Some leaped to horse or chariot and rode with naked swords in air. Messapus, wild to break the truce, assailed the Tuscan King, Aulestes, dressed in kingly blazon fair, with fearful shock of steeds; the Tuscan dropped helplessly backward, striking as he fell his head and shoulders on the altar-stone that lay behind him. But Messapus flew, infuriate, a javelin in his hand, and, towering o'er the suppliant, smote him strong with the great beam-like spear, and loudly cried: “Down with him! Ah! no common victim he to give the mighty gods!” Italia 's men despoiled the dead man ere his limbs were cold. Then Corynaeus snatched a burning brand out of the altar, and as Ebysus came toward him for to strike, he hurled the flame full in his face: the big beard quickly blazed with smell of singeing; while the warrior bold strode over him, and seized with firm left hand his quailing foe's Iong hair; then with one knee he pushed and strained, compelled him to the `ground— and struck straight at his heart with naked steel. The shepherd Alsus in the foremost line came leaping through the spears; when o'er him towered huge Podalirius with a flashing sword in close pursuit; the mighty battle-axe clove him with swinging stroke from brow to chin, and spilt along his mail the streaming gore: so stern repose and iron slumber fell upon that shepherd's eyes, and sealed their gaze in endless night. But good Aeneas now stretched forth his unarmed hand, and all unhelmed thus Ioudly to his people called: “What means this frantic stir, this quarrel rashly bold? Recall your martial rage! The pledge is given and all its terms agreed. 'T is only I do lawful battle here. So let me forth, and tremble not. My own hand shall confirm the solemn treaty. For these rites consign Turnus to none but me.” Yet while he spoke, behold, a winged arrow, hissing loud, the hero pierced; but what bold hand impelled its whirling speed, none knew; nor if it were chance or some power divine that brought this fame upon Rutulia; for the glorious deed was covered o'er with silence: none would boast an arrow guilty of Aeneas' wound. When Turnus saw Aeneas from the line retreating, and the captains in dismay, with sudden hope he burned: he called for steeds, for arms, and, leaping to his chariot, rode insolently forth, the reins in hand. Many strong heroes he dispatched to die, as on he flew, and many stretched half-dead, or from his chariot striking, or from far raining his javelins on the recreant foe. As Mars, forth-speeding by the wintry stream of Hebrus , smites his sanguinary shield and whips the swift steeds to the front of war, who, flying past the winds of eve and morn, scour the wide champaign; the bounds of Thrace 
 beneath their hoof-beats thunder; the dark shapes of Terror, Wrath, and Treachery move on in escort of the god: in such grim guise bold Turnus lashed into the fiercest fray his streaming steeds, that pitiful to see trod down the slaughtered foe; each flying hoof scattered a bloody dew; their path was laid in mingled blood and sand. To death he flung Pholus and Sthenelus and Thamyris: two smitten in close fight and one from far: also from far he smote with fatal spear Glaucus and Lades, the Imbrasidae, whom Imbrasus himself in Lycia bred, and honored them with arms of equal skill when grappling with a foe, or o'er the field speeding a war-horse faster than the wind. Elsewhere Eumedes through a throng of foes to battle rode, the high-born Dolon's child, famous in war, who bore his grandsire's name, but seemed in might and courage like his sire: that prince, who reconnoitring crept so near the Argive camp, he dared to claim for spoil the chariot of Achilles; but that day great Diomed for such audacious deed paid wages otherwise,—and he no more dreamed to possess the steeds of Peleus' son. When Turnus recognized in open field this warrior, though far, he aimed and flung his javelin through the spacious air; then stayed his coursers twain, and, leaping from his car, found the wretch helpless fallen; so planted he his foot upon his neck, and from his hand wrested the sword and thrust it glittering deep in the throat, thus taunting as he slew: “There's land for thee, thou Trojan! Measure there th' Hesperian provinces thy sword would find. Such reward will I give to all who dare draw steel on me; such cities they shall build.” To bear him company his spear laid low Asbutes, Sybaris, Thersilochus, Chloreus and Dares, and Thymoetes thrown sheer off the shoulders of his balking steed. As when from Thrace the north wind thunders down the vast Aegean , flinging the swift flood against the shore, and where his blasts assail the cloudy cohorts vanish out of heaven: so before Turnus, where his path he clove, the lines fell back, the wheeling legions fled. The warrior's own wild impulse swept him on, and every wind that o'er his chariot blew shook out his plume in air. But such advance so bold, so furious, Phegeus could not brook, but, fronting the swift chariot's path, he seized the foam-flecked bridles of its coursers wild, while from the yoke his body trailed and swung; the broad lance found his naked side, and tore his double corselet, pricking lightly through the outer flesh; but he with lifted shield still fought his foe and thrust with falchion bare; but the fierce pace of whirling wheel and pole flung him down prone, and stretched him on the plain. Then Turnus, aiming with relentless sword between the corselet's edge and helmet's rim struck off his whole head, leaving on the sands the mutilated corpse. While thus afield victorious Turnus dealt out death and doom, Mnestheus, Achates true, and by their side Ascanius, have carried to the camp Aeneas, gashed and bleeding, whose long lance sustained his limping step. With fruitless rage he struggled with the spear-head's splintered barb, and bade them help him by the swiftest way to carve the wound out with a sword, to rip the clinging weapon forth, and send him back to meet the battle. Quickly to his side came Iapyx, dear favorite and friend of Phoebus, upon whom the god bestowed his own wise craft and power, Iove-impelled. The gifts of augury were given, and song, with arrows of swift wing: he when his sire was carried forth to die, deferred the doom for many a day, by herbs of virtue known to leechcraft; and without reward or praise his silent art he plied. Aeneas stood, bitterly grieving, propped upon his spear; a throng of warriors were near him, and Iulus, sorrowing. The aged man gathered his garments up as leeches do, and with skilled hand and Phoebus' herbs of power bustled in vain; in vain his surgery pried at the shaft, and with a forceps strong seized on the buried barb. But Fortune gave no remedy, nor did Apollo aid his votary. So more and more grim fear stalks o'er the field of war, and nearer hies the fatal hour; the very heavens are dust; the horsemen charge, and in the midmost camp a rain of javelins pours. The dismal cry of men in fierce fight, and of men who fall beneath relentless Mars, rends all the air.