Forth now they wend and pass the ditch, and through the mirk night gain
The baneful camp: yet ere their death they too shall be the bane
Of many: bodies laid in sleep and wine they see strewed o'er
The herbage, and the battle-cars upreared along the shore;
And mid the reins and wheels thereof are men and weapons blent
With wine-jars: so Hyrtacides such word from tooth-hedge sent:
"Euryalus, the hand must dare, the time cries on the deed;
Here lies the way: do thou afar keep watch and have good heed,320
Lest any hand aback of us arise 'gainst thee and me:
Here will I make a waste forsooth, and wide thy way shall be."
He speaks, and hushes all his voice, and so with naked blade
Falls on proud Rhamnes; who, as happed, on piled-up carpets laid,
Amid his sleep was blowing forth great voice from inner breast.
A king he was; king Turnus' seer, of all belovèd best;
Yet nought availed his wizardry to drive his bane away.
Three thralls unware, as heeding nought amid the spears they lay,
He endeth: Remus' shield-bearer withal and charioteer,329
Caught 'neath the very steeds: his sword their drooping necks doth shear;
Then from their lord he takes the head, and leaves the trunk to spout
Gushes of blood: the earth is warm with black gore all about.
The beds are wet. There Lamyrus and Lamus doth he slay,
And young Serranus fair of face, who played the night away
For many an hour, until his limbs 'neath God's abundance failed,
And down he lay: ah! happier 'twere if he had still prevailed
To make the live-long night one game until the morning cold.
As famished lion Nisus fares amid the sheep-filled fold,
When ravening hunger driveth on; the soft things, dumb with dread,
He draggeth off, devouring them, and foams from mouth blood-red.340
Nor less the death Euryalus hath wrought; for all aflame
He wades in wrath, and on the way slays many lacking name:
Fadus, Herbesus therewithal, Rhœtus and Abaris;
Unwary they: but Rhœtus waked, and looking on all this,
Fulfilled of fear was hiding him behind a wine-jar pressed:
The foe was on him as he rose; the sword-blade pierced his breast
Up to the hilts, and drew aback abundant stream of death.
His purple life he poureth forth, and, dying, vomiteth
Blent blood and wine. On death-stealth still onward the Trojan went,
And toward Messapus' leaguer drew, where watch-fires well-nigh spent
He saw, and horses all about, tethered in order due,351
Cropping the grass: but Nisus spake in hasty words and few,
Seeing him borne away by lust of slaughter overmuch:
"Hold we our hands, for dawn our foe hasteth the world to touch:
Deep have we drunk of death, and cut a road amid the foe."
The gear of men full goodly-wrought of silver through and through
They leave behind, and bowls therewith, and carpets fashioned fair.
Natheless Euryalus caught up the prophet Rhamnes' gear
And gold-bossed belt, which Cædicus, the wealthy man of old,
Sent to Tiburtine Remulus, that he his name might hold,360
Though far he were; who, dying, gave his grandson their delight;
And he being dead, Rutulian men won them in war and fight
These now he takes, and all for nought does on his valorous breast,
And dons Messapus' handy helm with goodly-fashioned crest,
Wherewith they leave the camp and gain the road that safer lay.
But horsemen from the Latin town meantime were on the way,
Sent on before to carry word to Turnus, lord and king,
While in array amid the fields the host was tarrying.
Three hundred knights, all shielded folk, 'neath Volscens do they fare.
And now they drew anigh the camp and 'neath its rampart were,370
When from afar they saw the twain on left-hand footway lurk;
Because Euryalus' fair helm mid glimmer of the mirk
Betrayed the heedless youth, and flashed the moonbeams back again.
Nor was the sight unheeded: straight cries Volscens midst his men:
"Stand ho! why thus afoot, and why in weapons do ye wend,
And whither go ye?"
Nought had they an answer back to send,
But speed their fleeing mid the brake, and trust them to the night;
The horsemen cast themselves before each crossway known aright,
And every outgoing there is with guard they girdle round.379
Rough was the wood; a thicket-place where black holm-oaks abound,
And with the tanglement of thorns choked up on every side,
The road but glimmering faintly out from where the foot-tracks hide.
The blackness of overhanging boughs and heavy battle-prey
Hinder Euryalus, and fear beguiles him of the way.
Nisus comes out, and now had won unwitting from the foe,
And reached the place from Alba's name called Alban Meadows now;
Where King Latinus had as then his high-built herd-houses.
So there he stands, and, looking round, his fellow nowhere sees:
"Hapless Euryalus! ah me, where have I left thy face?
Where shall I seek thee, gathering up that tangle of the ways390
Through the blind wood?"
So therewithal he turns upon his track,
Noting his footsteps, and amid the hushed brake strays aback,
Hearkening the horse-hoofs and halloos and calls of following folk.
Nor had he long abided there, ere on his ears outbroke
Great clamour, and Euryalus he sees, whom all the band
Hath taken, overcome by night, and blindness of the land,
And wildering tumult: there in vain he strives in battle-play.
Ah, what to do? What force to dare, what stroke to snatch away
The youth? Or shall he cast himself amid the swords to die,
And hasten down the way of wounds to lovely death anigh?400
Then swiftly, with his arm drawn back and brandishing his spear,
He looks up at the moon aloft, and thuswise poureth prayer:
"To aid, thou Goddess! Stay my toil, and let the end be good!
Latonian glory of the stars, fair watcher of the wood,
If ever any gift for me upon thine altars gave
My father Hyrtacus; if I for thee the hunting drave;
If aught I hung upon thy dome, or set upon thy roof,
Give me to break their gathered host, guide thou my steel aloof!"
He spake, and in the shafted steel set all his body's might,409
And hurled it: flying forth the spear clave through the dusk of night,
And, reaching Sulmo turned away, amidst his back it flew,
And brake there; but the splintering shaft his very heart pierced through,
And o'er he rolleth, vomiting the hot stream from his breast:
Then heave his flanks with long-drawn sobs and cold he lies at rest.
On all sides then they peer about: but, whetted on thereby,
The quivering shaft from o'er his ear again he letteth fly.
Amid their wilderment the spear whistleth through either side
Of Tagus' temples, and wet-hot amidst his brain doth bide.
Fierce Volscens rageth, seeing none who might the spear-shot send,
Or any man on whom his wrath and heat of heart to spend.420