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, Draining the natural juices that were spread Around his vitals; in his arid jaws Set flame upon his tongue: his wearied limbs No sweat bedewed; dried up, the fount of tears Fled from his eyelids.

Tortured by the fire Nor Cato's sternness, nor of his sacred charge The honour could withhold him; but he dared To dash his standard down, and through the plains Raging, to seek for water that might slake The fatal venom thirsting at his heart.
Plunge him in Tanais, in Rhone and Po, Pour on his burning tongue the flood of Nile, Yet were the fire unquenched.

So fell the fang Of Dipsas in the torrid Libyan lands; In other climes less fatal.

Next he seeks Amid the sands, all barren to the depths, For moisture: then returning to the shoals Laps them with greed -- in vain -- the briny draught Scarce quenched the thirst it made.

Nor knowing yet The poison in his frame, he steels himself To rip his swollen veins and drink the gore.
Cato bids lift the standard, lest his troops May find in thirst a pardon for the deed.
But on Sabellus' yet more piteous death Their eyes were fastened.