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 swept over all alike—why do we merely falter on the threshold? why are we seized with shivering ere the trumpet blows? Many a man's weal has been restored by time and the changeful struggles of shifting days: many a man has Fortune, fair and foul by turns, made her sport      5 and then once more placed on a rock. Grant that we shall have no help from the Ætolian and his Arpi: but we shall from Messapus, and the blest Tolumnius, and all the leaders that those many nations have sent us; nor small shall be the glory which will wait on the flower of Latium     10 and the Laurentine land. Ay, and we have Camilla,[o] of the noble Volscian race, with a band of horsemen at her back and troops gleaming with brass. If it is I alone that the Teucrians challenge to the fight, and such is your will, and my life is indeed the standing obstacle to the good of      15 all, Victory has not heretofore fled with such loathing from my hands that I should refuse to make my venture for a hope so glorious. No, I will confront him boldly, though he should prove great as Achilles, and don harness like his, the work of Vulcan's art. To you and to my royal father-in-law      20 have I here devoted this my life, I, Turnus, second in valour to none that went before me. 'For me alone Æneas calls.' Vouchsafe that he may so call! nor let Drances in my stead, if the issue be Heaven's vengeance, forfeit his life, or, if it be prowess and glory, bear that prize      25 away!"

So were these contending over matters of doubtful debate: Æneas was moving his army from camp to field. See, there runs a messenger from end to end of the palace amid wild confusion, and fills the town with a mighty        30 terror, how that in marching array the Trojans and the Tuscan force are sweeping down from Tiber's stream over all the plain. In an instant the minds of the people are confounded, their bosoms shaken to the core, their passions goaded by no gentle stings. They clutch at arms,     35 clamour for arms: arms are the young men's cry: the weeping fathers moan and mutter. And now a mighty din, blended of discordant voices, soars up to the skies,