"Lo, now your prayers have come about, that hand meet hand in strife,
And Mars is in the brave man's hand: let each one's home and wife
Be in his heart! Call ye to mind those mighty histories,281
The praises of our father-folk! Come, meet them in the seas,
Amid their tangle, while their feet yet totter on the earth:
For Fortune helpeth them that dare."
So saying, he turneth in his mind with whom on these to fall,
And unto whom to leave meanwhile the leaguering of the wall.
Meanwhile Æneas from his ships high-built his folk doth speed
Ashore by bridges: many men no less the back-draught heed
Of the spent seas, and, trusting shoals, they make the downward leap;
And others slide adown the oars. Tarchon the shore doth sweep,290
Espying where the waves break not, nor back the sea doth roar,
But where the sea-flood harmlessly with full tide swims ashore,
And thither straight he lays his keels, and prays unto his folk:
"O chosen, on the stark oars lay! now up unto the stroke;
Bear on the ships, and with your beaks cleave ye this foeman's earth;
And let the very keels themselves there furrow them their berth.
On such a haven nought I heed, though ship and all we break,
If once we gain the land."
Therewith, as such a word he spake,
His fellows rise together hard on every shaven tree,
In mind to bear their ships befoamed up on the Latin lea,300
Until their tynes are high and dry, and fast is every keel
Unhurt: save, Tarchon, thine alone, that winneth no such weal;
For on the shallows driven aground, on evil ridge unmeet,
She hangeth balanced a long while, and doth the waters beat;
Then, breaking, droppeth down her men amidmost of the waves,
Entangled in the wreck of oars, and floating thwarts and staves;
And in the back-draught of the seas their feet are caught withal.
No dull delay holds Turnus back; but fiercely doth he fall,
With all his host, on them of Troy, and meets them on the strand.309
The war-horns sing. Æneas first breaks through the field-folk's band,
—Fair omen of the fight—and lays the Latin folk alow.
Thero he slays, most huge of men, whose own heart bade him go
Against Æneas: through the links of brass the sword doth fare,
And through the kirtle's scaly gold, and wastes the side laid bare.
Then Lichas smites he, ripped erewhile from out his mother dead,
And hallowed, Phœbus, unto thee, because his baby head
Had 'scaped the steel: nor far from thence he casteth down to die
Hard Cisseus, Gyas huge, who there beat down his company
With might of clubs; nought then availed that Herculean gear,
Nor their stark hands, nor yet their sire Melampus, though he were320
Alcides' friend so long as he on earth wrought heavy toil.
Lo Pharo! while a deedless word he flingeth mid the broil,
The whirring of the javelin stays within his shouting mouth.
Thou, Cydon, following lucklessly thy new delight, the youth
Clytius, whose first of fallow down about his cheeks is spread
Art well-nigh felled by Dardan hand, and there hadst thou lain dead,
At peace from all the many loves wherein thy life would stray,
Had not thy brethren's serried band now thrust across the way
E'en Phorcus' seed: sevenfold of tale and sevenfold spears they wield:
But some thereof fly harmless back from helm-side and from shield,330
The rest kind Venus turned aside, that grazing past they flew;
But therewithal Æneas spake unto Achates true:
"Reach me my shafts: not one in vain my right hand now shall speed
Against Rutulians, of all those that erst in Ilian mead
Stood in the bodies of the Greeks."
Then caught he a great spear
And cast it, and it flew its ways the brazen shield to shear
Of Mæon, breaking through his mail, breaking his breast withal:
Alcanor is at hand therewith, to catch his brother's fall
With his right hand; but through his arm the spear without a stay
Flew hurrying on, and held no less its straight and bloody way,340
And by the shoulder-nerves the hand hung down all dead and vain.
Then Numitor, his brother's spear caught from his brother slain,
Falls on Æneas; yet to smite the mighty one in face
No hap he had, but did the thigh of great Achates graze.
Clausus of Cures, trusting well in his young body's might,
Now cometh, and with stiff-wrought spear from far doth Dryops smite
Beneath the chin; home went its weight, and midst his shouting's birth
From rent throat snatched both voice and life, and prone he smote the ear
And from his mouth abundantly shed forth the flood of gore.
Three Thracians also, men whose stem from Boreas came of yore,350
Three whom their father Idas sent, and Ismara their land,
In various wise he fells. And now Halesus comes to hand,
And his Aruncans: Neptune's seed now cometh thrusting in,
Messapus, excellent of horse. Hard strife the field to win!
On this side and on that they play about Ausonia's door.
As whiles within the mighty heaven the winds are making war,
And equal heart they have thereto, and equal might they wield:
Yields none to none, nor yields the rack, nor aught the waters yield;
Long hangs the battle; locked they stand, all things are striving then:
Not otherwise the Trojan host and host of Latin men360
Meet foot to foot, and man to man, close pressing in the fray.
But in another place, where erst the torrent in its way
Had driven the rolling rocks along and torn trees of the banks,
Did Pallas see the Arcadian folk, unused to fight in ranks
Of footmen, turn their backs before the Latins in the chase,
Since they forsooth had left their steeds for roughness of the place:
Wherefore he did the only deed that failing Fortune would,
Striving with prayers and bitter words to make their valour good:
"Where flee ye, fellows? Ah, I pray, by deeds that once were bold,
By name of King Evander dear, by glorious wars of old,370
By my own hope of praise that springs to mate my father's praise,
Trust not your feet! with point and edge ye needs must cleave your ways
Amidst the foe. Where yon array of men doth thickest wend,
Thither our holy fatherland doth you and Pallas send:
No Gods weigh on us; mortal foes meet mortal men today;
As many hands we have to use, as many lives to pay.
Lo, how the ocean shuts us in with yonder watery wall!
Earth fails for flight—what! seaward then, or Troyward shall we fall?"
Thus said, forthwith he breaketh in amid the foeman's press,
Whom Lagus met the first of all, by Fate's unrighteousness380
Drawn thitherward: him, while a stone huge weighted he upheaves,
He pierceth with a whirling shaft just where the backbone cleaves
The ribs atwain, and back again he wrencheth forth the spear
Set mid the bones: nor him the more did Hisbo take unware,
Though that he hoped; for Pallas next withstood him, rushing on
All heedless-wild at that ill death his fellow fair had won,
And buried all his sword deep down amid his wind-swelled lung.
Then Sthenelus he meets, and one from ancient Rhœtus sprung,
Anchemolus, who dared defile his own stepmother's bed.
Ye also on Rutulian lea twin Daucus' sons lay dead,390
Larides, Thymber; so alike, O children, that by nought
Your parents knew you each from each, and sweet the error thought.
But now to each did Pallas give a cruel marking-sign;
For, Thymber, the Evandrian sword smote off that head of thine:
And thy lopped right, Larides, seeks for that which was its lord,
The half-dead fingers quiver still and grip unto the sword.
But now the Arcadians cheered by words, beholding his great deed,
The mingled shame and sorrow arm and 'gainst the foeman lead.
Then Pallas thrusteth Rhœteus through a-flitting by in wain;
And so much space, so much delay, thereby did Ilus gain,400
For 'twas at Ilus from afar that he his spear had cast
But Rhœteus met it on the road fleeing from you full fast,
Best brethren, Teuthras, Tyres there: down from the car rolled he,
And with the half-dead heel of him beat the Rutulian lea.