Translation
​ The highest sun had now made the shadows small: what delay was to Cadmus’s friends, was wondered by the son of Agenore, and he searches for the men. His protection was the having been stripped skin of the lion, his weapon a spear shining with iron, and javelin and a mind sharper than any weapon. As he entered the woods and saw the having been slayed bodies, and above the victorious enemy of a spacious body licking at their sad wounds with a bloody tongue, he said ‘most faithful hearts I will either become the avenger of your death, or your companion’. He picked up a large stone with his right hand and threw it with great effort. Steep walls with high towers would be destroyed by the force of this, the serpent remained without wound, protected by only scales of its breastplate and the hardness of its dark hide repelled the strong blow with skin; but the same hardness did not also conquer the spear, which was stuck immovable in the middle of the curve of its flexible back and the entire blade penetrated into its guts. The serpent, angry with pain, twisted its head at its own back and saw the wounds and gnawed the unwavering spear shaft, and when it loosened in every part with much force, it scarcely escaped from its back; nevertheless, the iron stuck in the bone. Then indeed new cause added to accustomed anger, its throat began to swell with filled veins, and white foam flowed around the destructive jaw, the Earth sounded with scraping scales, and each black breath from the Stygian mouth left, poisoned the damaged air. Just now he himself was surrounded by spirals making an immense circle, sometimes it stands straighter than a tree trunk, now it was brought forth with an immense strike like a river with rainwater collected and knocks down obstructing trees with its chest. The son of Agenor retreats a little and he guards with the skin of a lion and repels the jaws of the onslaught with his sword tip having been held out. The serpent rages and, foolish, bites the wound with hard iron and drives the sharpened point into into its teeth. And now blood had begun to flow from its poison throat and tinge green grass with blood; but the wound was slight because the serpent was drawing back from the thrust and was giving back its hurt neck and, yielding needing to defend the wound, it was not permitting the iron to go deeper. The son of Agenor, while following, pressed the having been hurled iron all the way into its throat, until an oak tree blocked its backwards course and its neck was fixed together with hard oak. The tree was bent by the weight of the serpent and the hard oak groaned with its lower part with the lashing of its own tail.
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