‘Euryalus, my chiefest care,
Where left I you, unhappy? where?
What clue may guide my erring tread
This leafy labyrinth back to thread?
Then, noting each remembered track,
He thrids the wood, dim-seen and black.
Listening, he hears the horse-hoofs beat,
The clatter of pursuing feet:
A little moment—shouts arise.
And lo! Euryalus he spies,
Whom now the foeman’s gathered throng
Is hurrying helplessly along,
While vain resistance he essays,
Trapped by false night and treacherous ways.
What should he do? what force employ
To rescue the beloved boy?
Plunge through the spears that line the wood,
And death and glory win with blood?
Not unresolved, he poises soon
A javelin, looking to the Moon:
‘Grant, Goddess, grant thy present aid,
Queen of the stars, Latonian maid,
The greenwood’s guardian power;
If, grateful for success of mine,
With gifts my sire has graced thy shrine,
If e’er myself have brought thee spoil,
The tribute of my hunter’s toil,
To ornament thy roof divine,
Or glitter on thy tower,
These masses give me to confound,
And guide through air my random wound.’
He spoke, and hurled with all his might;
The swift spear hurtles through the night:
Stout Sulmo’s back the stroke receives:
The wood, though snapped, the midriff cleaves.
He falls, disgorging life’s warm tide,
And long-drawn sobs distend his side.
All gazed around: another spear
The avenger levels from his ear,
And launches on the sky.
Tagus lies pierced through temples twain,
The dart deep buried in his brain.
Fierce Volscens storms, yet finds no foe,
Nor sees the hand that dealt the blow,
Nor knows on whom to fly.
‘Your heart’s warm blood for both shall pay,’
He cries, and on his beauteous prey
With naked sword he sprang.
Scared, maddened, Nisus shrieks aloud:
No more he hides in night’s dark shroud,
Nor bears the o’erwhelming pang:
‘Me, guilty me, make me your aim,
O Rutules! mine is all the blame;
He did no wrong, nor e’er could do;
That sky, those stars attest ’tis true;
Love for his friend so freely shown,
This was his crime, and this alone.’
In vain he spoke: the sword fierce driven
That alabaster breast had riven.
Down falls Euryalus, and lies
In death’s enthralling agonies:
Blood trickles o’er his limbs of snow;
‘His head sinks gradually low:’
Thus, severed by the ruthless plough,
Dim fades a purple flower:
Their weary necks so poppies bow,
O’erladen by the shower.
But Nisus on the midmost flies,
With Volscens, Volscens in his eyes:
In clouds the warriors round him rise,
Thick hailing blow on blow:
Yet on he bears, no stint, no stay;
Like thunderbolt his falchion’ sway:
Till as for aid the Rutule shrieks
Plunged in his throat the weapon reeks:
The dying hand has reft away
The lifeblood of its foe.
Then, pierced to death, asleep he fell
On the dead breast he loved so well.
No day shall make your memory fail
From off the heart of time,
While Capitol abides in place,
The mansion of the Æneian race,
And throned upon that moveless base
Rome’s father sits sublime.
The Rutule warriors, weeping loud,
Slain Volscens campward bring:
Nor fewer tears in camp are shed
For Rhamnes and Serranus dead,
By one fell stroke their noblest sped
To darkness, chief and king.
Crowds gather to the spot, where lie
The bodies, dead or soon to die,
And see the place afloat with blood
And frothing gore in many a flood.
From hand to hand they pass the spoil:
Messapus’ helm they know,
And trappings gay, with deadly toil
Recovered from the foe.
The Dawn o’er earth her radiance spread:
When all is flooded by the ray,
And nature lies exposed to day,
Bold Turnus, armed from head to heel,
Inflames the warriors’ martial zeal:
Each to his followers makes appeal,
And goads them to engage:
Moreover, fixed on lifted spears,
(Where in that hour were human tears?)
Two gory heads they thrust to view,
Euryalus’ and Nisus’ too,
With cries of hate and rage.
Troy’s iron sons array their fight
On the left rampart—for the right
Adjoins the river shore:—
Above their breadth of moat they stood
In lofty turrets, sad of mood:
And horror on their spirit fell
To see those heads they knew so well
Dripping with loathly gore.
And swiftly to the mother came
Of lost Euryalus: the start
Sent icy chillness to her heart:
The thread was on the shuttle stopped,
And from her hand the spindle dropped.
She rends her hair; she shrieks aloud,
And to the rampart and the crowd
In wild distraction flies:
No more the face of men she fears,
The winged deaths, the showering spears,
But fills the air with cries:
‘Euryalus! returned, and thus?
And could you leave me lone,
Mine age’s stay, in life’s late day?
O what a heart of stone!
This perilous adventure seek,
Nor farewell to your mother speak?
And you are lying, lying thrown
To dogs and birds, ’neath skies unknown;—
And I, your mother, might not close
Your glassy eyes, your limbs compose,
Nor wash the gore away,
Nor robe you in that mantle fair,
Which, solacing an old wife’s care,
I
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