Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/212

  Whom Nursia sends to battle down
From her cold home, Hortinian ranks
  And Latian tribes of old renown,
With those whom Allia's stream ill-starred
Flows through, dividing sward from sward: 5
Thick as the Libyan billows swarm
When fell Orion sets in storm,
Or as the sun-baked ears of grain
In Hæmus' field or Lycia's plain;
Their bucklers rattle, and the ground 10
Quakes, startled by their footfall's sound.

  Halæsus, Agamemnon's mate,
Who hates all Troy with liegeman's hate,
Yokes his swift horses to the car,
And brings his hosts to Turnus' war, 15
The rustic tribes whose ploughshare tills
The vine-clad slopes of Massic hills,
Sent from Auruncan heights, or bound
From Sidicinian champaign-ground,
Who fertile Cales leave behind 20
Or where Vulturnian waters wind,
Saticule's tenants, rough and rude,
And all the hardy Oscan brood.
Spiked truncheons they are wont to fling,
But fit them with a leathern string: 25
A target shields the good left hand,
And curved like primer's hook the brand
They wield when foot to foot they stand.

  Nor, Œbalus, shalt thou pass by
Unnamed in this our minstrelsy, 30
Born to old Telon, Capreæ's king,
By Naiad of Sebethus' spring;
The son contemned his sire's domain,
And stretched o'er neighbouring lands his reign.
Sarrastes' tribes his rule obey, 35
And fields where Sarnus' waters play,
Who Batulum and Rufræ hold
Or till Celennæ's fruitful mould,
Or those whom fair Abella sees
Down-looking through her apple-trees, 40