Descend, dear goddess, from on high
To Latium’s frontier, where the war
Is joining under evil star.
Take these my weapons of offence,
And draw the avenging arrow thence,
That whoso may her life destroy,
Be he from Italy or Troy,
His forfeit blood may pay;
I in a hollow cloud will bear
Her corpse and armour through the air
And in her country lay.’
Fair Opis heard the words she said,
Then in a storm concealed
With swift descent through ether sped,
While loud her weapons pealed.
The Tuscans and the horsemen all,
In separate troops arrayed:
Their mettled steeds the champaign spurn,
And chafing this and that way turn;
Spears bristle o’er the fields, that burn
With arms on high displayed.
Messapus and the Latian force
And Coras and Camilla’s horse
An adverse front array:
With hands drawn back, they couch the spear,
And aim the dart in full career;
The tramp of heroes strikes the ear,
Mixed with the charger’s neigh.
Arrived within a javelin’s throw
The armies halt a space, when lo!
Sudden they let their good steeds go
And meet with deafening cry:
Their volleyed darts fly thick as snow,
Dark shadowing all the sky.
Tyrrhenus and Aconteus rash
With lance in rest together clash,
And falling both with hideous crash
Inaugurate the strife:
Each gallant steed has burst its heart:
Like spring-launched stone or lightning’s dart,
Hurled is Aconteus far apart,
And spends on air his life.
At once the line of battle breaks:
The Latians one and all
Sling their broad bucklers on their backs
And gallop toward the wall:
The Trojans follow them apace;
Asilas leads the martial chase.
And now the gates were well in sight,
When with a ringing shout
The Latian hosts renew the fight,
And wheel their steeds about.
The Trojans fly with loosened reins,
And pour promiscuous o’er the plains:
Thus ocean, swaying to and fro,
Now seeks the shore with onward flow,
Rains on the cliff the sprinkled surge,
And breaking bathes the sand’s last verge,
Now draws the rocky fragments back
And quits the sea-board, faint and slack.
Twice to their walls the Tuscans beat
The routed Rutule foe,
Twice, looking back in swift retreat,
Their shields behind them throw.
But when a third time hand to hand
The hosts in deadly mêelée stand
And man with man they close,
Then deathful groans invade the sky;
Arms, men, and horses soon to die
Blent in promiscuous carnage lie;
Like fire the combat glows.
Orsilochus, afraid to front
Bold Remulus in battle’s brunt,
Full at his charger flings a spear,
And leaves it lodged beneath the ear.
The generous beast, distraught with pain,
His forefeet lifts and rears amain;
The rider tumbles to the plain.
Iolas by Catillus dies,
Herminius too, of giant size,
Nor less in spirit bold:
Bare was his head; his shoulders bare
Sustain a yellow length of hair;
No wounds the doughty warrior scare,
So vast his martial mould:
Through his broad chest the spear is driven;
He writhes, by deadly anguish riven.
With rivulets of slaughter reeks
The stern embattled field,
While each deals havoc round, or seeks
The glory death-wounds yield.
With all an Amazon’s delight,
One naked breast conspicuous shone
By looping of her golden zone:
And now she rains an iron shower,
Thick pouring spears on spears,
And now with unabated power
Her mighty axe she rears;
Behind her sounds her golden bow,
And those dread darts the silvans know.
Nay, should she e’en perforce retreat,
Flying she wings her arrows fleet.
Her favoured comrades round her stand,
Larina maid, her strong heart manned,
Tulla, Tarpeia, axe in hand,
Italia’s daughters they,
Whom erst she chose, attendants true,
Her bidding resolute to do
In peace or battle-fray:
So on Thermodon’s echoing banks
The Amazons array their ranks,
In painted arms of radiant sheen
Around Hippolyte the queen,
Or when Penthesilea’s car
Triumphant breasts the surge of war;
The maidens with their moony shields
Howling and leaping shake the fields.
By thy resistless blow?
How many chiefs in valour’s pride
Didst thou on earth lay low?
First fell Eunæus, Clytius’ heir:
His breast, unguarded left and bare,
Receives the lance’s wound:
He vomits forth a crimson flood,
Writhes dying round the fatal wood,
And bites the bloody ground.
Then Pagasus and Liris bleed:
One, tumbled from his wounded steed,
Is gathering up the rein,
One strives his helpless hand to reach
To his fallen friend; that moment each
Lies prostrate on the plain.
With these, the tale of death to swell,
Hippotades Amastrus fell:
Then as in wildering rout they run
She bids her darts pursue
Harpalycus, Demophoon,
Tereus and Chromis too:
A Phrygian mother mourned her son
For every lance that flew.
Afar in unknown arms equipped
See Ornytus the hunter ride
On Iapygian steed: a hide
Enswathes him round, from bullock stripped;
A wolf’s grim jaws, whose white teeth grin,
Clasp like a helmet brow and chin:
A pike like curving sheep-hook planned
In rustic fashion arms his hand;
On high he lifts his lofty crest
That towers conspicuous o’er the rest.
Hampered by helpless disarray
She catches him, an easy prey,
Transfixes, and in bitter strain
Contemptuously insults the slain:
‘Tuscan, you deemed
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