerary text inKV62, the tomb ofTutankhamun, in the 14th century BCE. The text concerns the actions ofRa and his union withOsiris in theunderworld. The ouroboros is depicted twice on the figure: holding their tails in their mouths, one encircling the head and upper chest, the other surrounding the feet of a large figure, which may represent the unified Ra-Osiris (Osiris born again as Ra). Both serpents are manifestations of the deityMehen, who in other funerary texts protects Ra in his underworld journey. The whole divine figure represents the beginning and the end of time.[10]
The ouroboros appears elsewhere in Egyptian sources, where, like many Egyptian serpent deities, it represents the formless disorder that surrounds the orderly world and is involved in that world's periodic renewal.[11] The symbol persisted from Egyptian intoRoman times, when it frequently appeared on magicaltalismans, sometimes in combination with other magical emblems.[12] The 4th-century CE Latin commentatorServius was aware of the Egyptian use of the symbol, noting that the image of a snake biting its tail represents the cyclical nature of the year.[13]
InGnosticism, a serpent biting its tail symbolised eternity and the soul of the world.[14] The GnosticPistis Sophia (c. 400 CE) describes the ouroboros as a twelve-part dragon surrounding the world with its tail in its mouth.[15]
The famous ouroboros drawing from the earlyalchemical text,TheChrysopoeia of Cleopatra (Κλεοπάτρας χρυσοποιία), probably originally dating to the 3rd centuryAlexandria, but first known in a 10th-century copy, encloses the wordshen to pan (ἓν τὸ πᾶν), "the all isone". Its black and white halves may perhaps represent aGnosticduality of existence, analogous to theTaoistyin and yang symbol.[16] Thechrysopoeia ouroboros ofCleopatra the Alchemist is one of the oldest images of the ouroboros to be linked with the legendaryopus of the alchemists, thephilosopher's stone.[citation needed]
A 15th-century alchemical manuscript,The Aurora Consurgens, features the ouroboros, where it is used among symbols of the sun, moon, and mercury.[17]
![Engraving of a wyvern-type ouroboros by Lucas Jennis, in the 1625 alchemical tract De Lapide Philosophico. The figure serves as a symbol for mercury.[18]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aOuroboros_1.jpg)
InNorse mythology, the ouroboros appears as the serpentJörmungandr, one of the three children ofLoki andAngrboda, which grew so large that it could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth. In the legends ofRagnar Lodbrok, such asRagnarssona þáttr, the Geatish kingHerraud gives a smalllindworm as a gift to his daughterÞóra Town-Hart after which it grows into a large serpent which encircles the girl'sbower and bites itself in the tail. The serpent is slain by Ragnar Lodbrok who marries Þóra. Ragnar later has a son with another woman namedKráka and this son is born with the image of a white snake in one eye. This snake encircled the iris and bit itself in the tail, and the son was namedSigurd Snake-in-the-Eye.[19]
It is a common belief amongindigenous people of the tropical lowlands of South America that waters at the edge of the world-disc are encircled by a snake, often an anaconda, biting its own tail.[20]
The ouroboros has certain features in common with the BiblicalLeviathan. According to theZohar, the Leviathan is a singular creature with no mate, "its tail is placed in its mouth", whileRashi onBaba Batra 74b describes it as "twisting around and encompassing the entire world". The identification appears to go back as far as the poems ofKalir in the 6th–7th centuries.[citation needed]
In theAitareya Brahmana, aVedic text of the early 1st millennium BCE, the nature of theVedic rituals is compared to "a snake biting its own tail."[21]
Ouroboros symbolism has been used to describe theKundalini.[22] According to the medievalYoga-kundalini Upanishad: "The divine power, Kundalini, shines like the stem of a young lotus; like a snake, coiled round upon herself she holds her tail in her mouth and lies resting half asleep as the base of the body" (1.82).[23]
Storl (2004) also refers to the ouroboros image in reference to the "cycle ofsamsara".[24]
Swiss psychiatristCarl Jung saw the ouroboros as anarchetype and the basicmandala of alchemy. Jung also defined the relationship of the ouroboros to alchemy: Carl Jung,Collected Works, Vol. 14 para. 513.
The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of theindividuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that theprima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feedback' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself, and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he, therefore, constitutes the secret of theprima materia which ... unquestionably stems from man's unconscious.
The Jungian psychologistErich Neumann writes of it as a representation of the pre-ego "dawn state", depicting the undifferentiated infancy experience of both humankind and the individual child.[25]
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The German organic chemistAugust Kekulé described theeureka moment when he realised the structure ofbenzene, after he saw a vision of Ouroboros:[26]
I was sitting, writing at my text-book; but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis.
Martin Rees used the ouroboros to illustrate the various scales of the universe, ranging from 10−20 cm (subatomic) at the tail, up to 1025 cm (supragalactic) at the head.[27] Rees stressed "the intimate links between the microworld and the cosmos, symbolised by theouraborus", as tail and head meet to complete the circle.[28]
W. Ross Ashby applied ideas from biology to his own work as a psychiatrist in "Design for a Brain" (1952): that living things maintain essential variables of the body within critical limits with the brain as a regulator of the necessary feedback loops. Parmar contextualises his practices as an artist in applying the cybernetic Ouroboros principle to musical improvisation.[29]
Hence the snake eating its tail is an accepted image or metaphor in the autopoietic calculus for self-reference,[30] or self-indication, the logical processual notation for analysing and explaining self-producing autonomous systems and "the riddle of the living", developed byFrancisco Varela. Reichel describes this as:
an abstract concept of a system whose structure is maintained through the self-production of and through that structure. In the words ofKauffman, is "the ancient mythological symbol of the worm ouroboros embedded in a mathematical, non-numerical calculus".[31][32]
The calculus derives from the confluence of the cybernetic logic of feedback, the sub-disciplines ofautopoiesis developed by Varela andHumberto Maturana, and calculus of indications ofGeorge Spencer Brown. In another related biological application:
It is remarkable, that Rosen's insight, that metabolism is just a mapping ..., which may be too cursory for a biologist, turns out to show us the way to constructrecursively, by a limiting process, solutions of the self-referential Ouroborus equation f(f) = f, for an unknown function f, a way that mathematicians had not imagined before Rosen.[33][34]
Second-order cybernetics, or the cybernetics of cybernetics, applies the principle of self-referentiality, or the participation of the observer in the observed, to explore observer involvement.[35] including D. J. Stewart's domain of "observer valued imparities".[36]
The scientific name of thearmadillo girdled lizard (Ouroborus cataphractus) is derived from the animal's defensive posture: curling into a ball and holding its tail in its mouth.[37]
A medium-sizedEuropean hake, known in Spanish aspescadilla and in Portuguese aspescada, is often presented with its mouth biting its tail. In Spanish it receives the name ofpescadilla de rosca ("torus hake").[38] Both expressionsUma pescadinha de rabo na boca "tail-in mouth little hake" andLa pescadilla que se muerde la cola, "the hake that bites its tail", are proverbial Portuguese and Spanish expressions forcircular reasoning andvicious circles.[39]
TheKobe, Japan-basedDragon Gate Pro-Wrestling promotion used a stylised ouroboros as their logo for the first 20 years of the company's existence. The logo is a silhouetted dragon twisted into the shape of an infinity symbol, devouring its own tail. In 2019, the promotion dropped the infinity dragon logo in favour of a shield logo.
A variation of the Ouroboros motif is an important symbol in the fantasy novelThe Neverending Story byMichael Ende: featuring two snakes, one black and one white, biting the other's tail, this symbol represents the powerfulAURYN and the infinite nature of the story. The symbol is also featured prominently on the cover of both the fictional book and the novel.
The Worm Ouroboros is a high-fantasy novel written byE. R. Eddison. Much like the cyclical symbol of the ouroboros eating its own tail, the novel ends as it begins. The main villain has a ring in the form of Ouroboros.
InMexican Gothic the symbol is used throughout the story, portraying the immortality of the home and the family, as well as the persistence of outdated ideologies.[40]
InThe Wheel of Time and its2021 television adaption, the Aes Sedai wear a "Great Serpent" ring, described as a snake consuming its own tail.[41]
In the science fiction short story "All You Zombies" (1958) by American writerRobert A. Heinlein, the character Jane wears an Ouroboros ring, "the worm Ouroboros, the world snake".[42] The short story later inspired the moviePredestination (2014).
In theSCP Foundation universe, the proposal tale "The Ouroboros Cycle"[43] spans the story of the SCP Foundation from its creation to its ending.
In theA Discovery of Witches novels andtelevision adaptation, the crest of the de Clermont family is an ouroboros. The symbol plays a significant role in thealchemical plot of the story.
InThe Witcher, the Ouroboros and the "snake biting its own tail" is a recurring theme.
The protagonist ofThe First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (Catherine Webb) is part of a group of people called the Ouroborans orKalachakras: when they die they are born again in the same circumstances, with the knowledge of their previous lives.
The Ouroboros is the adopted symbol of theEnd Times-obsessedMillennium Group in the TV seriesMillennium.[44] It also briefly appears whenDana Scully gets a tattoo of it inThe X-Files Season 4 episode "Never Again" (1997).[45]
"Ouroboros" is an episode of the British science-fiction sitcomRed Dwarf, in whichDave Lister learns that he is his own father through time travel.[46]
The word is used in the filmAdaptation (2002) whereNicolas Cage, in the role of screenwriterCharlie Kaufman, realizes that he has written himself into the screenplay of the very film the audience is watching.
InNinjago (2012), the Lost City of Ouroboros (also referred to as the Ancient City of Ouroboros) serves as a pivotal location in the Serpentine's plan for vengeance against Ninjago.
InHemlock Grove (2013–2015), the ouroboros plays an important part throughout the series.
In Season 1 (2018) of thecyberpunk Netflix seriesAltered Carbon, the protagonistTakeshi Kovacs gets an ouroboros tattoo in shape of aninfinity symbol, and it features in the show's title sequence, tying in to the themes of rebirth and the twisting of the natural cycle of life and death.[47]
In theseason 2 premiere of the television seriesLoki, a character namedOuroboros (played byKe Huy Quan) is introduced. He is an employee of theTime Variance Authority. In the fourth episode, he also references a snake biting its own tail.[48]
In the animeFullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, members of thehomunculi race are identified by having the symbol carved/tattooed/branded/marked on them.[49]
The Abiranariba inThe Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is based on the ouroboros.
Splatoon 3 has a serpent-like Salmonid creature named after it, the Horrorboros.[50]
Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere's main antagonist group is a terrorist organization called Ouroboros, whose intention is to cripple Strangereal's megacorporations in the continent of Usea.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails features the enigmatic Society of Ouroboros, whose members serve as recurring antagonists in the series.
InXenoblade Chronicles 3, the main six characters wield a power named after Ouroboros, which is subversively used to oppose the cycle of death and rebirth in Aionios rather than representing it.[51][52]
InThe Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, an ouroboros spins on loading screens as an indication for the game loading.
A three-headed ouroboros is the logo ofElder Scrolls Online, with a lion, a dragon, and an eagle that represent the three main factions of the game.
InInscryption, Ouroboros is a playable card that has the ability to return to the player's hand as a stronger version of itself after it has been killed.
InKing Woman's albumCelestial Blues (2021), Ourobouros is alluded to in the song "Golgotha": "The snake eats its tail, we return again to this hell".[53]
InEthel Cain's albumPerverts (2025), Ourobouros is mentioned in the song "Pulldrone":
Twelve, desolation
Therein lies sacred geometry of onanism
Of ouroboros
Of punishment
I am that I was as I no longer am for I am nothing
Amen[54]
Ouroboros, a large public sculpture by Australian artistLindy Lee at theNational Gallery of Australia forecourt.[55][56] Members of the public are free to enter its 4 m "mouth".[57]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)La pescadilla se fríe en forma de rosca, de modo que la cola esté cogida por los dientes del pez.
While the foundation of combining auto-attacks, super-powered Arts, and attack combos remains largely intact, a plethora of options have been added that successfully staves off stagnation for over 100 hours – and that's no small feat! It's accomplished with (among other things) six playable characters plus a guest NPC that can be swapped out, new transformations that combine two characters into their Ouroburos form making them almost impossible to take down for a limited period of time, and returning chain attacks, which let you deal a ton of damage by playing a simple minigame.
The action kicks off by introducing the auto-attack and rhythmic deployment of Arts and specials that fans will know well from the rest of the series before unleashing the fantastical power of Ouroboros, giving our heroes the ability to Interlink, combining in pairs into great big Transformer-like beings with a variety of screen-shaking attacks that you'll need to make good use of as you go toe to toe with a rogue's gallery of gloriously hammy Moebius monsters.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
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