Book VII, 210

Just when thou hadst become the mother, swallow, of a new-born brood, just when thou first wast warming thy children under thy wings, a many-coiled serpent, darting into the nest where lay thy young, robbed thee of the fruit of thy womb. Then when with all his might he came to slay thee, too, as thou wast lamenting them, he fell into the greedy breath of the hearth-fire. So died he the deed undone. See how Hephaestus succoured and saved the race of his son Erichthonius.