And even as he speaks the word he showeth face and limb
Foul with the mud. The kindest lord, the Father, laughed on him,
And bade them bring a buckler forth, wrought of Didymaon,
Spoil of the Greeks, from Neptune's house and holy doors undone;360
And there unto the noble youth he gives that noble thing.
But now, the race all overpassed and all the gift-giving,
Quoth he: "If any valour hath, or heart that may withstand,
Let him come forth to raise his arm with hide-begirded hand."
So saying, for the fight to come he sets forth glories twain;
A steer gilt-horned and garlanded the conquering man should gain,
A sword and noble helm should stay the vanquished in his woe.
No tarrying was there: Dares straight his face to all doth show,
And riseth in his mighty strength amidst the murmur great:
He who alone of all men erst with Paris held debate,370
And he who at the mound wherein that mightiest Hector lay,
Had smitten Butes' body huge, the winner of the day,
Who called him come of Amycus and that Bebrycian land:
But Dares stretched him dying there upon the yellow sand.
Such was the Dares that upreared his head against the fight,
And showed his shoulders' breadth and drave his fists to left and right,
With arms cast forth, as heavy strokes he laid upon the air.
But when they sought a man for him, midst all the concourse there
Was none durst meet him: not a hand the fighting-glove would don:
Wherefore, high-hearted, deeming now the prize from all was won,380
He stood before Æneas' feet nor longer tarrièd,
But with his left hand took the steer about the horn and said:
"O Goddess-born, if no man dares to trust him in the play,
What end shall be of standing here; must I abide all day?
Bid them bring forth the gifts."
Therewith they cried out one and all,
The Dardan folk, to give the gifts that due to him did fall.
But with hard words Acestes now Entellus falls to chide,
As on the bank of grassy green they sat there side by side,
"Entellus, bravest hero once of all men, and for nought,
If thou wilt let them bear away without a battle fought390
Such gifts as these. And where is he, thy master then, that God,
That Eryx, told of oft in vain? where is thy fame sown broad
Through all Trinacria, where the spoils hung up beneath thy roof?"
"Nay," said he, "neither love of fame nor glory holds aloof
Beaten by fear, but cold I grow with eld that holdeth back.
My blood is dull, my might gone dry with all my body's lack.
Ah, had I that which once I had, that which the rascal there
Trusts in with idle triumphing, the days of youth the dear,
Then had I come into the fight by no gift-giving led,
No goodly steer: nought heed I gifts."400
And with the last word said,
His fighting gloves of fearful weight amidst of them he cast,
Wherewith the eager Eryx' hands amid the play had passed
Full oft; with hardened hide of them his arms he used to bind.
Men's hearts were mazed; such seven bull-hides each other in them lined,
So stiff they were with lead sewn in and iron laid thereby;
And chief of all was Dares mazed, and drew back utterly.
But the great-souled Anchises' seed that weight of gauntlets weighed,
And here and there he turned about their mighty folds o'erlaid.
Then drew the elder from his breast words that were like to these:
"Ah, had ye seen the gloves that armed the very Hercules,410
And that sad battle foughten out upon this country shore!
For these are arms indeed that erst thy kinsmen Eryx bore:
Lo, ye may see them even now flecked with the blood and brain.
With these Alcides he withstood; with these I too was fain
Of war, while mightier blood gave might, nor envious eld as yet
On either temple of my head the hoary hairs had set.
But if this Dares out of Troy refuse our weapons still,
And good Æneas doom it so, and so Acestes will,
My fight-lord; make the weapons like: these gloves of Eryx here
I take aback: be not afraid, but doff thy Trojan gear."420
He spake, and from his back he cast his twifold cloak adown,
And naked his most mighty limbs and shoulders huge were shown,
And on the midmost of the sand a giant there he stood.
Wherewith Anchises' seed brought forth gloves even-matched and good,
And so at last with gear alike the arms of each he bound,
Then straightway each one stretched aloft on tip-toe from the ground:
They cast their mighty arms abroad, nor any fear they know,
The while their lofty heads they draw abackward from the blow:
And so they mingle hands with hands and fall to wake the fight.
The one a-trusting in his youth and nimbler feet and light;430
The other's bulk of all avail, but, trembling, ever shrank
His heavy knees, and breathing short for ever shook his flank.
Full many a stroke those mighty men cast each at each in vain;
Thick fall they on the hollow sides; the breasts ring out again
With mighty sound; and eager-swift the hands full often stray
Round ears and temples; crack the jaws beneath that heavy play:
In one set strain, not moving aught, heavy Entellus stands,
By body's sway and watchful eye shunning the dart of hands:
But Dares is as one who brings the gin 'gainst high-built town,
Or round about some mountain-hold the leaguer setteth down:440
Now here now there he falleth on, and putteth art to pain
At every place, and holds them strait with onset all in vain.
Entellus, rising to the work, his right hand now doth show
Upreared; but he, the nimble one, foresaw the falling blow
Above him, and his body swift writhed skew-wise from the fall.
Entellus spends his stroke on air, and, overborne withal,
A heavy thing, falls heavily to earth, a mighty weight:
As whiles a hollow-eaten pine on Erymanthus great,
Or mighty Ida, rooted up, to earthward toppling goes.
Then Teucrian and Trinacrian folk with wondrous longing rose,450
And shouts went skyward: thither first the King Acestes ran,
And pitying his like-aged friend raised up the fallen man;
Who neither slackened by his fall, nor smit by any fear,
Gets back the eagerer to the fight, for anger strength doth stir,
And shame and conscious valour lights his ancient power again.
In headlong flight his fiery wrath drives Dares o'er the plain,
And whiles his right hand showereth strokes, his left hand raineth whiles.
No tarrying and no rest there is; as hail-storm on the tiles
Rattleth, so swift with either hand the eager hero now
Beats on and batters Dares down, and blow is laid on blow.460
But now the Father Æneas no longer might abide
Entellus' bitter rage of soul or lengthening anger's tide,
But laid an end upon the fight therewith, and caught away
Dares foredone, and soothing words in such wise did he say:
"Unhappy man, what madness then hath hold upon thine heart?
Feel'st not another might than man's, and Heaven upon his part?
Yield to the Gods!"
So 'neath his word the battle sank to peace.
But Dares his true fellows took, trailing his feeble knees,
Lolling his head from side to side, the while his sick mouth sent
The clotted blood from out of it wherewith the teeth were blent.470
They lead him to the ships; then, called, they take the helm and sword,
But leave Entellus' bull and palm, the victory's due reward;
Who, high of heart, proud in the beast his conquering hand did earn,
"O Goddess-born," he said, "and ye, O Teucrians, look, and learn
What might was in my body once, ere youth it had to lack,
And what the death whence Dares saved e'en now ye draw aback."
He spake, and at the great bull's head straightway he took his stand,
As there it bode the prize of fight, and drawing back his hand
Rose to the blow, and 'twixt the horns sent forth the hardened glove,
And back upon his very brain the shattered skull he drove.480
Down fell the beast and on the earth lay quivering, outstretched, dead,
While over him from his inmost breast such words Entellus said:
"Eryx, this soul, a better thing, for Dares doomed to die,
I give thee, and victorious here my gloves and craft lay by."
Forth now Æneas biddeth all who have a mind to strive
At speeding of the arrow swift, and gifts thereto doth give,
And with his mighty hand the mast from out Serestus' keel
Uprears; and there a fluttering dove, mark for the flying steel,
Tied to a string he hangeth up athwart the lofty mast.
Then meet the men; a brazen helm catches the lots down cast:490
And, as from out their favouring folk ariseth up the shout,
Hippocoon, son of Hyrtacus, before the rest leaps out;
Then Mnestheus, who was victor erst in ship upon the sea,
Comes after: Mnestheus garlanded with olive greenery.
The third-come was Eurytion, thy brother, O renowned,
O Pandarus, who, bidden erst the peace-troth to confound,
Wert first amid Achæan host to send a wingèd thing.
But last, at bottom of the helm, Acestes' name did cling,
Who had the heart to try the toil amid the youthful rout.
Then with their strength of all avail they bend the bows about500
Each for himself: from quiver then the arrows forth they take:
And first from off the twanging string through heaven there went the wake
Of shaft of young Hyrtacides, and clave the flowing air,
And, flying home, amid the mast that stood before it there
It stuck: the mast shook therewithal; the frighted, timorous bird,
Fluttered her wings; and mighty praise all round about was heard.
Then stood forth Mnestheus keen, and drew his bow unto the head,
Aiming aloft; and shaft and eyes alike therewith he sped;
But, worthy of all pitying, the very bird he missed,
But had the hap to shear the knots and lines of hempen twist510
Whereby, all knitted to her foot, she to the mast was tied:
But flying toward the winds of heaven and mirky mist she hied.
Then swift Eurytion, who for long had held his arrow laid
On ready bow-string, vowed, and called his brother unto aid,
And sighted her all joyful now amidst the void of sky,
And smote her as she clapped her wings 'neath the black cloud on high:
Then dead she fell, and mid the stars of heaven her life she left,
And, falling, brought the shaft aback whereby her heart was cleft.
Acestes now was left alone, foiled of the victory's prize.
No less the father sent his shot aloft unto the skies,520
Fain to set forth his archer-craft and loud-resounding bow.
Then to men's eyes all suddenly a portent there did show,
A mighty sign of things to come, the ending showed how great
When seers, the shakers of men's hearts, sang over it too late.
For, flying through the flowing clouds, the swift reed burned about,
And marked its road with flaming wake, and, eaten up, died out
Mid the thin air: as oft the stars fly loose from heaven's roof,
And run adown the space of sky with hair that flies aloof.
Trinacrian men and Teucrian men, staring aghast they stood,
Praying the Gods: but mightiest Æneas held for good530
That tokening, and Acestes takes as one all glad at heart,
And loadeth him with many gifts, and suchwise speaks his part: