LXVI. Then he, with eyes fixt on the wondrous maid,
"O glory of Italia, virgin bright!
What praise can match thee? how shall thanks be paid?
But now, since naught can daunt thee nor affright,
Share thou my labour, and divide the fight.
Yonder Æneas, so the news hath flown,
So spies report, hath sent his horsemen light
To scour the fields, while o'er the mountains' crown		586
Himself through devious ways is marching to the town.
LXVII. "Deep in a hollow, where the wood's dark shade
Two cross-ways hides, an ambush I prepare,
And armed men shall the double pass blockade.
Thou take the shock of battle, and o'erbear
The Tuscan horse. Messapus shall be there,
Tiburtus' band, and Latins in array
To aid, and thine shall be the leader's care."
He spake, and cheered Messapus to the fray,		595
And Latium's federate chiefs, and spurred upon his way.
LXVIII. There lies a winding valley, fit for snares
And stratagems, shut in on either hand
By wooded slopes. A narrow pathway fares
Along the gorge, and on the hill-tops, planned
For safety, flat but hidden spreads the land.
Rightward or leftward there is room to bear
The shock of arms, or on the ridge to stand,
And roll down rocks upon the foe. 'Twas there		604
Young Turnus, screened by woods, lies crouching in his lair.

LXIX. Meanwhile Latonia in the realms of air
Fleet [Opis,] sister of her sacred train,
Addressed in sorrowing accents, "Maiden fair,
See how Camilla to the fatal plain
Goes forth, in quest of battle. See, in vain
Our arms she wears, the quiver and the bow.
Dearest is she of all that own my reign,
Nor new-born is Diana's love, I trow;		613
No fit of fondness this, or fancy known but now
LXX. "When tyrant Metabus his people's hate
Drove from Privernum, for his deeds of shame.
His babe he bore, the partner of his fate,
Through war and battle, and, her mother's name
Casmilla changed, Camilla she became.
To lonely woods and hill-tops fain to fly,
Fierce swords and Volscians all around, he came
Where Amasenus, with its waves bank-high,		622
Athwart him foamed; so vast a deluge rent the sky.
LXXI. "Prepared to plunge, he pauses, sore assailed
By love, and terror for a charge so dear.
All means revolving, this at last prevailed.
Fire-dried and knotted, an enormous spear
Of seasoned oak the warrior chanced to bear.
To the mid shaft the tender babe he ties,
Swathed in the covering of a cork-tree near,
Then lifts the load, and, poising, ere it flies,		631
The ponderous lance, looks up, and thus invokes the skies:
LXXII. "'O Queen of woods, Latonia, virgin fair!
To thee my daughter I devote this day,
Thy handmaid. See, thus early through the air
She bears thy weapons. Make her thine, I pray,
And safely through the doubtful air convey.'
So prayed the sire, and nerved him for the throw,
Then aimed, and launched the missile on its way.
The babe forlorn, while roars the stream below,		640
Link'd to the shaft, is borne across the current's flow.
LXXIII. "In plunges Metabus, the foemen near,
And Trivia's gift, safe landing from the wave,
Plucks from the grass,—the maiden and the spear.
No town is his, to shelter and to save,
His savage mood no shelter deigns to crave.
A shepherd's life on lonely hills he leads,
In tangled covert, or in woodland cave.
The milk of beasts supplies his daughter's needs,		649
And from the wild-mare's teats her tender lips he feeds.
LXXIV. "And when the tottering infant first essayed
To plant her footsteps, to her hands he strung
A lance, and o'er the shoulders of the maid
The light-wing'd arrows and the bow he slung.
For golden coif and trailing mantle, hung
A tiger's spoils. Her tiny hand e'en then
Hurled childish darts; e'en then the tough hide, swung
Around her temples, as she roamed the plain,		658
Brought down the snowy swan, or swift Strymonian crane.