Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/249

They venture no reply, but hasten the faster to the woods,
and make the night their friend. The horsemen bar each
well-known passage right and left and set a guard on every
outlet. The wood was shagged with thickets and dark
ilex boughs; impenetrable briars filled it on every side; 5
through the concealed tracks just gleamed a narrow path.
Euryalus is hampered by the darkness of the branches,
and the encumbrance of his booty, and fear makes him miss
the right line of road. Nisus shoots away: and now in
his forgetfulness he had escaped the foe, and gained the 10
region afterwards called Alban from Alba's name; in
that day king Latinus had there his stately stalls; when he
halted, and looked back in vain for the friend he could not
see. "My poor Euryalus! where have I left you? what
way shall I trace you, unthreading all the tangled path of 15
that treacherous wood?" As he speaks, he scans and
retraces each step, and wanders through the stillness of
the brakes. He hears the horses, hears the noise and the
tokens of pursuit. Pass a few moments, and a shout
strikes on his ear, and he sees Euryalus, who is in the hands 20
of the whole crew, the victim of the ground and the night,
bewildered by the sudden onslaught, hurried along, and
making a thousand fruitless efforts. What should he do?
with what force, what arms, can he attempt a rescue?
should he dash through the thick of their swords with 25
death before his eyes, and hurry to a glorious end in a shower
of wounds? Soon, with his arm drawn back, he poises his
spear-shaft, looking up to the moon in the sky, and thus
prays aloud: "Thou, goddess, be thou present, and befriend
my endeavour, Latona's daughter, glory of the 30
heavens and guardian of the woods: if ever my father
Hyrtacus brought gift for me to thine altar, if ever my own
hunting swelled the tribute, if ever I hung an offering from
thy dome or fastened it on thy hallowed summit, suffer
me to confound this mass, and guide my weapons through 35
the air." This said, with an effort of his whole frame he
hurled the steel. The flying spear strikes through the
shades of night, reaches the turned back of Sulmo, there