Discordant winds the combat try
With equal rage and might:
Nor blasts, nor clouds, nor waves give way:
Long balanced hangs the doubtful day:
In deadly grips they stand:
Thus Trojan and Italian meet,
With face to face, and feet to feet,
And hand close pressed to hand.
Where stones and torn-up trees are spread
Athwart a torrent’s channelled bed,
Young Pallas sees the Arcadians yield:
Forced by the ground to put aside
The gallant steeds they wont to ride,
And all unused on foot to fight,
They break and turn their backs in flight.
Upbraiding, soothing, all he can,
He prays them, taunts them, man by man:
‘Friends, whither would you fly? for shame!
O, by your former deeds of fame,
Your chief Evander’s glorious name,
Your fights beneath him won,
And my young hopes, that now aspire
To match the honours of my sire,
I charge you, stand, not run!
The sword, the sword must hew a pass
To take you through that living mass;
There, where the battle fiercest flames,
Our own, our noble country claims
Her Pallas and his band.
No angry heaven above you lowers:
Mortal, we cope with mortal powers:
A single life has each, like ours,
And each but one right hand.
Lo, here the ocean hems us in:
Earth leaves no room to flee:
Come, choose the goal ye mean to win;
The city or the sea?’
He said, and rushes all aglow
Full on the midmost of the foe.
First Lagus, led by evil chance,
Confronts the inevitable lance;
Him, as in vain a ponderous stone
With toiling hands he heaves,
The victor strikes where deftly join
The sutures of the ribs and spine,
And sudden from the joined bone
The unwilling spear retrieves.
On rushes Hisbo, madly fain
To catch him, hampered with the slain:
But Pallas, still more fleet,
Prevents him, as with reckless zeal
He breathes revenge, and plants the steel
E’en where the heartstrings beat.
Then slew he Sthenelus, and base
Anchemolus, of Rhœteus’ race,
Who dared in wantonness of crime
His step- dame’s wedded couch to climb.
Ye too were tumbled on the plain,
Larides, Thymber, brethren twain,
Of Daucus’ honourable strain;
So like, the sweet confusion e’en
Their parent’s eyes betrayed;
But Pallas twin and twin between
Has cruel difference made:
For Thymber’s head the steel has shorn;
Larides’ severed hand forlorn
Feels blindly for its lord:
The quivering fingers, half alive,
Twitch with convulsive gripe, and strive
To close upon the sword.
His deeds before their eye,
Anger and shame o’erpowering fear,
His mates to combat fly.
Lo, hurrying past in full career,
Falls Rhœteus by the Evandrian spear.
That spear was meant for Ilus’ death,
But Ilus gains a moment’s breath
Doomed in the next to die:
While Rhœteus comes between and bleeds,
From warlike Teuthras as he speeds
And Tyres’ brandished steel;
Rolled headlong from the rapid car
He tumbles, and the field of war
Spurns with his dying heel.
E’en as a swain ’mid forest trees,
When summer yields the wished-for breeze,
His scattered torches sends;
At once, devouring all between,
From east to west along the green
The fiery host extends;
He, placed on high, beholds the while
The conquering blaze with joyous smile:
So, gallant youth, from far and wide
Arcadia gathers to thy side,
And all her succour lends.
But, trained in battle’s fierce alarms,
Halæsus round him draws his arms
And springs to meet the foe.
Then fell Demodocus, and then
Ladon and Pheres, valiant men:
That onset brought them low:
A hostile hand Strymonius rears;
Strymonius’ hand his falchion shears:
At Thoas’ front he flings a stone,
And scatters blood, and brain, and bone.
Halæsus’ sire the future feared,
And ’mid the woods his darling reared:
When death had glazed the old man’s eyes,
The ruthless Parcæ claimed their prize,
Laid their cold finger on his heart,
And marked him for Evander’s dart.
Now, poising long his lance in air,
To Tiber Pallas made his prayer:
‘Grant, Tiber sire, the spear I throw
Through strong Halæsus’ breast may go:
The spoils and armour of the foe
Shall deck thy sacred oak.’
’Tis heard; and while Halæsus shields
Imaon’s breast, his own he yields
Unguarded to the stroke.
Lets not his followers yield the strife,
By that fell carnage frayed:
First slays he Abas, warrior good,
Who erst, like knot in sturdy wood,
The edge of combat stayed.
Now Tuscans, now Arcadians bleed,
And Troy’s indomitable breed.
The two hosts join in battle-shock,
Their generals equal as their might:
From every side to front they flock,
Till pinioned in a deadly lock
Nor arm nor dart can smite.
Here Pallas bids the battle rage,
There Lausus leads; alike their age;
Both fair in form, but both denied
Return to their dear land.
Yet not for victory or defeat
May each with each in conflict meet;
Each must his destiny abide
Beneath a mightier hand.
That gallant Lausus needs relief;
At once, impetuous on his car,
He cleaves a pathway through the war,
And ‘Lay,’ he cries, ‘your weapons by:
I cope with Pallas, none but
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