Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/284

 bulwark of the war has fallen in tall Orodes," and his comrades shout in unison, taking up the triumphal pæan. The dying man returns: "Whoever thou art, thy victorious boasting shall not be long or unavenged; for thee, too, a like fate is watching, and thou shalt soon lie on     5 these self-same fields." Mezentius answers, with hate mantling in his smile: "Die now. The sire of gods and king of men shall make his account with me." So saying, he drew forth the spear from the body: the heavy rest of iron slumber settles down on its eyes, and their beams     10 are curtained in everlasting night.

Cædicus slaughters Alcathous, Sacrator Hydaspes, Rapo kills Parthenius and Orses of iron frame, Messapus slays Clonius and Ericetes, Lycaon's son, that grovelling on the ground by a fall from his unbridled steed, this encountered     15 foot to foot. Prancing forward came Agis of Lycia; but Valerus, no unworthy heir of his grandsire's prowess, hurls him down; Thronius falls by Salius, and Salius by Nealces, hero of the javelin and the shaft that surprises from far. 20

And now the War-god's heavy hand was dealing out to each equal measures of agony and carnage; alike they were slaying, alike falling dead, victors and vanquished by turns, flight unthought of both by these and by those. The gods in Jove's palace look pityingly on the idle rage     25 of the warring hosts—alas, that death-doomed men should suffer so terribly! Here Venus sits spectator, there over against her Saturnian Juno. Tisiphone, ashy pale, is raving among thousands down below. But see! Mezentius, shaking his giant spear, is striding into the     30 field, an angry presence. Think of the stature of Orion, as he overtops the billows with his shoulders, when he stalks on foot through the very heart of Nereus' mighty depths that part before him, or as carrying an aged ash in triumph from the hill-top he plants his tread on the     35 ground, and hides his head among the clouds above: thus it is that Mezentius in enormous bulk shoulders his way. Æneas spies him along the length of the battle,