On this Acestes, with grave severity of speech, rebukes Entellus, just as he chanced to be seated next him on the verdant grassy couch. “Entellus, once known as the bravest of heroes, and all for nought, will you brook so 20 calmly that a prize so great be carried off without a blow? Where are we now to look for that mighty deity your master, Eryx, vaunted so often and so idly? Where is that glory which spread all Trinacria through, and those spoils that hang from your roof?” He replied: “It is 25 not the love of praise, not ambition, that has died out, extinguished by fear. No, indeed; but my blood is dulled and chilled by the frost of age, and the strength in my limbs withered and ice-bound. Had I now what I once had, what is now the glory and the boast of that loud braggart 30 there; had I but the treasure of youth, I should not have needed the reward and the goodly bullock to bring me into the field; nor are gifts what I care for.” So saying, he flung into the midst a pair of gauntlets of enormous weight, with which the fiery Eryx[192] was wont to 35 deal his blows in combat, stringing his arms with the tough hide. Every heart was amazed, so vast were the seven huge bull-hides, hardened with patches of lead and iron. More than all the rest Dares is astonished, and recoils many paces; and the hero himself, Anchises’ son, stands turning in his hands the massive weight and the enormous wrappers of twisted thong. Then the old man fetched from his heart words like these:—“What if any one here 5 had seen those mightier weapons, Hercules’ own gauntlets, and the fatal combat on this very strand? These are the arms that Eryx, your brother, once wielded; you see on them still the stains of blood and sprinkled brains. With these he stood up against the great Alcides. These I 10 was trained to use while fresher blood inspired me with strength, and the snows of age, my jealous rival, were not yet sprinkled on my brows. But if Dares the Trojan refuses our Sicilian weapons, and that is good Æneas’ fixed wish, approved by Acestes, my backer in the fight, make 15 we the contest even. I spare you the bull-hides of Eryx—never fear—and do you put off your Trojan gauntlets.” So saying, he flung off from his shoulders his double garment, and displays the giant joints of his limbs, the giant bone-work of his arms, and stands, a mighty frame, in 20 the midst of the sand.