Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/453

Rh And sad Onites, him who came

From Peridia, noble dame,

Born in Echion's bed.

This lays in death the brethren twain

From Lycia, Phœbus' own domain,

And young Menœtes, who in vain

Had shunned the battle's roar:

An Arcad he by Lerna's side

His fisher craft obscurely plied,

Contented to be poor:

In honest penury his sire

Tilled scanty ground let out to hire,

Nor knocked at rich man's door.

As fires that launched on different ways

Stream through a wood of crackling bays.

Or torrents that from mountain steep

Tumbling and thundering toward the deep

Plough each his own wild path;

Æneas thus and Turnus fly

Through the wide field; now, now 'tis nigh,

The boiling-point of wrath;

Their fierce hearts burst with rage; they throw

A giant's force on every blow.

Murranus that, whose boastful tongue

With high-born sires and grandsires rung,

And pedigrees of long renown

Through Latian monarchs handed down,

Smites with a stone of mountain size

And tumbles on the sward:

By reins and harness caught, the wheels

Still drag him on: the horses' heels

Beat down and crush him as he lies,

Unmindful of their lord.

While this, as Hyllus overbold

In furious onset springs,