Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/247

 shaggy spoils: Aletes, true of heart, makes an exchange of helmets. Their arming done they march along; and as they go, the whole band of nobles, young and old, escorts them to the gate with prayers for their safety. There too was fair Iulus, in heart and forethought manlier than his     5 years, giving them many a charge to carry to his father. But the winds scatter all alike, and deliver them cancelled to the clouds.

Passing through the gate, they cross the trenches, and through the midnight shade make for the hostile camp—destined,     10 though, first to be the death of many. All about the grass they see bodies stretched at length by sleep and wine, cars tilted up on the shore, men lying among wheels and harness, with armour and pools of wine about them. First spoke the son of Hyrtacus: "Euryalus, daring hands      15 are wanted; the occasion now calls for action; here lies our way. Do you keep watch and wide look-out, lest any hand be lifted against us from behind; I will lay these ranks waste, and give you a broad path to walk in." So saying, he checks his voice, and at once with his tyrannous     20 sword assails Rhamnes, who, pillowed on a vast pile of rugs, was breathing from all his breast the breath of sleep—a king himself, and king Turnus' favourite augur; but his augury availed him not to ward off death. Close by he surprises three attendants, stretched carelessly      25 among their weapons, and Remus' armour-bearer and charioteer, catching him as he lay at the horses' side: the steel shears through their drooping necks; then he lops the head of their lord, and leaves the trunk gurgling and spouting blood, while ground and couch are reeking      30 with black streams of gore. Lamyrus too, and Lamus, and young Serranus, who had played long that night in the pride of his beauty, and was lying with the dream-god's hand heavy upon him; happy, had he made his play as long as the night, and pushed it into morning. Like a     35 hungry lion making havoc through a teeming fold—for the madness of famine constrains him—he goes mangling and dragging along the feeble cattle, dumb with terror,