A dark-plumaged bird is seen to hover round the devoted head of the Rutulian chief, half blinding him with its flapping wings. It is a Fury whom the king of the gods has sent in that shape to harass him. At length, in his flight, he finds a huge stone, which not twelve men of “to-day’s degenerate sons” could lift. “He caught it up, and at his foe Discharged it, rising to the throw, And straining as he runs. But ’wildering fears his mind unman; Running, he knew not that he ran, Nor throwing that he threw; Heavily move his sinking knees; The streams of life wax dull and freeze: The stone, as through the void it past, Failed of the measure of its cast, Nor held its purpose true. E’en as in dreams, when on the eyes The drowsy weight of slumber lies, In vain to ply our limbs we think, And in the helpless effort sink; Tongue, sinews, all, their powers bely, And voice and speech our call defy: So, labour Turnus as he will, The Fury mocks the endeavour still. Dim shapes before his senses reel: On host and town he turns his sight: He quails, he trembles at the steel, Nor knows to fly, nor knows to fight: Nor to his pleading eyes appear The car, the sister charioteer. “The deadly dart Æneas shakes: His aim with stern precision takes, Then hurls with all his frame; Less loud from battering-engine cast Roars the fierce stone, less loud the blast Follows the lightning’s flame. On rushes as with whirlwind wings The spear that dire destruction brings, Makes passage through the corselet’s marge, And enters the seven-plated targe Where the last ring runs round. The keen point pierces through the thigh, Down on his bent knee heavily Comes Turnus to the ground.” The Rutulian prince confesses his defeat, and asks his life, in no craven spirit, for the sake of his aged father--bidding Æneas think of old Anchises. The conqueror half relents, when his eyes fall upon something which makes that appeal worse than useless.