In couching of the level spears, and shot-spears brandishing.
All is afire with neigh of steeds and onfall of the men.
And now, within a spear-shot come, short up they rein, and then
They break out with a mighty cry and spur the maddened steeds;
And all at once from every side the storm of spear-shot speeds,
As thick as very snowing is, and darkens down the sun.”
It would be hard to say which version is closer to the original. Conington leaves out the epithet celeres which Virgil bestows on the Latins, and also—a graver omission—that brother whom Virgil makes attend him like his shadow (et cum fratre Coras) in every battle-field of the Æneid. This fraternal warrior Morris gives us, indeed, but not very intelligibly, as Coras’ “brother-lord.” On the other hand, although Morris renders the Latin line for line, he is not so concise as Conington, who puts Virgil’s fifteen hexameters into twenty of his short lines as opposed to fifteen of Morris’ long ones. Virgil has nothing of Morris’ “iron harvest”; here—
“Tum late ferreus hastis
Horret ager, campique armis sublimibus ardent”—
we should give Conington the preference, while Morris excels in rendering the verse: