Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds
Of maiden’s patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
Henceforth be never number’d among men!
O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!
Durst thou have look’d upon him being awake,
And hast thou kill’d him sleeping? O brave touch!
Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
– William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2. A distraught Hermia asks Demetrius if he killed Lysander, because she woke up in the woods and Lysander was not by her side. She uses a series of animal metaphors to compare Demetrius to a dog, adder and serpent.