Metamorphoses by Ovid

And now the god, his bestial form resign'd, Shone in his form celestial as he gain'd The Cretan shore. Meantime, the theft unknown, Mourn'd her sad sire, and Cadmus sent to seek The ravish'd maid; stern threatening as he went, Perpetual exile if his searching fail'd: Parental love and cruelty combin'd! All earth explor'd in vain, (for who shall find The amorous thefts of Jove?) the exile shuns His father's anger, and paternal soil. A suppliant bends before Apollo's shrine, To ask his aid;--what region he should chuse To fix his habitation. Phoebus thus;-- "A cow, whose neck the yoke has never prest, "Strange to the crooked plough, shall meet thy steps, "Lone in the desert fields: the way she leads "Chuse thou,--rand where upon the grass she rests, "Erect thy walls;--Boeotia call the place." Scarce had the cave Castalian Cadmus left, When he an heifer, gently pacing, spy'd Untended; one whose neck no mark betray'd Of galling service. Closely treads the youth, Slow moving in her footsteps, and adores In silence Phoebus, leader of his way. Now had he pass'd the Cephisidian stream, And meads of Panope, when stay'd the beast; Her broad front lifted to the sky; reverse Her lofty horns reclining, shook the air With lowings loud; back then her face she bent, And saw the comrades following close behind: Down low she couch'd, and press'd the yielding grass, Glad thanks to Phoebus, Cadmus gave, and kiss'd The foreign soil; --the unknown hills, and land Saluted. Then a sacrifice to Jove Preparing, sent his followers to explore Streams flowing from the living fountain clear.

An ancient forest hallow'd from the axe, Not far there stood; in whose dark bosom gloom'd A cavern:twigs and branches thick inwove With rocky crags, a low arch'd entrance form'd; Where pure and copious, gush'd transparent waves. Deep hid within a monstrous serpent lay, Sacred to Mars. Bright shone his crested head; His eyeballs glow'd with fire; his body swell'd Bloated with poison; o'er a threefold row Of murderous teeth, three quivering tongues he shook. This grove the Tyrians with ill-fated feet Now enter'd; and now in the waters threw, With noisy dash, their urns. Uprears his head, The azure serpent from the cavern deep; And breathes forth hisses dire: their urns they drop; The blood forsakes their bodies; sudden fear Chills their astonish'd limbs. He writhing quick, Forms scaly circles; spiral twisting round, Bends in an arch immense to leap, and rears In the thin air erect, 'bove half his height; All the wide grove o'erlooking. Such his size, Could all be seen, than that vast snake no less, Whose huge bulk lies the Arctic bears between. The Tyrians quick he seizes; some their arms Vain grasping,--flying some,--and some through fear To fight or fly unable:these his jaws Crash murderous; those his writhing tail surrounds; Others his breath, with poison loaded, kills.