Aeneid
Virgil
Vergil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Williams, Theodore, C, translator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.
- To Turnus, who upon a distant field
- was storming with huge havoc, came the news
- that now his foe, before a gate thrown wide,
- was red with slaughter. His own fight he stays,
- and speeds him, by enormous rage thrust on,
- to those proud brethren at the Dardan wall.
- There first Antiphates, who made his war
- far in the van (a Theban captive's child
- to great Sarpedon out of wedlock born),
- he felled to earth with whirling javelin:
- th' Italic shaft of cornel lightly flew
- along the yielding air, and through his throat
- pierced deep into the breast; a gaping wound
- gushed blood; the hot shaft to his bosom clung.
- Then Erymas and Merops his strong hand
- laid low: Aphidnus next, then came the turn
- of Bitias, fiery-hearted, furious-eyed:
- but not by javelin,—such cannot fall
- by flying javelin,—the ponderous beam
- of a phalaric spear, with mighty roar,
- like thunderbolt upon him fell; such shock
- neither the bull's-hides of his double shield
- nor twofold corselet's golden scales could stay
- but all his towering frame in ruin fell.
- Earth groaned, and o'er him rang his ample shield.
- so crashes down from Baiae's storied shore
- a rock-built mole, whose mighty masonry,
- piled up with care, men cast into the sea;
- it trails its wreckage far, and fathoms down
- lies broken in the shallows, while the waves
- whirl every way, and showers of black sand
- are scattered on the air: with thunder-sound
- steep Prochyta is shaken, and that bed
- of cruel stone, Inarime, which lies
- heaped o'er Typhoeus by revenge of Jove.