But Cadmus does not know that both his daughter
and grandson have become sea-deities.
Too much despair, too many signs of grief,
misfortunes, heap on heap, have left the king
a slave to sorrow; he who founded Thebes
now leaves his city—as if this ill fate
did not have him as target, but the place.
Latin [543–67]
Together with his wife, he wandered long
until, at last, he reached Illyria.
Weighed down by years and woes, those two recalled
the early trials that had beset their house
and their own troubles. Cadmus then spoke out:
“That serpent I transfixed when we first came
from Sidon—you remember him, the snake
whose teeth I scattered on the ground, the seed
from which we saw a strange crop sprout—was he
a sacred serpent? If the gods’ intent
in all they have inflicted is revenge
for that, then may I, too, become a snake:
let me be stretched into a serpent’s shape.”
No sooner was this said than—like a snake’s—
his belly stretched, and he could feel the scales
that sprouted on his toughened skin; his body
grew darker and was marked by blue-gray spots.
He fell, face down, upon his cheeks; his legs
were gradually linked in one same form
that—drawn out—ended in a slender point.
His arms were left, and while they still remained—
even as tears stained his still-human face—
he stretched those arms and cried: “O my poor wife,
come, come, draw closer; just as long as I
can claim some remnant of my self, touch me:
hold fast my hand, while it is still my limb—
before the snake invades the whole of me!”
He wanted to say more, but suddenly
his tongue was split, and every time he tried
to utter some lament, he hissed—and that
was all the voice that nature let him keep.
His wife struck her bare breast and cried: “Stay! Stay!
O my sad Cadmus, shed this monstrous shape!
What’s happening? Where are your feet? Where are
your shoulders and your hands, your face? I speak—
but everything you are keeps vanishing.
Why, gods of heaven, not inflict on me
Latin [567–94]
the form that he has taken: let me be
a serpent, too!” These were her words. He linked
his dear wife’s face and slid between her breasts
as if he knew them well; and he caressed
Harmonia, seeking her familiar neck.
Their comrades (those who’d journeyed out with them)
looked on in horror. But she only stroked
the crested dragon’s slippery neck: at once
there were two snakes with intertwining folds,
who glided off into the nearby woods
to hide themselves. And even to this day
that pair do not flee men and don’t attack.
Mild serpents, they remember who they were.
Yet Cadmus and Harmonia can take
some comfort: even in their serpent shape
they are consoled by Bacchus’ godly state;
now India, converted, venerates
their grandson; and Achaia celebrates
his rites in crowded shrines.