Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/279

 Even as Ægæon, who, fable tells, had a hundred arms and a hundred hands, and flashed fire through fifty mouths from the depths of fifty bosoms, what time against Jove's lightning he thundered on fifty strong shields, and drew forth fifty sharp swords, so Æneas slakes his victorious        5 fury the whole field over, when once his blade had grown warm with blood. See! he is advancing against Niphæus' four harnessed steeds, and setting his breast against theirs. At once they, soon as they saw his lofty stride and his fierce gestures, turn round affrighted, and,     10 rushing backward, unseat their master and hurry the car to the beach. Meanwhile Lucagus forces his way into the midst, drawn by two white horses, with Liger his brother; but the brother guides the steeds with the rein, while Lucagus sweeps fiercely round his naked sword. 15 Æneas brooked not the fury of their fiery onset, but rushed against them, and stood fronting them in his giant bulk with threatening spear. To him cried Liger: "These are not Diomede's steeds you see, nor this Achilles' chariot, nor are these the Phrygian plains; your warfare and             20 your life shall end here on Italian ground." So fly abroad the random words of frantic Liger. The chief of Troy seeks not to meet him with words, but hurls his javelin at the foe. Even as Lucagus, bending forward over the stroke, pricked on his horses with the steel, and advancing     25 his left foot prepares himself for fight, the spear pierces the last margin of the radiant shield and enters the groin at the left: down he falls from the car and wallows in death on the plain; while good Æneas bespeaks him with words of gall: "So, Lucagus, it is no                  30 craven flight of your steeds that has played your car false; no empty shadow cast by the foe has turned them; no, it is you that spring down from the wheels, and leave the horses to their fate." With these words he laid hold of the bridles, while the wretched brother, gliding down           35 from the car, was stretching his recreant hands: "Oh, by yourself, by the parents that gave such greatness birth, spare this poor life, brave hero of Troy, and let prayer