1And now the god had laid aside the likeness of the deceiving bull and confessed himself, and was holding the fields of Dicte, when her father, knowing nothing, orders Cadmus to search out the stolen girl, and adds exile as his penalty if he does not find her, dutiful and wicked in one and the same act. 6Having wandered the whole world (for who could detect the thefts of Jupiter?), Agenor's son, a fugitive, shuns both his country and his father's anger, and as a suppliant consults the oracle of Phoebus and asks what land he should dwell in. 10'A cow will meet you,' says Phoebus, 'in lonely fields, one that has borne no yoke and is free of the curved plough.
12With her as your guide take your way, and where she has rested on the grass, see that you found walls, and call them Boeotian.' 14Scarcely had Cadmus come down from the Castalian cave when he sees a heifer walking slowly, unguarded, bearing on her neck no sign of servitude. 17He follows behind and traces her footprints with measured step, and silently worships Phoebus, the author of his path. 19Now he had passed the shallows of Cephisus and the fields of Panope: the cow halted, and lifting to the sky her brow, handsome with its tall horns, she struck the air with lowing, and then, looking back at the companions following behind her, she lay down and sank her flank into the tender grass.
24Cadmus gives thanks, plants kisses on the foreign earth, and greets the unknown mountains and fields. 26He was about to offer sacrifice to Jupiter. 26He orders his attendants to go and fetch water for libation from running springs. 28There stood an ancient wood, violated by no axe, and in its midst a cave, thick with brushwood and osiers, making a low arch with its joined stones, rich in abundant waters; hidden in the cave was the serpent of Mars, conspicuous with crests and gold; 33his eyes flash with fire, his whole body swells with venom, three tongues flicker, his teeth stand in a triple row. 35When the men who had set out from the Tyrian race had reached this grove with ill-omened step, and the urn let down into the waters made a sound, the dark-blue serpent thrust his head out from the long cave and sent forth dreadful hisses.
39The urns slipped from their hands, the blood left their bodies, and a sudden trembling seizes their stunned limbs. 41He twists his scaly coils in rolling knots and with a leap curves himself into huge arches, and, raised up more than half his length into the light air, looks down on the whole grove, and is of a body as great as, if you saw him whole, the Serpent that separates the twin Bears. 46Without delay he falls upon the Phoenicians, whether they were preparing weapons or flight, or whether fear itself was preventing both: some he kills with his bite, some with his long embraces, some with the breath of his deadly poison's corruption.
50The sun at its highest had now made the shadows short: Agenor's son wonders what is delaying his companions, and tracks the men. 52His covering was a hide stripped from a lion, his weapon a lance with gleaming iron and a javelin, and a spirit more excellent than any weapon. 55When he entered the grove and saw the slain bodies, and above them the victorious enemy of vast body licking their grim wounds with bloody tongue, 'Most faithful bodies,' he says, 'I shall be either the avenger of your death or its companion.' 59He spoke, and with his right hand he lifted a millstone and hurled it, huge, with a huge effort.
61By its impact high walls with lofty towers would have been shaken: the serpent remained unwounded, and, defended by his scales as by a breastplate and by the hardness of his black hide, he drove back the strong blows with his skin. 65But that same hardness did not overcome the javelin as well: it stood fixed in the middle of the curve of his supple spine, and the whole iron went down into his guts. 68He, fierce with pain, twisted his head back towards his own back, looked at the wound, bit the shaft fixed in it, and when with great force he had loosened it in every direction, he scarcely tore it from his back; 71yet the iron stuck in his bones.
72Then indeed, after a fresh cause was added to his usual anger, his throat swelled with full veins, white foam flows around his pestilent jaws, the earth scraped by his scales resounds, and the black breath that comes from his Stygian mouth infects and taints the air. 77Now he coils himself into a vast circle with his spirals, now he stands straighter than a long beam, now with huge momentum he is borne along like a river roused by rains, and drives the woods in his way before him with his breast. 81Agenor's son gives ground a little, takes the onslaught on the lion's spoil, and holds back the pressing jaws with his spear-point held out before him.
83The serpent rages and deals vain wounds to the hard iron and fixes his teeth on its point. 85And now blood had begun to flow from his venom-bearing palate and had stained the green grass with its spray: but the wound was slight, because he kept drawing himself back from the blow, gave his wounded neck backwards, and by retreating prevented the stroke from settling and did not let it go further, until Agenor's son, following up all the way, pressed the iron driven into his throat, until an oak blocked him as he went back, and his neck was pinned together with the wood. 93The tree was bent by the serpent's weight, and groaned that its timber was lashed by the end of his tail.