Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/335

 threatens that he will level in dust and give to destruction the Italians' topmost battlements: even now brands are flying to the roofs. Every Latian face, every eye turns to you: the king himself mutters in doubt whom to call his son-in-law, to whose alliance to incline. Nay,           5 more, your fastest friend the queen is dead by her own hand, scared and driven out of life. Only Messapus and keen Atinas are at the gates to uphold our forces. About them are closed ranks, and an iron harvest of naked blades: you are rolling your car over a field from which             10 war has ebbed." Turnus stood still with silent dull regard, wildered by the thoughts that crowd on his mind: deep shame, grief and madness, frenzy-goaded passion and conscious wrath all surging at once. Soon as the shadows parted and light came back to his intelligence,              15 he darted his blazing eyes cityward with restless vehemence, and looked back from his car to the wide-stretching town. Lo! there was a cone of fire spreading from story to story and flaring to heaven: the flame was devouring the turret which he had built himself of planks welded                20 together, put wheels beneath it, and furnished it with lofty bridges. "Fate is too strong for me, sister, too strong: hold me back no longer: we needs must follow where Heaven and cruel Fortune are calling us. Yes, I will meet Æneas: I will endure the full bitterness of             25 death: no more, my love, shall you see me disgraced: suffer me first to have my hour of madness." He said, and in a moment leapt to the ground, rushes on through foes, through javelins, leaves his sister to her sorrow, and dashes at full speed through the intervening ranks. Even             30 as from a mountain's top down comes a rock headlong, torn off by the wind, or washed down by vehement rain, or loosened by the lapse of creeping years; down the steep it crashes with giant impulse, that reckless stone, bounding over the ground and rolling along with it trees, herds,               35 and men: so, dashing the ranks apart, rushes Turnus to the city walls, where the earth is wet with plashy blood, and the gale hurtles with spears: he beckons with his