HKB
fears, and let the fight ensue; This hand alone shall right the gods and you: Our injur’d altars, and their broken vow, To this avenging sword the faithless Turnus owe.”
Thus while he spoke, unmindful of defence, A winged arrow struck the pious prince. But, whether from some human hand it came, Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame: No human hand or hostile god was found, To boast the triumph of so base a wound.
When Turnus saw the Trojan quit the plain, His chiefs dismay’d, his troops a fainting train, Th’ unhop’d event his heighten’d soul inspires: At once his arms and coursers he requires; Then, with a leap, his lofty chariot gains, And with a ready hand assumes the reins. He drives impetuous, and, where’er he goes, He leaves behind a lane of slaughter’d foes. These his lance reaches; over those he rolls His rapid car, and crushes out their souls: In vain the vanquish’d fly; the victor sends The dead men’s weapons at their living friends. Thus, on the banks of Hebrus’ freezing flood, The God of Battles, in his angry mood, Clashing his sword against his brazen shield, Let loose the reins, and scours along the field: Before the wind his fiery coursers fly; Groans the sad earth, resounds the rattling sky. Wrath, Terror, Treason, Tumult, and Despair (Dire faces, and deform’d) surround the car; Friends of the god, and followers of the war. With fury not unlike, nor less disdain, Exulting Turnus flies along the plain: His smoking horses, at their utmost speed, He lashes on, and urges o’er the dead. Their fetlocks run with blood; and, when they bound, The gore and gath’ring dust are dash’d around. Thamyris and Pholus, masters of the war, He kill’d at hand, but Sthenelus afar: From far the sons of Imbracus he slew, Glaucus and Lades, of the Lycian crew; Both taught to fight on foot, in battle join’d, Or mount the courser that outstrips the wind.
Meantime Eumedes, vaunting in the field, New fir’d the Trojans, and their foes repell’d. This son of Dolon bore his grandsire’s name, But emulated more his father’s fame; His guileful father, sent a nightly spy, The Grecian camp and order to descry: Hard enterprise! and well he might require Achilles’ car and horses, for his hire: But, met upon the scout, th’ Aetolian prince In death bestow’d a juster recompense. Fierce Turnus view’d the Trojan from afar, And launch’d his jav’lin from his lofty car; Then lightly leaping down, pursued the blow, And, pressing with his foot his prostrate foe, Wrench’d from his feeble hold the shining sword, And plung’d it in the bosom of its lord. “Possess,” said he, “the fruit of all thy pains, And measure, at thy length, our Latian plains. Thus are my foes rewarded by my hand; Thus may they build their town, and thus enjoy the land!”
Then Dares, Butes, Sybaris he slew, Whom o’er his neck his flound’ring courser threw. As when loud Boreas, with his blust’ring train, Stoops from above, incumbent on the main; Where’er he flies, he drives the rack before, And rolls the billows on th’ Aegaean shore: So, where resistless Turnus takes his course, The scatter’d squadrons bend before his force; His crest of horses’ hair is blown behind By adverse air, and rustles in the wind.