And the test of your valour and prowess shall be a certain essay,
Which mine own hands compass, fraught though it be with deadly bane.
Two brazen-footed bulls have I: on the War-god’s plain
They pasture: the breath from their mouths in flames of fire doth stream. {410}
These yoke I, and drive through the War-god’s stubborn glebe that team,
Four ploughgates; and even to the end my ploughshare cleaveth it fast.
No seed of the Lady of Corn in the furrows thereof do I cast,
But the teeth of a terrible serpent; and up from the earth they grow
In fashion of armèd men; but straightway I lay them low
With the thrusts of my spear, as around me they throng, a battle-ring.