Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/319

 on me, too, my Turnus; along with you I shall leave the hated light, nor see in Æneas my son-in-law and my conqueror."
 * ever chance waits on you in this unhappy combat, waits

As Lavinia heard her mother's voice, her glowing cheeks      5 were bathed in tears; a deep blush kindled a fire, and shot over her flushing face. As when a man has stained Indian ivory with blood-red purple, or like a bed of lilies and roses mixed: such hues were seen on the maiden's countenance. He, bewildered with passion, fixes his eyes upon her: the      10 sight makes him burn the more for battle, and thus he addresses Amata in brief: "Let me not have tears nor aught so ominous, dear mother, as my escort to the iron battle; Turnus is not free to postpone the call of death. Go, Idmon, and bear the Phrygian despot a message that       15 will like him not: Soon as the goddess of to-morrow's dawn shall fire the sky with the glow of her chariot, let him not spur the Teucrians against the Rutulians; let Teucrian and Rutulian sheath their swords, while we twain with our own life-blood decide the war. Let             20 Lavinia's hand be sought and won in yonder field."

So he spoke, and rushed back within doors: he calls for his steeds, and joys to look on them snorting and neighing—the steeds which Orithyia gave as a present to Pilumnus, to surpass the snows in whiteness, the winds in speed. 25 Round them stand the bustling charioteers, patting their chests with hollow palms and combing their maned necks. Next he throws round his shoulders his hauberk, stiff with scales of gold and dazzling orichalc,[o] and adjusts to his wear the sword, the shield, and the cones of the crimson      30 crest—that sword the Fire-god's own hand had made for his father Daunus, and tempered it glowing in the Stygian wave. Lastly, the spear which was standing in the palace-hall, propped by a mighty column, the spoil of Auruncan Actor, he seizes forcefully, sturdy as it is,         35 and shakes till it quivers, crying aloud: "Now, my good spear, that hast never failed my call, now is the time; once wast thou swayed by giant Actor, now by Turnus: