Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/216



Soon as Turnus set high on Laurentum's tower the ensign of war, and the horns clanged forth their harsh music, soon as he shook the reins in the mouth of his fiery steeds, and clashed his armour, at once came a stirring of men's souls: all Latium conspires in tumultuous rising,     5 and the warrior bands are inflamed to madness. The generals, Messapus and Ufens and Mezentius, scorner of the gods, assume the lead, mustering succour from all sides and unpeopling the fields of their tillers far and wide. Venulus too is sent to the town of mighty Diomede     10 to entreat help, and set forth that the Teucrians are planting foot in Latium: that Æneas is arrived by sea and intruding his vanquished home-gods, and announcing himself as the Latians' destined king; that many tribes are flocking to the standard of the Dardan chief, and the     15 contagion of his name is spreading over Latium's length and breadth. What is to be the end of such a beginning, what, should fortune favour him, he promises to himself as the issue of the battle, Diomede will know better than king Turnus or king Latinus. 20

So go things in Latium. The chief of Laomedon's line sees it all, and is tossed on a sea of cares; now on this point, now on that, he throws in a moment the forces of his mind, hurrying it into all quarters and sweeping the whole range of thought: as in water a flickering beam     25 on a brazen vat, darted back by the sun or the bright moon's image, flits far and wide over the whole place, now at last mounting to the sky and striking the ceiling of the roof. Night came, and tired life the earth over, bird and beast alike, were lapped deep in slumber, when     30 Æneas, good king, troubled at heart by the anxious war,