Lucan [1st century CE] (Pharsalia, book 9, verse 821-841): Tyrrhenian Aulus, bearer of a flag, / Trod on a dipsas ; quick with head reversed / The serpent struck ; no pang betrayed the tooth ; / No deadly aspect was upon the wound, / No warning token : but the secret plague / Gnawed at the tissues of his inward frame / And drained the natural juices that were spread / Around his vitals ; in his arid jaws / Set flame upon his tongue : his wearied limbs / No sweat bedewed ; dried up, the fount of tears / Fled from his eyelids : fire consumed the man. / He dashed his standard down ; not pride in Rome, / Not Cato's stern commandment could withhold ; / And madly sought for water through the plain / To quench the poison thirsting at his heart. / Plunge him in Tanais, in Rhone and Po, / Pour on his tongue the flood of brimming Nile, / Yet were the plague unquenched ; for dipsas gains / From Libya's scorching clime a deadly fire, / Not his by fate or name. - [Ridley, 1919 translation]

Aelianus [170-230 CE] (On the Characteristics of Animals, Book 6, 51): The name of the Dipsas [thirst-provoker] declares to us what it does. It is smaller than the viper, but kills more swiftly, for persons who chance to be bitten burn with thirst and are on fire to drink and imbibe without stopping and in a little while burst. - [Scholfield translation]

Gaius Julius Solinus [3rd century CE] (De mirabilibus mundi / Polyhistor, Chapter 27.31): The dispas destroys by thirst... - [Arwen Apps translation, 2011]

Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 4.13; 12, 4.32): [Book 12, 4.13] The dipsas is a kind of asp, called situla in Latin because anyone bitten by it dies of thirst. [Book 12, 4:32] The dipsas is said to be a snake so tiny that when it is stepped on it is not observed. Its venom kills before it is felt, so that the face of one about to die displays no horror of his impending death. - [Barney, Lewis, et. al. translation]

Gerald of Wales [c. 1146 – c. 1223] (Topographia Hibernica, Distinction 1, chapter 26): There is also the dipsa, a small species of snake, whose venom destroys life before it is even perceived, and is so powerful that its bite occasions death before any pain is felt. It happened, within my own memory, that a man having gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as is the custom, from Britain, one morning, as he happened to be sifting with his hand the corn for his horses, he had his finger bitten by a little reptile which was lurking in the corn. Immediately his whole body, flesh and bone, was converted into a shapeless mass like pitch. - [Forester translation, 1863]

Thomas of Cantimpré [circa 1200-1272 CE] (Liber de natura rerum, Serpents 8.14): Dypsa is a serpent, as Jacobus and Solinus say, which is said to be so subtle that, as if striking invisibly, it is not seen before it is stepped on. Solinus as a witness says it kills by thirst. For by this it induces swelling and inflammation, and thus, infected with this poison, its victim dies (and this signifies pride). As the Experimentator says, the dipsa kills in such a way that the cause of death does not allow time for sadness about dying. It is difficult indeed to crush the proud, as is clear from the devil, who is damned by pride alone: for he will never deign to ask for forgiveness and to confess that he is guilty of a crime. - [Badke translation/paraphrase]

Bartholomaeus Anglicus [13th century CE] (Liber de proprietatibus rerum, Book18.9; 18.10; 18.37): [Book18.9] For the Serpent Dipsas, as Isidore saith, is so little, that he unneth is séene when men tread thereon, & the venim thereof slaieth before it be felt, and he that dieth by that venim, féeleth no sore: and so the Poet Lucan sayth. Signiferum juvenem Tureni sanguinis album. Torta caput retro Dipsas calcata remordit. Vix dolor aut sensus dentis fuit, &c. That is, Dispas, that Serpent wrast his owne white head backward, and bit the young Baneret of Turenis bloud, & unneth he felt biting or sore. So sayth Isidore. [Book 18.10] Dipsas that is called Scytula in Latine. For when he biteth, he slayeth with thirst. [Book 18.37] Dipsas and Dipsades is the feminine gender, and is a Serpent that is called Situla in Latine, and hath that name Sytula for it that he biteth dyeth for thirst, as Isidore saith libro. 12. And such Adders are subtill and small, and unneth they be séene when men tread on them. The venim of them slayeth or it be felt, so that unneth he féeleth sorenesse and shall dye, and is a manner kinde of Serpents, as it is sayde before De Aspide, Looke there. - [Batman]