Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/250

 snaps short, and pierces the midriff with the broken wood. Down he tumbles, disgorging from his breast the warm life-torrent that leaves him cold, and long choking gasps smite on his sides. They look round this way and that: while the same fell arm, nerved by success, is levelling,     5 see! another weapon from the ear-tip. While all is confusion, the spear has passed through Tagus' two temples with whizzing sound, and lies warmly lodged in his cloven brain. Volscens storms with fury, yet sees nowhere the author of the wound, nor on whom to vent his                   10 rage; "You, however, shall pay both debts meanwhile with your heart's blood," cries he; and speaking, rushes with drawn sword on Euryalus. Then, indeed, in frantic agony, Nisus shouts aloud; no more care had he to hide himself in darkness, no more strength to bear grief so             15 terrible: "Me, me! behold the doer! make me your mark, O Rutulians! mine is all the blame; he had no heart, no hand for such deeds; this heaven, these stars know that it is true; it was but that he loved his unhappy friend too well." Thus he was pleading; but the sword, driven with            20 the arm's full force, has pierced the ribs and is rending the snowy breast. Down falls Euryalus in death; over his beauteous limbs gushes the blood, and his powerless neck sinks on his shoulders; as when a purple flower, severed by the plough, pines in death, or poppies with faint necks            25 droop the head, when rain has chanced to weigh them down. But Nisus rushes full on the foe, Volscens his one object among them all; he cares for none but Volscens: the enemy cluster round, and assail him on all sides; none the less he holds on his way, whirling his lightning blade,        30 till at last he lodges it full in the Rutulian's face, as he shrieks for aid, and dying robs his foe of life. Then he flung himself on his breathless friend, pierced through and through, and there at length slept away in peaceful death. 35

Happy pair! if this my song has aught of potency, no lapse of days shall efface your names from the memory of time, so long as the house of Æneas shall dwell on the