Meantime the Rutulians press round each and all of the gates, eager to slaughter the soldiery and belt the ramparts with flame. But Æneas’ army is hemmed within the leaguered encampment, without hope of escape. In unavailing wretchedness they stand guarding the turret’s 35 height, and form a thin circle round the walls. Asius son of Imbrasus, and Hicetaon’s child Thymœtes, and the two Assaraci, and Castor and aged Thymbris are their front rank, by their side the two brethren of Sarpedon, Clarus and Themon both, come from noble Lycia. There is one carrying with the whole strain of his body a mighty rock, no small portion of a mountain, Acmon of Lyrnessus, a worthy peer of his father Clytius and his brother Menestheus. 5 Some repel the foe with javelins, some with stones: they launch the firebrand, they fit the arrow to the string. In the midst is he, Venus’ most rightful care, the royal boy of Dardany, his beauteous head uncovered: see him shine like a jewel islanded in yellow gold, an ornament for neck 10 or head, or as gleams ivory set by artist skill in box-wood or Orician terebinth[273]: his flowing hair streams over a neck of milky white and is gathered up by a ring of ductile gold. Thou, too, Ismarus, wast seen by tribes of warriors dealing wounds abroad and arming thy arrows with venom, gallant 15 branch of a Lydian house, from the land whose rich soil is broken up by the husbandmen and washed by Pactolus’ golden stream. Mnestheus, too, was there, whom yesterday’s triumph over Turnus repulsed from the rampart exalts to the stars, and Capys, who gives his name to 20 Campania’s mother city. So they on this side and on that had waged all day the conflict of stubborn war; and now at midnight Æneas was ploughing the main. For soon as, leaving Evander, he entered the Etruscan camp, accosted the king, and told 25 him of his name and his race, for what he sues and what he offers, explains what arms Mezentius musters on his side, and what the excess of Turnus’ violence, warns him how little faith man can place in fortune, and seconds reasoning by entreaty, without a moment’s pause Tarchon 30 combines his forces and strikes a truce; and at once, freed from the spell of destiny, the Lydian race embarks according to heaven’s ordinance, under the charge of a foreign leader. First sails the vessel of Æneas, Phrygian lions harnessed on the prow; above them Ida spreads her shade, 35 of happiest augury to exiled Troy. There sits great Æneas brooding over the doubtful future of the war: and Pallas, close cleaving to his left side, keeps questioning him, now of the stars, the road-marks of the shadowy night, and now of all that he has borne by land and by sea.