Meantime the wretched Cadmus mourns, nor knows That they who mortal fell, immortal rose. With a long series of new ills oppress’d, He droops, and all the man forsakes his breast: Strange prodigies confound his frighted eyes; From the fair city, which he raised, he flies; As it misfortune not pursued his race, But only hung o’er that devoted place. Resolved by sea to seek some distant land, At last he safely gain’d the Illyrian strand. Cheerless himself, his consort still he cheers, Hoary, and laden both with woes and years. Then to recount past sorrows they begin, And trace them to the gloomy origin. “That serpent sure was hallow’d,” Cadmus cried, “Which once my spear transfix’d with foolish pride; When the big teeth, a seed before unknown, By me along the wond’ring glebe were sown, And sprouting armies by themselves o’erthrown. If thence the wrath of heaven on me is bent, May heaven conclude it with one sad event; To an extended serpent change the man;” And, while he spoke, the wish’d-for change began. His skin with sea-green spots was varied round,