Looking further, it becomes more complicated.
There are TWO candidate 'heraldic dracunculi' images, commonly
confused. See
www.altjn.com/ideas/caduceus.pdf
A caduceus (Probably of Babylonian origin, later borne by Isis) is
Hermes's winged rod, with two serpents (which would be dracunculi)
entwined around it. A similar structure is the non-winged rod of
Aesculapius, also called Aaron's rod, a stick or staff, entwined with a
single serpent (one dracunculus).
One maybe Ada-relevant caduceus art item is Rubens's "Education of the
Princess" "that shows a maturing Marie de'Medici at study with Apollo,
Athena, and Hermes. .... Hermes dramatically rushes in on the scene and
literally brings a gift from the gods, the caduceus. ......the
caduceus, which is seen in six other paintings in the cycle, has also
been associated with peace and harmony."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_de%27_Medici_cycle)
( I apologize if the issue is well known but I could find nothing on
Nabokov-L on this topic, or in any of my Ada literature.)
Brian Boyd's Ada Online notes (1.3: 27.01-02) say just "unclear...
Dracunculi are little dragons".
Ilyin translation says "geraldicheskie gorynychi" - an interesting
interpretation forcing a specific image; Zmej Gorynych is a Russian
folktale three-headed dragon (a version of Zoroastrian Dahaka).
Agamemnon (Iliad, 11) had a blue three-headed dragon (or serpent) on
his shield.
It makes sense in context of "triplet" and "trilingual" (=
three-tongued, like Cerberus).
But why "dracunculus" ("little dragon)"?
It seems a particularly obscure topic. We need a Robert Langdon here!
Victor Fet
* P.S. ON TRIPLETS:
- the most revered Celtic god, identified by Caesar as a "Gaulish
Mercury" and named Lug [VERY close to Ada's Log!], who had a caduceus
with a pair of snakes, also sometimes had three faces or three phalli,
or was the sole survivor of triplets; Lugdunum (Lyons) comes from this
name.
- Some of the famous classical triplet sets are three Gorgons and also
the Horatii (Roman) / Curiatii (Alban) triplets.