The word “cavalry” here is too modern in its associations to suit us entirely, nor strikes us as highly poetical.
“Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry,”
is the way Campbell put it. Again, the rendering of the line Adventusque virum fremitusque ardescit equorum is less exact than Morris’, if not than Conington’s, and much less poetical than either; and were it not for the printer’s aid, we should be unable to tell such blank-verse as “Messapus, Coras, and his brother come, also Camilla’s wing,” from the very prosiest of prose. Mr. Cranch, like Prof. Conington, omits Camilla’s attribute of virginis—though that is, perhaps, better than to call her, as Dryden does, a “virago”—and turns Virgil’s snow into sleet, no doubt having in mind Gray’s
“Iron sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darkened air,”
or the “sharp sleet of arrowy shower” in Paradise Regained.
It may be of interest to set side by side with these English translations the French version of Delille. It will show us, at least, where Mr. Morris went, perhaps, for his “iron harvest”:
“Mais déjà les Troyens, déjà les fiers Toscans
Pour attaquer vers Lausente ont déployé leurs rangs;