Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/315

 has profaned your person, shall atone it by the death he has earned." Under the lofty mountain's shade there stood a vast mound of earth, the tomb of Dercennus, an old Laurentine king, shrouded with dark ilex: here the beauteous goddess first alights with a rapid bound, and     5 spies out Arruns from the barrow's height. Soon as she saw him gleaming in his armour, and swelling with vanity, "Why stray from the path?" cries she; "turn your feet hitherward! come hither to your death, and receive Camilla's guerdon! Alack! and are you too to be slain      10 by the shafts of Dian?" She said, and with the skill of Thracian maiden drew a swift arrow from her gilded quiver, bent the bow with deadly aim, and drew it far apart, till the arching ends met together, and with her two hands she touched, the barb of steel with her left, her breast with     15 her right and the bowstring. Forthwith the hurtling of the shaft and the rush of the breeze reached Arruns' ear at the moment the steel lodged in his body. Him gasping and groaning his last his comrades leave unthinking in the unmarked dust of the plain: Opis spreads her wings, and         20 is borne to skyey Olympus.

First flies, its mistress lost, Camilla's light-armed company; fly the Rutules in rout, flies keen Atinas; leaders in disarray and troops in devastation make for shelter, turn round, and gallop to the walls. None can sustain         25 in combat the Teucrians' deadly onset or resist the stream; they throw their unstrung bows on their unnerved shoulders, and the hoof of four-foot steeds shakes the crumbling plain. On rolls to the ramparts a cloud of dust, thick and murky; and the matrons from their sentry-posts,      30 smiting on their breasts, raise a shriek as women wont[o] to the stars of heaven. Who first pour at speed through the open gates are whelmed by a multitude of foemen that blends its crowd with theirs; they scape not the agony of death, but on the very threshold, with their      35 native walls around them, in the sanctuary of home, they breathe away their lives. Some close the gates: they dare not give ingress to their friends nor take them within the