Note 51 — MESSIAH,
Reading edition
Originally,
And with their forky tongue and pointless sting shall play.
Wakefield conjectures that Pope altered the line from having learnt the erroneousness of the vulgar belief that the sting of the serpent is in its tail. The expression he substituted in the text is borrowed from Dryden's Palamon and Arcite, quoted by Wakefield:
And troops of lions innocently play.