Page:Virgil (Collins).djvu/187

Rh

Dim shapes before his senses reel:

On host and town he turns his sight:

He quails, he trembles at the steel,

Nor knows to fly, nor knows to fight:

Nor to his pleading eyes appear

The car, the sister charioteer.

The deadly dart Æneas shakes:

His aim with stern precision takes,

Then hurls with all his frame;

Less loud from battering-engine cast

Roars the fierce stone, less loud the blast

Follows the lightning's flame.

On rushes as with whirlwind wings

The spear that dire destruction brings,

Makes passage through the corselet's marge,

And enters the seven-plated targe

Where the last ring runs round.

The keen point pierces through the thigh,

Down on his bent knee heavily

Comes Turnus to the ground."

The Rutulian prince confesses his defeat, and asks his life, in no craven spirit, for the sake of his aged father—bidding Æneas think of old Anchises. The conqueror half relents, when his eyes fall upon something which makes that appeal worse than useless.

Rolling his eyes, Æneas stood,

And checked his sword, athirst for blood.

Now faltering more and more he felt

The human heart within him melt,

When round the shoulder wreathed in pride

The belt of Pallas he espied,

And sudden flashed upon his view

Those golden studs so well he knew,