They with Entellus leave.
With triumph kindling in his eyes
And glorying in the bull, his prize,
The victor to the concourse cries:
‘Learn, goddess-born, and Ilium’s host,
What strength my youthful arm could boast,
And what the death from whose dark door
Your rescued Dares you restore.’
He spoke, and stood before the bull,
Swung back his arm, and planted full
Between its horns the gauntlet’s blow.
The brain came through the shattered skull:
Prone, quivering, dead, the beast lies low:
While words like these the veteran said
In consecration of the dead:
‘This better substitute I pay,
Eryx, to thee, for Dares’ life,
And here renounce, as conqueror may,
The gauntlets and the strife.’
The champions next, who would compete
In archer skill with arrow fleet,
Æneas summons, and ordains
The gifts that shall reward their pains.
His mighty hand erects a mast
Plucked from Serestus’ bark,
And to its top a dove makes fast
To be the bowman’s mark.
The rivals gather to the spot:
A brazen helm receives each lot:
And first amidst applauding cries
Hippocoon’s name to daylight flies:
Next Mnestheus, wreathed with olive crown,
Mnestheus, whose vessel earned renown.
Third in the list Eurytion came,
Thy brother, Pandarus, mighty name,
Whose arrow, charged to break the peace,
First fluttered through the ranks of Greece.
Last at the bottom of the casque
Acestes’ lot appears,
He too adventuring to the task
That matches younger years.
And from the case their shafts draw forth:
And first from off the twanging string
Hippocoon’s feathered dark takes wing,
Achieves the passage, and sticks fast
Full in the centre of the mast.
The stout tree quivers: the scared bird
Flaps, and applauding peals are heard.
Then Mnestheus raises toward the sky
His bow, and levels shaft and eye:
But ah! the dove he might not wound:
His arrow cuts the flaxen ties
Which to the mast had held her bound;
And forth into the clouds she flies.
With shaft already aimed for flight,
Eurytion to his brother vowed:
Triumphant as she wings the height,
He strikes the dove beneath a cloud.
Pierced to the heart, she leaves behind
Her life to mingle with the wind,
And as she tumbles to the ground,
The weapon in her side is found.
Acestes at the end is left:
Yet still he shoots in air, to show
His veteran skill and sounding bow:
When sudden lo! the gazers see
A sign of mightiest augury:
The dire event the truth revealed,
And seers too late their warnings pealed.
E’en in the mid expanse of skies
The arrow kindles as it flies,
Behind it draws a fiery glare,
Then wasting, vanishes in air:
So stars, dislodged, athwart the night
Career, and trail a length of light.
In wonder either nation gazed,
Their souls to Heaven in prayer upraised.
Nor great Æneas dared disown
The omen by the gods foreshown;
Acestes to his heart he pressed,
With presents heaped, and thus addressed:
‘Take this, my father! ’tis decreed
That yours should be a special meed:
So speak these signs above.
This bowl, enchased with figures, take,
And keep it for Anchises’ sake:
A gift which Cisseus, lord of Thrace,
Once gave my sire of his dear grace,
In token of their love.’
Then round Acestes’ temples hoar
He bound the wreath of bay,
And hailed him all his peers before
The conqueror of the day:
Nor good Eurytion grudged to see
The veteran’s claim preferred,
Albeit that he, and none but he,
Struck down the soaring bird.
Next his who cut the cord, and last
The champion’s turn who struck the mast.
The archers’ rivalry was o’er,
In private summoned to his side
The young Iulus’ trusted guide,
Old Periphas Epytides,
And gently whispered words like these:
‘Go now, and if Ascanius’ band
Of boyish knights is here at hand,
Bid him on this his grandsire’s day
Himself and them in arms display.’
This said, he bids the company
Retire, and leave the circus free.
They enter, glittering side by side,
And rein their steeds with youthful pride,
As ’neath their fathers’ eyes they ride,
While all Trinacria’s host and Troy’s
With plaudits greet the princely boys.
Each has his hair by rule confined
With stripped-off leaves in garland twined:
Some ride with shapely bows equipped:
Two cornel spears they bear, steel-tipped:
And wreaths of twisted gold invest
The neck, and sparkle on the breast.
Three are the companies of horse,
And three the chiefs that scour the course
Twelve gallant boys each chief obey,
And shine in tripartite array.
Young Priam first, Polites’ heir,
Well pleased his grandsire’s name to bear,
Leads his gay troop, himself decreed
To raise up an Italian seed:
He prances forth, all dazzling bright,
On Thracian steed with spots of white:
White on its fetlock’s front is seen,
And white the space its brows between.
Then Atys, next in place, from whom
The Atian family descend:
Young Atys, fresh with life’s first bloom,
The boy Iulus’ sweet boy-friend:
Iulus last, in form and face
Pre-eminent his peers above,
A courser rides of Tyrian race,
Memorial gift of Dido’s love.
Sicilian
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