, mourning; and the sheep they took
with them.

(ll. 1502-1536) Thereupon on the same day a pitiless fate seized
Mopsus too, son of Ampycus; and he escaped not a bitter doom by his
prophesying; for there is no averting of death. Now there lay in the
sand, avoiding the midday heat, a dread serpent, too sluggish of his own
will to strike at an unwilling foe, nor yet would he dart full face at
one that would shrink back. But into whatever of all living beings that
life-giving earth sustains that serpent once injects his black venom,
his path to Hades becomes not so much as a cubit's length, not even if
Paeeon, if it is right for me to say this openly, should tend him, when
its teeth have only grazed the skin. For when over Libya flew godlike
Perseus Eurymedon for by that name his mother called him--bearing to the
king the Gorgon's head newly severed, all the drops of dark blood
that fell to the earth, produced a brood of those serpents. Now Mopsus
stepped on the end of its spine, setting thereon the sole of his left
foot; and it writhed round in pain and bit and tore the flesh between
the shin and the muscles. And Medea and her handmaids fled in terror;
but Canthus bravely felt the bleeding wound; for no excessive pain
harassed him. Poor wretch! Already a numbness that loosed his limbs was
stealing beneath his skin, and a thick mist was spreading over his eyes.
Straightway his heavy limbs sank helplessly to the ground and he grew
cold; and his comrades and the hero, Aeson's son, gathered round,
marvelling at the close-coming doom. Nor yet though dead might he lie
beneath the sun even for a little space. For at once the poison began to
rot his flesh within, and the hair decayed and fell from the skin. And
quickly and in haste they dug a deep grave with mattocks of bronze; and
they tore their hair, the heroes and the maidens, bewailing the dead
man's piteous suffering; and when he had received due burial rites,
thrice they marched round the tomb in full armour, and heaped above him
a mound of earth.

(ll. 1537-1553) But when they had gone aboard, as the south wind blew
over the sea, and they were searching for a passage to go forth from the
Tritonian lake, for long they had no device, but all the day were borne
on aimlessly. And as a serpent goes writhing along his crooked path when
the sun's fiercest rays scorch him; and with a hiss he turns his head to
this side and that, and in his fury his eyes glow like sparks of fire,