Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/174

150 Had I but youth, no need had been

Of gifts to lure me to the green:

No, though the bull were twice as fair,

'Tis not the prize should make me dare.'

Then on the ground in open view

Two gloves of giant weight he threw

Which Eryx once in combat plied

And braced him with the tough bull-hide.

In speechless wonder all behold:

Seven mighty hides with fold on fold

Enwrap the fist: and iron sewed

And knobs of lead augment the load.

E'en Dares starts in sheer dismay,

And shuns the desperate essay;

The gauntlets' weight Æneas tries,

And handles their enormous size.

Then fetching speech from out his breast

The veteran thus the train addressed:

'What if the gauntlets you had seen

Alcides wore that day,

Had stood on this ensanguined green

And watched the fatal fray?

These gloves your brother Eryx wore,

Still stained, you see, with brains and gore.

With those 'gainst Hercules he stood:

With these I fought, while youthful blood

Supplied me strength, nor age had shed

Its envious winter on my head.

But if the arms Sicilians wield

Deter the Trojan from the field,

If so Æneas' thoughts incline,

And so my chief approves,

Let both be equal, side and side:

I spare you Eryx' grim bull-hide:

Dismiss that terror, and resign

In turn your Trojan gloves.'