A winged dragon with a boar's head and a ruff of bristles bites into the neck of a man seen from behind. A second man lies dead across the ground beneath the beast's claws, and a third man's screaming face stares up from the bottom of the print. Small skulls and bones are scattered on the ground. In the background, a tiny figure with a spear is charging in from the right.
The engraving is by the Dutch printmaker Hendrick Goltzius, dated 1588, and it follows a painting by Cornelis van Haarlem. The subject comes from Book III of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The Phoenician prince Cadmus sends his companions to fetch water from a spring, and a dragon guarding it kills them. Cadmus finds the bodies, vows revenge and kills the dragon. It is the start of the story of how Thebes was founded. The Latin lines at the bottom say, roughly, that the dread serpent is tearing the companions of Agenor's son to pieces and that the avenger Cadmus is at hand to claim the penalty from the enemy.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art points out that this print is larger than the ones in the related series and was made to stand on its own. It is a showpiece for Goltzius's engraving, using long, swelling lines that thicken and thin to model muscle. In 1588 he made several prints in this more exaggerated, muscular style.
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