And Virbius came, Aricia’s handsome son, raised in the groves, The marshy shores around Diana’s altar, Most rich, most gracious. Hippolytus, his father, Had once been slain, the story runs, a victim Of Phaedra’s hate and passion, and the vengeance His father took; he had been drawn and quartered By Theseus’ stallions, but Apollo’s magic, Diana’s love, had given him life again Under the stars and the fair light of heaven, And Jupiter, angry that any mortal Should rise from shadow to life, struck down his healer, Apollo’s son, with a fearful blast of thunder, Hippolytus being hidden by Diana In a secret place, where the nymph Egeria tended Her sacred grove; there he lived out, alone, In the Italian woods, the days of his life With no renown; he took another name, Virbius, meaning, _Twice a man_; no horses Ever came near that grove, that holy temple, Seeing that horses on an earlier shore Had overturned his chariot in panic And been his death, driven to panic terror By monsters from the ocean. But his son, Virbius the younger, had no fear of horses, Driving and riding to war. Among the foremost, Taller than any, by a head, was Turnus, Gripping the sword; his helmet, triple-crested, Had a Chimaera on it, breathing fire From gaping jaws; the bloodier the battle, The hotter the fight, the redder that reflection, And on his shield, in gold, the story of Io, The heifer, once a girl; you could see her guardian, Argus, the hundred-eyed, and her poor father, The river-god with streaming urn, Inachus. And a cloud of warriors on foot behind him, Columns with shields, the Argives and Auruncans, Rutulians, old Sicanians, Labicians With colored shields, Sacranians, men from Tiber, Ploughmen of Circe’s ridge, soldiers from Anxur, Sons of Feronia, that land of greenness Where Satura’s marsh lies dark, and the cold river Runs seaward through the valley. And last of all Camilla rode, leading her troops on horseback, Her columns bright with bronze, a soldieress, A woman whose hands were never trained to weaving, To the use of wool, to basketry, a girl As tough in war as any, in speed afoot Swifter than wind. She could go flying over The tips of the ears of the wheat, and never bruise them, So light her way, she could run on the lift of the wave, Dry-shod; and they came from the houses and fields to wonder, To gaze at her going, young men, and matrons thronging, Wide-eyed and with parted lips, at the glory of royal crimson Over her shoulders’ smoothness, the clasp of the gold In her hair, and the way she carried the Lycian quiver, The heft of the pastoral myrtle, the wand with the spearpoint. BOOK VIII AENEAS AT THE SITE OF ROME