Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/273

 But in another part of the field, where a torrent had scattered wide whirling stones and trees uprooted from its banks, soon as Pallas saw his Arcadians, unused to wage war on foot, flying before the chase of Latium, in that the cragginess of the soil had driven them to discard their     5 steeds, he tries the one remedy in sore distress, and now with prayers, now with bitter speeches, inflames their valour: "Whither fly ye, mates? By your gallant deeds I conjure you—by your chief Evander's name and victories won at his bidding—by my own promise, now     10 shooting up in rivalry with my father's glory—trust not to your feet. It is the sword that must hew us a way through the foe. Where yonder host of men presses in thickest mass is the path by which our noble country is calling you and your general Pallas back to her arms.      15 No deities sit heavy on us: by a mortal foe we are pressed, mortals ourselves: we have as many lives, as many hands as they. Lo there! the sea hems us in with mighty ocean-barrier; earth is closed to our flight: shall the sea or Troy be our goal?" This said, he dashes at the midst     20 of the hostile throng. The first that meets him is Lagus, brought to the spot by fates unkind; him, while tugging a stone of enormous weight, he pierces with his whirled javelin, just where the spine running down the back was parting the ribs, and recovers the weapon from its lodgment     25 among the bones. Nor can Hisbo surprise him in the fact, spite of his hopes; for Pallas catches him rushing on in blind fury for the pain of his comrade's death, and buries the sword in his distended lungs. Next his blow lights on Sthenelus, and Anchemolus of Rhœtus'     30 ancient line, who dared pollute his stepdame's couch. You, too, twin brethren, fell on those Rutulian plains, Larides and Thymber, Daucus' resemblant offspring, undistinguished even by your kin, a sweet perplexity to those who bore you: but now Pallas has marked you with     35 a cruel difference; for you, poor Thymber, have your head shorn off by the Evandrian sword; your hand, Larides, severed from the arm, is looking in vain for you