And the Minyae, when they knew it, afterwards took up the corpse and buried it in the earth, mourning; and the sheep they took with them.
[Footnote 1: This seems to be the only possible translation, but the optative is quite anomalous.

We should expect [Greek: ekomizes].] Thereupon on the same day a pitiless fate seized Mopsus too, son of Ampycus; and he escaped not a bitter doom by his prophesying; for there is no averting of death.

Now there lay in the sand, avoiding the midday heat, a dread serpent, too sluggish of his own will to strike at an unwilling foe, nor yet would he dart full face at one that would shrink back.

But into whatever of all living beings that life-giving earth sustains that serpent once injects his black venom, his path to Hades becomes not so much as a cubit's length, not even if Paeeon, if it is right for me to say this openly, should tend him, when its teeth have only grazed the skin.

For when over Libya flew godlike Perseus Eurymedon--for by that name his mother called him--bearing to the king the Gorgon's head newly severed, all the drops of dark blood that fell to the earth, produced a brood of those serpents.