Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/325

 passion, to try the issue with the steel. The altars are stripped bare: through the whole sky drives a flickering storm of weapons and an iron sleet comes thick: bowls and hearths are carried away. King Latinus flies, bearing away his gods in discomfiture, the truce unratified. 5 Others rein the chariot or vault on horseback, with swords ready drawn.

Messapus, all on fire to annul the treaty, spurs his horse full on the Tuscan Aulestes, a king and wearing kingly cognizance: he draws quickly back, and gets entangled                10 in piteous sort with the altars that meet him behind, falling on them head and shoulders. Up flashes Messapus spear in hand, and towering on horseback brings down on him the massy beam in the midst of his prayers, and delivers himself thus: "He is sped: here is a better victim for the           15 mighty gods." The Italians cluster round, and strip the yet warm body. As Ebusus comes up and aims a blow, Corynæus meets him with a brand half-burnt from the altar and dashes the fire in his face: his long beard burst into a blaze and made a smell of burning hair: the enemy             20 presses on, grasps in his left hand the locks of the wildered man and with the impact of his knee pins him to earth; then buries the stark falchion in his side. Podalirius gives chase to Alsus the shepherd as he rushed in the first rank through a shower of darts, and hangs over him with              25 naked sword: he, swinging back his axe, splits full in front the foe's forehead and chin, and splashes his arms right and left with the blood. The heavy rest of iron slumber settles down on the dying eyes, and their beams are curtained in everlasting night. 30

But good Æneas, his head bare, was stretching forth his unarmed hand and shouting to his men: "Whither are you driving? what is this sudden outburst of strife? Oh, curb your passions! the truce is stricken, and all the terms arranged: none but I has a right to engage: give way to              35 me and have done with alarm: my sword shall ratify the treaty: this sacrifice has put Turnus in my power." While he is crying thus and uttering words like these, lo!