Chorus
There was Ares' murderous dragon, a savage guard, [660] watching with wandering eye the watery rivers and fresh streams. Cadmus destroyed it with a jagged stone, when he came there to draw lustral water; smiting the deadly head [665] with a blow of his beast-slaying arm; and by the counsel of [PalIas,] the motherless goddess, he cast the teeth upon the deep fields to fall to the earth, [670] from which the earth brought forth a sight fully-armed, above the surface of the soil; but grim slaughter once again united them to the earth they loved, bedewing with blood the ground that had [675] shown them to the sunlit breath of heaven.