Some leaped to horse or chariot and rodewith naked swords in air. Messapus, wildto break the truce, assailed the Tuscan King,Aulestes, dressed in kingly blazon fair,with fearful shock of steeds; the Tuscan droppedhelplessly backward, striking as he fellhis head and shoulders on the altar-stonethat lay behind him. But Messapus flew,infuriate, a javelin in his hand,and, towering o'er the suppliant, smote him strongwith the great beam-like spear, and loudly cried:“Down with him! Ah! no common victim heto give the mighty gods!” Italia's mendespoiled the dead man ere his limbs were cold.Then Corynaeus snatched a burning brandout of the altar, and as Ebysuscame toward him for to strike, he hurled the flamefull in his face: the big beard quickly blazedwith smell of singeing; while the warrior boldstrode over him, and seized with firm left handhis quailing foe's Iong hair; then with one kneehe pushed and strained, compelled him to the `ground—and struck straight at his heart with naked steel.The shepherd Alsus in the foremost linecame leaping through the spears; when o'er him toweredhuge Podalirius with a flashing swordin close pursuit; the mighty battle-axeclove him with swinging stroke from brow to chin,and spilt along his mail the streaming gore:so stern repose and iron slumber fellupon that shepherd's eyes, and sealed their gaze in endless night. But good Aeneas nowstretched forth his unarmed hand, and all unhelmedthus Ioudly to his people called: “What meansthis frantic stir, this quarrel rashly bold?Recall your martial rage! The pledge is givenand all its terms agreed. 'T is only Ido lawful battle here. So let me forth,and tremble not. My own hand shall confirmthe solemn treaty. For these rites consignTurnus to none but me.” Yet while he spoke,behold, a winged arrow, hissing loud,the hero pierced; but what bold hand impelledits whirling speed, none knew; nor if it werechance or some power divine that brought this fameupon Rutulia; for the glorious deedwas covered o'er with silence: none would boastan arrow guilty of Aeneas' wound.When Turnus saw Aeneas from the lineretreating, 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 farraining his javelins on the recreant foe.As Mars, forth-speeding by the wintry streamof Hebrus, smites his sanguinary shieldand 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 shapesof Terror, Wrath, and Treachery move onin escort of the god: in such grim guisebold Turnus lashed into the fiercest frayhis streaming steeds, that pitiful to seetrod down the slaughtered foe; each flying hoofscattered a bloody dew; their path was laidin mingled blood and sand. To death he flungPholus and Sthenelus and Thamyris:two smitten in close fight and one from far:also from far he smote with fatal spearGlaucus and Lades, the Imbrasidae,whom Imbrasus himself in Lycia bred,and honored them with arms of equal skillwhen grappling with a foe, or o'er the fieldspeeding a war-horse faster than the wind.

Elsewhere Eumedes through a throng of foesto 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 nearthe Argive camp, he dared to claim for spoilthe chariot of Achilles; but that daygreat Diomed for such audacious deedpaid wages otherwise,—and he no moredreamed to possess the steeds of Peleus' son.When Turnus recognized in open fieldthis warrior, though far, he aimed and flunghis javelin through the spacious air; then stayedhis coursers twain, and, leaping from his car,found the wretch helpless fallen; so planted hehis foot upon his neck, and from his handwrested the sword and thrust it glitteringdeep in the throat, thus taunting as he slew:“There's land for thee, thou Trojan! Measure thereth' Hesperian provinces thy sword would find.Such reward will I give to all who daredraw steel on me; such cities they shall build.”To bear him company his spear laid lowAsbutes, Sybaris, Thersilochus, Chloreus and Dares, and Thymoetes thrownsheer off the shoulders of his balking steed.As when from Thrace the north wind thunders downthe vast Aegean, flinging the swift floodagainst the shore, and where his blasts assailthe 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 blewshook out his plume in air. But such advanceso bold, so furious, Phegeus could not brook,but, fronting the swift chariot's path, he seizedthe foam-flecked bridles of its coursers wild,while from the yoke his body trailed and swung;the broad lance found his naked side, and torehis double corselet, pricking lightly throughthe outer flesh; but he with lifted shieldstill fought his foe and thrust with falchion bare;but the fierce pace of whirling wheel and poleflung him down prone, and stretched him on the plain.Then Turnus, aiming with relentless swordbetween the corselet's edge and helmet's rimstruck off his whole head, leaving on the sandsthe mutilated corpse. While thus afieldvictorious Turnus dealt out death and doom,Mnestheus, Achates true, and by their sideAscanius, have carried to the campAeneas, gashed and bleeding, whose long lancesustained his limping step. With fruitless ragehe struggled with the spear-head's splintered barb,and bade them help him by the swiftest wayto carve the wound out with a sword, to ripthe clinging weapon forth, and send him backto meet the battle. Quickly to his sidecame Iapyx, dear favorite and friendof Phoebus, upon whom the god bestowedhis own wise craft and power, Iove-impelled.The gifts of augury were given, and song,with arrows of swift wing: he when his sirewas carried forth to die, deferred the doomfor many a day, by herbs of virtue knownto leechcraft; and without reward or praisehis silent art he plied. Aeneas stood,bitterly grieving, propped upon his spear;a throng of warriors were near him, andIulus, sorrowing. The aged mangathered his garments up as leeches do,and with skilled hand and Phoebus' herbs of powerbustled in vain; in vain his surgerypried at the shaft, and with a forceps strongseized on the buried barb. But Fortune gaveno remedy, nor did Apollo aidhis votary. So more and more grim fearstalks o'er the field of war, and nearer hiesthe fatal hour; the very heavens are dust;the horsemen charge, and in the midmost campa rain of javelins pours. The dismal cryof men in fierce fight, and of men who fallbeneath relentless Mars, rends all the air.