Aeneid

Virgil

Vergil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Williams, Theodore, C, translator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.

  1. After such farewell word, he from the gates
  2. in mighty stature strode, and swung on high
  3. his giant spear. With him in serried line
  4. Antheus and Mnestheus moved, and all the host
  5. from the forsaken fortress poured. The plain
  6. was darkened with their dust; the startled earth
  7. shook where their footing fell. From distant hill
  8. Turnus beheld them coming, and the eyes
  9. of all Ausonia saw: a chill of fear
  10. shot through each soldier's marrow; in their van
  11. Juturna knew full well the dreadful sound,
  12. and fled before it, shuddering. But he
  13. hurried his murky cohorts o'er the plain.
  14. As when a tempest from the riven sky
  15. drives landward o'er mid-ocean, and from far
  16. the hearts of husbandmen, foreboding woe,
  17. quake ruefully,—for this will come and rend
  18. their trees asunder, kill the harvests all,
  19. and sow destruction broadcast; in its path
  20. fly roaring winds, swift heralds of the storm:
  21. such dire approach the Trojan chieftain showed
  22. before his gathered foes. In close array
  23. they wedge their ranks about him. With a sword
  24. Thymbraeus cuts huge-limbed Osiris down;
  25. Mnestheus, Arcetius; from Epulo
  26. Achates shears the head; from Ufens, Gyas;
  27. Tolumnius the augur falls, the same
  28. who flung the first spear to the foeman's line.
  29. Uprose to heaven the cries. In panic now
  30. the Rutules in retreating clouds of dust
  31. scattered across the plain. Aeneas scorned
  32. either the recreant or resisting foe
  33. to slaughter, or the men who shoot from far:
  34. for through the war-cloud he but seeks the arms
  35. of Turnus, and to single combat calls.