noun. The Egyptian asp or cobra (Naja haje.) It is related to the cobra of India, and like the latter has the power of inflating its neck into a hood. Its bite is very venomous. It is supposed to be the snake by means of whose bite Cleopatra committed suicide, and hence is sometimes called Cleopatra's snake or asp. See asp.

"I get lost among the cornucopias of chotkies and tat, and am somehow spilled back out to the main Jemaa El F'na Square, where one charmeurs de serpent pulls me under his black umbrella and wags his head at his Egyptian Cobra actually, Naja haje legionis, a sub-species found in southern Morocco as his associate blows his bagpipe-like melody in his ghaita."

asp  cleopatra's snake