But from his all untroubled breast laughed Turnus, as he said:
"Begin, if thou hast heart thereto, let hand to hand be laid!740
Thou shalt tell Priam how thou found'st a new Achilles here."
He spake: the other put all strength to hurling of his spear,
A shaft all rough with knots, and still in its own tree-bark bound.
Straightway the thin air caught it up, but that swift-speeding wound
Saturnian Juno turned aside and set it in the door.
—"But now thou 'scapest not this steel mine own hand maketh sure,
Nought such as thine the weapon-smith, the wound-smith——"
With the word
He riseth up unto the high uprising of the sword,
Wherewith betwixt the temples twain he clave his midmost head,
And with a fearful wound apart the cheeks unbearded shred.750
Then came a sound, and shook the earth 'neath the huge weight of him:
With armour wet with blood and brain, with fainting, slackened limb,
He strewed the ground in death; his head, sheared clean and evenly,
From either shoulder hanging down, this side and that did lie.
Then turn and flee the Trojan folk, by quaking terror caught;
And if the conquering man as then one moment had had thought
To burst the bolts and let his folk in through the opened door,
That day had been the last of days for Trojans and their war.
But utter wrath of heart and soul, and wildering lust of death
Drave him afire amidst the foe.760
Then Phaleris he catcheth up, and ham-strung Gyges then,
Whose spears, snatched up, he hurleth on against the backs of men;
For Juno finds him might enough and heart wherewith to do,
Halys he sendeth down with these, Phegeus with targe smit through;
Then, as they roused the war on wall, nor wotted aught of this,
Alcander stark, and Halius stout, Noëmon, Prytanis.
Then Lynceus, as he ran to aid and cheered his folk withal,
He reacheth at with sweeping sword from right hand of the wall
And smiteth; and his helm and head, struck off with that one blow,
Lie far away: Amycus then, the wood-deer's wasting foe,770
He slayeth: happier hand had none in smearing of the shaft
And arming of the iron head the poison-wound to waft.
Then Clytius, son of Æolus, and Cretheus Muse-beloved,—
Cretheus the Muses' fellow-friend, whose heart was ever moved
By song and harp, and measured sound along the strainèd string;
Who still of steeds, and arms, and men, and battle-tide would sing.
At last the Trojan dukes of men, Mnestheus, Serestus fierce,
Draw to a head when all this death is borne unto their ears,
And see their folk all scattering wide, the foe amidst them see.779
Then Mnestheus cries: "And whither now, and whither will ye flee?
What other walls, what other town have ye a hope to find?
Hath one man, O my town-fellows, whom your own ramparts bind,
Wrought such a death and unavenged amid your very town,
And sent so many lords of war by Orcus' road adown?
O dastards, your unhappy land, your Gods of ancient days,
Your great Æneas—what! no shame, no pity do they raise?"
Fired by such words, they gather heart and stand in close array,
Till step by step 'gins Turnus now to yield him from the play,
And seek the river and the side the wet wave girds about.
Then fiercer fall the Teucrians on, and raise a mighty shout,790
And lock their ranks: as when a crowd of men-folk and of spears
Falls on a lion hard of heart, and he, beset by fears,
But fierce and grim-eyed, yieldeth way, though anger and his worth
Forbid him turn his back about: no less to fare right forth
Through spears and men avails him not, though ne'er so fain he be.
Not otherwise unhasty feet drew Turnus doubtfully
Abackward, all his heart a-boil with anger's overflow.
Yea, twice, indeed, he falls again amidmost of the foe,
And twice more turns to huddled flight their folk along the walls;
But, gathered from the camp about, the whole host on him falls,800
Nor durst Saturnian Juno now his might against them stay;
For Jupiter from heaven hath sent Iris of airy way,
No soft commands of his high doom bearing his sister down,
If Turnus get him not away from Troy's high-builded town.
So now the warrior's shielded left the play endureth not,
Nought skills his right hand; wrapped around in drift of weapon shot
About his temples' hollow rings his helm with ceaseless clink;
The starkly-fashioned brazen plates amid the stone-cast chink;
The crest is battered from his head; nor may the shield-boss hold
Against the strokes: the Trojans speed the spear-storm manifold,810
And lightening Mnestheus thickeneth it: then over all his limbs
The sweat bursts out, and all adown a pitchy river swims:
Hard grows his breath, and panting sharp shaketh his body spent.
Until at last, all clad in arms, he leapt adown, and sent
His body to the river fair, who in his yellow flood
Caught him, and bore him forth away on ripple soft and good,
And gave him merry to his men, washed from the battle's blood.