Then he threw his garment from his shoulders, showing his mighty arms and sinews. And Æneas gave the two equal gauntlets, and they stood with heads thrown back, and began the battle. Dares indeed was swifter to move, and vigorous, and young; and Entellus was huge of stature, but slow and scant of breath. Many blows they aimed at each other: many times one smote the other on his breast or his cheek, but struck not home. And ever Entellus abode in the same place, swaying himself hither and thither with watchful eyes. But Dares was as one who besieges a city or a fort on the hills, and tries now this approach, now that, and searches out all the place, and assails it in many ways. But at the last Entellus lifted his right hand and dealt a mighty blow, which the other, foreseeing it as it fell, avoided; so that the old man wasted his strength in air, and fell with a great crash to the earth, even as falls a pine torn up by the roots on Mount Erymanthus or Mount Ida. Then the men of Troy and the men of Sicily rose up from their places to see the thing; Acestes also ran forward and lifted up the old man from the earth and would have comforted him. But he went back in great wrath to the battle, anger and shame stirring him up. And Dares fled before him over the plain, and he followed him, smiting him now with the right hand, now with the left, and his blows were as the hail that rattles upon the roof. But Æneas bade him stay his anger, and spake kindly to Dares, bidding him cease from the battle. "Seest thou not that this day the victory is another's, and that the Gods are against thee? Fight not against the Gods." Then he commanded that the battle should cease. And the companions of Dares led him to the ships, scarcely dragging his legs, and vomiting thick blood from his mouth, and teeth in the blood. Also they took the shield and helmet which were his reward, but the palm-branch and the ox they left to Entellus. Then said the conqueror, "See, son of the goddess, and ye men of Troy, what strength dwelt in this body while I was yet young, and from what a death ye have saved this Dares." Then stood he over against the ox and smote it with his gauntlet between the horns. And it fell dead upon the earth. And Entellus cried aloud, "O Eryx, I offer thee this life for the life of Dares, being indeed the better for the worse. And I lay aside these gauntlets and this art." [Illustration: ENTELLUS KILLING THE BULL.]