LXIX. Sure tidings to AEneas came apace,-- 'Twas no mere rumour--of his friends in flight; Time pressed for help, death stared them in the face. Sweeping his foes before him, left and right He mows a passage through the ranks of fight. Thee, haughty Turnus, thee he burns to find, Hot with new blood, and glorying in thy might. The sire, the son, the welcome warm and kind, The feast, the parting grasp--all crowd upon his mind. LXX. Eight youths alive he seizes for the pyre, Four, sons of Sulmo, four, whom Ufens bred, Poor victims, doomed to feed the funeral fire, And pour their blood in quittance for the dead. Then from afar a bitter shaft he sped At Magus. Warily he stoops below The quivering steel, that whistles o'er his head, And, like a suppliant, crouching to his foe, Clings to AEneas' knees, and cries in words of woe: LXXI. "O by the promise of thy youthful heir, By dead Anchises, pity, I implore, My son, my father; for their sakes forbear. Rich is my house, its cellars heaped with store Of gold, and silver talents by the score. 'Tis not my doom, that shall the day decide. If Trojans win, one foeman's life the more Mars not the triumph, nor can turn the tide." Thus he, and thus in scorn the Dardan chief replied: LXXII. "The treasures that thou vauntest, let them be. Thy gold, thy silver, and thy hoarded gain Spare for thy children, for they bribe not me. Since Pallas fell by Turnus' hand, 'twere vain To think thy pelf will traffic for the slain, So deems my son, so deems Anchises' shade." He spake, and with his left hand grasped amain His helmet. Even as the suppliant prayed, Hilt-deep, the neck bent back, he drove the shining blade. LXXIII. Hard by, the son of Haemon there was seen, Apollo's priest and Trivia's, all aglow In robe and armour of resplendent sheen, The holy ribboned chaplet on his brow. Him, met, afield he chases, lays him low, And o'er him, like a storm-cloud, dark as night, Stands, hugely shadowing the fallen foe: And back Serestus bears his armour bright, A trophy, vowed to thee, Gradivus, lord of fight. LXXIV. Then Caeculus, to Vulcan's race allied, And Marsian Umbro, rally 'gainst the foe The wavering ranks. The Dardan on his side Still rages. First from Anxur with a blow His sword the shield-arm and the shield laid low. Big things had Anxur boasted, empty jeers, And deemed his valour with his vaunts would grow: Perchance, with spirit lifted to the spheres, Hoar hairs he looked to see, and length of peaceful years.