Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Now to the Latins Mars, the lord of war,
  2. gave might and valor, and to their wild hearts
  3. his spur applied, but on the Teucrians breathed
  4. dark fear and flight. From every quarter came
  5. auxiliar hosts, where'er the conflict called,
  6. and in each bosom pulsed the god of war.
  7. When Pandarus now saw his brother's corse
  8. low Iying, and which way the chance and tide
  9. of battle ran, he violently moved
  10. the swinging hinges of the gate, and strained
  11. with both his shoulders broad. He shut outside
  12. not few of his own people, left exposed
  13. in fiercest fight but others with himself
  14. he barred inside and saved them as they fled;
  15. nor noted, madman, how the Rutule King
  16. had burst in midmost of the line, and now
  17. stood prisoned in their wall, as if he were
  18. some monstrous tiger among helpless kine.
  19. His eyeballs strangely glared; his armor rang
  20. terrific, his tall crest shook o'er his brows
  21. blood-red, and lightnings glittered from his shield
  22. familiar loomed that countenance abhorred
  23. and frame gigantic on the shrinking eyes
  24. of the Aeneadae. Then Pandarus
  25. sprang towering forth, all fever to revenge
  26. his brother's slaughter. “Not this way,” he cried
  27. “Amata's marriage-gift! No Ardea here
  28. mews Turnus in his fathers' halls. Behold
  29. thy foeman's castle! Thou art not allowed
  30. to take thy leave.” But Turnus looked his way,
  31. and smiled with heart unmoved. “Begin! if thou
  32. hast manhood in thee, and meet steel with steel!
  33. Go tell dead Priam thou discoverest here
  34. Achilles!” For reply, the champion tall
  35. hurled with his might and main along the air
  36. his spear of knotted wood and bark untrimmed.
  37. But all it wounded was the passing wind,
  38. for Saturn's daughter turned its course awry,
  39. and deep in the great gate the spear-point drove.
  40. “Now from the stroke this right arm means for thee
  41. thou shalt not fly. Not such the sender of
  42. this weapon and this wound.” He said, and towered
  43. aloft to his full height; the lifted sword
  44. clove temples, brows, and beardless cheeks clean through
  45. with loudly ringing blow; the ground beneath
  46. shook with the giant's ponderous fall, and, lo,
  47. with nerveless limbs, and brains spilt o'er his shield,
  48. dead on the earth he lay! in equal halves
  49. the sundered head from either shoulder swung.