Vipera Cappadocem nocitura mormordit; at illa Gustato peril sanguine Cappadocis. A deadly echidna once bit a Cappadocian; she herself died, having tasted the Poison-flinging blood. Demodocus. Trans. of his Greek Epigram.
Un gros serpent mordit Aurèle. Que croyez-vous quil arriva? Qu Aurèle en mourut? Bagatelle! Ce fut le serpent qui creva. In a MS. commonplace book, written probably at end of 18th Cen. See Notes and Queries. March 30, 1907. P. 246.
Hier auprès de Charenton Un serpent morait Jean Fréron, Que croyez-vous quil arriva? Ce fut le serpent qui creva. Imitation from the Greek. Found also in uvres Complèts de Voltaire. III. P. 1002. (1817). Printed as Voltaires; attributed to Piron; claimed for Fréron.
The man recoverd of the bite, The dog it was that died. GoldsmithElegy on the Death of a Mad Dog. Same idea in ManassesFragmenta. Ed. Boissonade. I. 323. (1819).
While Fell was reposing himself in the hay, A reptile concealed bit his leg as he lay; But, all venom himself, of the wound he made light, And got well, while the scorpion died of the bite. LessingParaphrase of Demodocus.
All men carry about them that which is poyson to serpents: for if it be true that is reported, they will no better abide the touching with mans spittle than scalding water cast upon them: but if it happen to light within their chawes or mouth, especially if it come from a man that is fasting, it is present death. PlinyNatural History. Bk. VII. Ch. II. Hollands trans.
In gährend Drachengift hast du Die Milch der frommen Denkart mir verwandelt. To rankling poison hast thou turned in me the milk of human kindness. SchillerWilhelm Tell. IV. 3. 3.
Let me have A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear As will disperse itself through all the veins That the life-weary taker may fall dead And that the trunk may be dischargd of breath As violently as hasty powder fird Doth hurry from the fatal cannons womb. Romeo and Juliet. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 59.
Talk no more of the lucky escape of the head From a flint so unhappily thrown; I think very different from thousands; indeed Twas a lucky escape for the stone. Wolcot (Peter Pindar). On a Stone thrown at George III.