"A signal omen stopp'd the passing host, The martial fury in their wonder lost. Jove's bird on sounding pinions beat the skies; A bleeding serpent, of enormous size, His talons trussed; alive, and curling round, He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound. Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey, In airy circles wings his painful way, Floats on the winds, and rends the heav'ns with cries. Amid the host the fallen serpent lies. They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll'd, And Jove's portent with beating hearts behold."
Lord Derby's Iliad, book xii, 236:
"For this I read the future, if indeed To us, about to cross, this sign from Heaven Was sent, to leftward of the astonished crowd: A soaring eagle, bearing in his claws A dragon huge of size, of blood-red hue, Alive; yet dropped him ere he reached his home, Nor to his nestlings bore the intended prey."
Cicero's telling of the story:
"Hic Jovis altisoni subito pinnata satelles, Arboris e trunco serpentis saucia morsu, Ipsa feris subigit transfigens unguibus anguem Semianimum, et varia graviter cervice micantem. Quem se intorquentem lanians, rostroque cruentans, Jam satiata animum, jam duros ulta dolores, Abjicit efflantem, et laceratum affligit in unda; Seque obitu a solis nitidos convertit ad ortus."
Voltaire's translation:
"Tel on voit cet oiseau qui porte le tonnerre, Blessé par un serpent élancé de la terre; Il s'envole, il entraîne au séjour azuré L'ennemi tortueux dont il est entouré. Le sang tombe des airs. Il déchire, il dévore Le reptile acharné qui le combat encore; Il le perce, il le tient sous ses ongles vainqueurs; Par cent coups redoublés il venge ses douleurs. Le monstre, en expirant, se débat, se replie; Il exhale en poisons les restes de sa vie; Et l'aigle, tout sanglant, fier et victorieux, Le rejette en fureur, et plane au haut des cieux."
Virgil's version, Æneid, lib. xi., 751:
"Utque volans alte raptum quum fulva draconem Fert aquila, implicuitque pedes, atque unguibus hæsit Saucius at serpens sinuosa volumina versat, Arrectisque horret squamis, et sibilat ore, Arduus insurgens. Illa haud minus urget obunco Luctantem rostro; simul æthera verberat alis."
Dryden's translation from Virgil's Æneid, book xi.: