And they too died, and over all with one blast and the same The tempest swept; why shameless thus do our first footsteps fail? Why quake our limbs, yea e'en before they feel the trumpet's gale? A many things the shifting time, the long laborious days, Have mended oft: a many men hath Fortune's wavering ways Made sport of, and brought back again to set on moveless rock. The Ætolian and his Arpi host help not our battle-shock. Yet is Messapus ours, and ours Tolumnius fortunate, And many a duke and many a folk; nor yet shall tarry late 430 The glory of our Latin lords and this Laurentian lea. Here too Camilla, nobly born of Volscian stock, shall be, Leading her companies of horse that blossom brass all o'er. But if the Teucrians me alone are calling to the war, And thus 'tis doomed, and I so much the common good withstand-- Well, victory hath not heretofore so fled my hated hand That I should falter from the play with such a prize in sight: Fain shall I face him, yea, though he outgo Achilles' might, And carry battle-gear as good of Vulcan's fashioning, For you, and for Latinus here, my father and my king, 440 I, Turnus, second unto none in valour of old years, Devote my life. Æneas calls me only of the peers? --O that he may!--not Drances here--the debt of death to pay If God be wroth, or if Fame win, to bear the prize away." But while amid their doubtful fate the ball of speech they tossed, Contending sore, Æneas moved his camp and battle-host; And lo, amid the kingly house there runs a messenger Mid tumult huge, who all the town to mighty dread doth stir, With tidings how the Teucrian host and Tuscan men of war Were marching from the Tiber flood, the meadows covering o'er. 450 Amazèd are the minds of men; their hearts with tremor shake, And anger stirred by bitter stings is presently awake: In haste and heat they crave for arms; the youth cries on the sword, The Fathers mutter sad and weep: with many a wrangling word A mighty tumult goeth up, and toward the sky doth sweep: Not otherwise than when the fowl amid the thicket deep Sit down in hosts; or when the swans send forth their shrilling song About Padusa's fishy flood, the noisy pools among.