Nor with whatever on the Red Sea is! Among this cruel and most dismal throng People were running naked and affrighted, Without the hope of hole or heliotrope. 350 They had their hands with serpents bound behind them; These riveted upon their reins the tail And head, and were in front of them entwined. And lo! at one who was upon our side There darted forth a serpent, which transfixed him There where the neck is knotted to the shoulders. Nor O so quickly e’er, nor I was written, As he took fire, and burned; and ashes wholly Behoved it that in falling he became. And when he on the ground was thus destroyed, The ashes drew together, and of themselves Into himself they instantly returned. Even thus by the great sages ’tis confessed The phoenix dies, and then is born again, 351