The snake, its scales like armour shielding it,
Stood fast unscathed, its hard black carapace
Bounced the blow back; but that hard armour failed
To foil the javelin that pierced its spine
Deep in the midmost coil, with the full length
Of iron buried in the serpent's side.
In agony it twisted back its head
To see the wound, and bit the deep-sunk shaft,
And straining it from side to side at last
Wrenched it away--but still the iron stuck fast.

Now to its natural rage new source of rage
Was added. In its throat the arteries
Swelled huge; its poison fangs were flecked with foam;
Its scales scraped rasping on the rocks; its breath
Like the black blast that stinks from holes of Hell,
Befouled the fetid air. And now it coils
In giant spirals, now it towers up
Tall as a tree, now like a stream in spate
After a storm it rushes surging on,
And breasts aside the woods that bar its way.
Cadmus steps back; his lion's spoil withstands
The onslaught; his long lance's point,
Thrust forward, keeps the darting fangs at bay.
The snake is frenzied; on the unyeilding iron
It wastes its wounds and bites the metal point.
Then from its venom-laden lips an ooze
Of blood began and spattered the green grass.
The wound was slight, for, shrinking from the thrust,
It turned its injured neck away and kept
The blow from piercing deep and striking home.
Cadmus pressed on and drove the firm-lodged lance
Deep in the creature's gullet, till an oak
Blocked its retreat and snake and oak were nailed
Together. Burdened by the serpent's weight
The tree bent curving down; its strong trunk groaned
Beneath the lashings of that writhing tail.

Then as the victor contemplates his foe,
His vanquished foe so vast, a sudden voice
Is heard, its source not readily discerned,
But heard for very sure: 'Why, Cadmus, why

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