With wonder strange the sudden change
The Rutule leaders note,
Till, backward as their eyes they bend,
They see the vessels shoreward tend,
And ocean all afloat.
There glows like furnace fiery red
The helmet on that noble head;
From the bossed shield, with gold ablaze,
A stream of living lightning plays;
So comets shoot athwart the night
A sullen sanguine glare;
So Sirius’ star, that brings to man
Fierce calenture and sickness wan,
Lifts high in heaven his baleful light
And saddens all the air.
To front the invader with the steel
And drive him from the strand;
Still prompt to cheer or to upbraid,
He clamours to his friends for aid:
‘Lo, here the chance for which you prayed,
To crush them sword in hand!
A brave man’s hand is Mars’s seat;
The coward finds him in his feet.
Think, each and all, of home and wife,
Think of their deeds who gave you life,
Your gallant sires of old.
Haste to the water’s brink; dispute
The land they challenge, foot to foot,
While still in helpless disarray
They slide and falter in the spray:
Fair fortune aids the bold.’
This said, he broods what wisest way
To portion out his powers,
Who best may follow him to fray,
Who watch the leaguered towers.
Æneas disembarks his band:
Some watch the ebbing of the deep,
And safely ’mid the shallows leap:
Some down the oars descending slide,
And win the ascent in spite of tide.
Stout Tarchon rolls his ranging eyes,
Till on the shore a place he spies,
Where no chafed billows seethe and boil,
No broken waves in wrath recoil,
But ocean without let or breach
Runs gently up the shelving beach;
Thither at once his fleet he steers,
And then salutes his comrades’ ears:
‘Now, gallants, now each sinew strain,
Your bounding barks upheave;
Pierce with your beaks the hostile plain;
Let the long keel with might and main
Its own broad furrow cleave;
Give me but once the land to seize,
The ship may break, if Fortune please.’
Nerved by the word, each plies his oar
And onward drives ’mid surge and foam,
Till every beak attains the shore
And every keel finds scatheless home.
Less happy their adventurous chief;
His vessel, fastening on a reef,
Long hangs in doubtful poise, and braves
The onset of the baffled waves;
Till the strained sides at last give way
And land the seamen ’mid the spray.
There as they struggle, floating wreck
And shattered oars their progress check,
And billows, ebbing in retreat,
Draw back, and wash them from their feet.
He musters all his band
To front the Trojans, and arrays
For conflict on the strand.
The clarions sound: Æneas first
On Latium’s ranks in havoc burst,
And laid the rustics low:
First falls, an augury of the fight,
Huge Theron, who with giant might
Assailed the godlike foe:
Through mail and gold-wrought tunic driven
The fatal sword his side has riven.
Then hapless Lichas meets his doom,
Who, ripped from his dead mother’s womb,
To Phœbus vowed the cherished life
That ’scaped the peril of the knife.
Strong Cisseus and tall Gyas feel,
As death with ponderous clubs they deal,
The griding of the conqueror steel.
Nought vantaged them in that dread hour
Herculean arms nor hands of power,
Nor he, the sire who gave them birth,
Melampus, soul of purest worth,
Long as Alcides toiled on earth,
Still constant at his side.
See, open-mouthed as Pharus cries,
Full in his face the weapon flies,
And stops his vaunting pride.
Thou, Cydon, too, whose eager quest
Young Clytius’ heart would move,
’Neath that dread arm the field hadst pressed,
Forgetful of thy love,
But thy brave brethren, Phorcus’ seed,
Were near thee in thy direst need;
Seven mighty men, they front the foe;
Seven javelins all at once they throw.
Some from his helm and shield rebound,
And, falling harmless, strew the ground;
While others, hurled with truer aim,
Kind Venus wards from off his frame.
Then to Achates cries the king:
‘Quick, give me store of darts to fling:
No spear shall thirst in vain
To dye its point in Rutule blood
Which erst in flesh of Grecian stood
On Ilium’s fated plain.’
He grasped his mighty lance and threw;
Through Mæon’s shield the weapon flew,
And breast and breastplate rends.
Alcanor brings his brother aid;
The falling chief his hand has stayed:
In vain: the fell spear holds its course,
Cleaves the stretched arm with fatal force,
And dangling from the shoulder-blade
The severed hand depends.
Then gallant Numitor outdrew
The javelin that his brother slew
And at Æneas sent:
The erring weapon cleft the sky,
Just grazed Achates’ brawny thigh,
Nor gained the mark it meant.
In pride of youth and stalwart frame,
Takes up the work of death;
’Neath Dryops’ chin he drives his spear;
Through neck and throat the point cuts sheer
And quenches voice and breath.
The dead brow tumbles on the shore,
The ghastly jaws disgorging gore.
Three too from Boreas’ seed of Thrace
And three from Idas’ ancient race
Beneath his weapon bleed:
The Auruncan tribes to aid him run,
Halæsus first, and Neptune’s son,
The tamer of the steed.
Then burns the fray: now these, now those
Essay to dispossess their foes:
E’en on Ausonia’s brink they close
In fierce and deathful fight.
So
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