Book 3
and offered salutation to the fields
1
and unexplored hills. Then he prepared
to make large sacrifice to Jupiter,
and ordered slaves to seek the living springs
whose waters in libation might be poured.
There was an ancient grove, whose branching trees
had never known the desecrating ax,
where hidden in the undergrowth a cave,
with oziers bending round its low-formed arch,
was hollowed in the jutting rocks—deep-found
in the dark center of that hallowed grove—
beneath its arched roof a beauteous stream
of water welled serene. Its gloom concealed
a dragon, sacred to the war-like Mars;
crested and gorgeous with radescent scales,
and eyes that sparkled as the glow of coals.
A deadly venom had puffed up his bulk,
and from his jaws he darted forth three tongues,
and in a triple row his sharp teeth stood.
Now those who ventured of the Tyrian race,
misfortuned followers of Cadmus, took
the path that led them to this grove; and when
they cast down-splashing in the springs an urn,
the hidden dragon stretched his azure head
out from the cavern's gloom, and vented forth
terrific hissings. Horrified they dropped
their urns. A sudden trembling shook their knees;
and their life-blood was ice within their veins.
The dragon wreathed his scales in rolling knots,
and with a spring, entwisted in great folds,
reared up his bulk beyond the middle rings,
high in the air from whence was given his gaze
the extreme confines of the grove below.
A size prodigious, his enormous bulk,
if seen extended where was naught to hide,
would rival in its length the Serpent's folds,
involved betwixt the planes of the Twin Bears.
The terrified Phoenicians, whether armed
for conflict, or in flight precipitate,
or whether held incapable from fear,
