Meantime the war approaches to the tents; Th’ alarm grows hotter, and the noise augments: The driving dust proclaims the danger near; And first their friends, and then their foes appear: Their friends retreat; their foes pursue the rear. The camp is fill’d with terror and affright: The hissing shafts within the trench alight; An undistinguish’d noise ascends the sky, The shouts of those who kill, and groans of those who die. But now the goddess mother, mov’d with grief, And pierc’d with pity, hastens her relief. A branch of healing dittany she brought, Which in the Cretan fields with care she sought: Rough is the stem, which woolly leafs surround; The leafs with flow’rs, the flow’rs with purple crown’d, Well known to wounded goats; a sure relief To draw the pointed steel, and ease the grief. This Venus brings, in clouds involv’d, and brews Th’ extracted liquor with ambrosian dews, And odorous panacee. Unseen she stands, Temp’ring the mixture with her heav’nly hands, And pours it in a bowl, already crown’d With juice of med’c’nal herbs prepar’d to bathe the wound. The leech, unknowing of superior art Which aids the cure, with this foments the part; And in a moment ceas’d the raging smart. Stanch’d is the blood, and in the bottom stands: The steel, but scarcely touch’d with tender hands, Moves up, and follows of its own accord, And health and vigour are at once restor’d. Iapis first perceiv’d the closing wound, And first the footsteps of a god he found. “Arms! arms!” he cries; “the sword and shield prepare, And send the willing chief, renew’d, to war. This is no mortal work, no cure of mine, Nor art’s effect, but done by hands divine. Some god our general to the battle sends; Some god preserves his life for greater ends.”