Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/336

 hand, and cries with a mighty voice: "Have done, ye Rutulians! ye Latians, hold back your darts! whatever Fortune brings she brings to me: 'tis juster far that I in your stead should singly expiate the treaty's breach and try the issue of the steel." All at the word part from the           5 midst, and leave him a clear space.

But father Æneas, hearing Turnus' name, quits his hold on the walls and the battlements that crown them, flings delay to the winds and breaks off the work of war, steps high in triumph, and makes his arms peal dread                 10 thunder: vast as Athos, vast as Eryx, vast as father Apennine himself, when he roars with his quivering holms[o] and lifts his snowy crest exultingly to the sky. All turn their eyes with eager contention. Rutulians, Trojans, and Italians, those alike who were manning the towers and                15 those whose battering-rams were assailing the foundations. All unbrace their armour. Latinus himself stands amazed to see two men so mighty, born in climes so distant each from each, thus met together to try the steel's issue. At once, when a space is cleared on the plain, first hurling            20 their spears, they advance with swift onset, and dash into the combat with shield and ringing harness. Earth groans beneath them; their swords hail blow on blow: chance and valour mingle pell-mell. As when on mighty Sila or Taburnus' summit two bulls, lowering their brows for                 25 combat, engage fiercely: the herdsmen retreat in dread: the cattle all stand dumb with terror, the heifers wait in suspense who is to be the monarch of the woodland, whom the herds are to follow henceforth: they each in turn give furious blows, push and lodge their horns, and             30 bathe neck and shoulders with streams of blood: the sound makes the forest bellow again: with no less fury Æneas the Trojan, and the Daunian chief clash shield on shield: the enormous din fills the firmament. Jupiter himself holds aloft his scales poised and level, and lays            35 therein the destinies of the two, to see whom the struggle dooms, and whose the weight that death bears down. Forth darts Turnus, deeming it safe, rises with his whole