Book 9
Where land nor sea prevails. A cloud of spray
1
Marked fell Chelyder's track: and Cenchris rose
Straight gliding to his prey, his belly tinged
With various spots unnumbered, more than those
Which paint the Theban marble; horned snakes
With spines contorted: like to torrid sand
Ammodytes, of hue invisible:
Sole of all serpents Scytale to shed
In vernal frosts his slough; and thirsty Dipsas;
Dread Amphisbaena with his double head
Tapering; and Natrix who in bubbling fount
Fuses his venom. Greedy Prester swells
His foaming jaws; Pareas, head erect
Furrows with tail alone his sandy path;
Swift Jaculus there, and Seps whose poisonous juice
Makes liquid bone and flesh: and there upreared
His regal head, and frighted from his track
With sibilant terror all the subject swarm,
Baneful ere darts his poison, Basilisk The glance of the eye of the basilisk or cockatrice was supposed to be deadly. See King Richard III, Act i, Scene 2: Gloucester. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine. Anne. Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead! The word is also used for a big cannon (' 1 King Henry IV.,' Act ii., Scent 3).
In sands deserted king. Ye serpents too
Who in all other regions harmless glide
Adored as gods, and bright with golden scales,
Are deadly here: for Afric air inhaled
Bestows malignant gift, as poised on wings
Whole herds of kine ye follow, and with coils
Encircling close, crush in the mighty bull.
Nor does the elephant in his giant bulk,
Nor aught, find safety; and ye need no fang
Nor poison, to compel the fatal end.
Amid these pests undaunted Cato urged
His desert journey on. His hardy troops
Beneath his eyes, pricked by a scanty wound,
In strangest forms of death unnumbered fall.
Tyrrhenian Aulus, bearer of a flag,
Trod on a Dipsas; quick with head reversed
The serpent struck; no mark betrayed the tooth:
The aspect of the wound nor threatened death,
Nor any evil; but the poison germ
In silence working as consuming fire
Absorbed the moisture of his inward frame,
