The Æneid of Virgil, Translated into English VerseVirgil
General
The Æneid of Virgil, Translated into English Verse
Virgil
Aeneas (Legendary character) -- Poetry; Epic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English
XLIII. As when grim Mars, by Hebrus' icy flood,
Clashing his brazen buckler, drives apace
His fierce steeds, maddening with the lust of blood;
They o'er the plain the flying winds outrace,
And with their trampling groan the fields of Thrace;
And round the War-God his attendants throng,
Hatred, and Treachery and Fear's dark face;
So Turnus drove the battling ranks among,
And lashed his smoking steeds, and waved the whistling thong.
XLIV. In piteous sort he tramples on the slain;
The flying horse-hoofs spirt the crimson dew,
And tread the gore down in the sandy plain.
Now, man to man, at Thamyris he flew,
And Pholus. Sthenelus aloof he slew;
Aloof the two Imbracidae lay dead,
Glaucus and Lades, of the Lycian crew,
Both armed alike, whom Imbracus had bred
To fight, or on swift steeds the flying winds to head.
XLV. Elsewhere afield, amid the foremost, fought
The brave Eumedes. (From the loins he came
Of noble Dolon, and to war he brought
The borrowed lustre of his grandsire's name,
The strength and spirit of his sire of fame,
Who for his meed, when offering to explore
The Danaan camp, Pelides' car would claim.
Poor fool! Tydides paid the boaster's score,
And for Achilles' steeds he hankers now no more.)
XLVI. Him Turnus sees, and through the void afar
Speeds a light lance, then bids the coursers stand,
And, lightly leaping from his two-horsed car,
Stamps on his neck, fall'n breathless on the sand,
And wrests the shining dagger from his hand.
Deep in his throat he deals a deadly wound,
And cries, "Now, Trojan, take the wished-for land.
Lie there, and measure the Hesperian ground;
Their meed, who tempt my sword; thus city-walls they found."
XLVII. Asbutes, Sybaris and Chloreus bleed,
Dares the bold, Orsilochus the brave,
Thymoetes, pitched from off his plunging steed.
As on the AEgean when the North-winds rave,
And the fierce gale rolls shoreward wave on wave,
And drives the cloud-rack through the sky; so these
Shrank back from Turnus, as his path he clave,
Urged by his impulse, and each turns and flees;
Loose streams his horsehair crest, blown backward by the breeze.
XLVIII. His fiery onset, and his shouts of pride
Bold Phlegeus brooked not, but himself he flung
Before the car, and caught and turned aside
The foaming steeds. But while, thus dragged along,
Grasping the bridle, on the yoke he hung,
His shieldless side the broad-tipt javelin found,
And pierced, and, staying, to the corslet clung,
With linen folds and brazen links twice bound.
And lightly scored the skin, and grazed him with the wound.
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