His right knee propped against the mound,
He swings his weighty falchion round:
Head-piece and head, by one sure wound
Cut off, at distance fall.
Then huntsman Amycus succeeds:
None better knew to flying reeds
The envenomed point to lend:
And Clytius feels the conqueror’s spear,
And Cretheus, to the Muses dear,
Cretheus, the Muses’ friend:
The minstrel lay, the tuneful shell
Had touched him with their magic spell,
And still the warrior strung
To martial themes his glowing lyre,
And arms, and men, and steeds of fire
In lofty numbers sung.
Mnestheus and brave Serestus meet:
Their friends they see in wild retreat,
Within their camp the foe:
And, ‘Whither fly ye?’ Mnestheus cried:
‘What walls, what town are yours beside?
Shall one mere man, on all sides pent
Within your mounded battlement,
Such deaths have dealt, such warriors sent
Unvenged to shades below?
Feel ye no shame, no manly grief
For gods, for country, or for chief,
O craven hearts and slow?’
Roused by the word, they stand at length,
And front him with collected strength,
While Turnus by degrees gives ground,
And seeks the part the stream runs round.
The Trojans follow, shouting loud,
And closer still and closer crowd.
So when the gathering swains assail
A lion with their brazen hail,
He, glaring rage, begins to quail
And sullenly departs:
For shame his back he will not turn,
Yet dares not, howsoe’er he yearn,
To charge their serried darts!
So Turnus lingeringly retires,
And glows with ineffectual fires.
Twice on the foe e’en then he falls,
Twice routs and drives them round the walls:
But from the camp in swarms they pour,
Nor Juno dares to help him more,
For Iris hastens down
With words from Jove of angry threat,
Should Turnus make resistance yet,
Nor quit the leaguered town.
No longer now by force of hand
Or buckler may the youth withstand,
So thick the javelins play:
Round his broad brows the helmet rings:
Crushed by the volley from the slings
Its solid sides give way.
His plumes are reft: his shield ’gins fail,
While spear on spear the Trojans hail,
With Mnestheus, soul of flame.
O’er all his limbs dark sweat-drops break;
No time to breathe: thick pantings shake
His vast and labouring frame.
At length, accoutred as he stood,
Headlong he plunged into the flood.
The yellow flood the charge received,
With buoyant tide his weight upheaved,
And cleansing off the encrusted gore,
Returned him to his friends once more
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