Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/258

fury hastens to the Dardan gate and the two haughty
brethren. Hurling his dart, he first slays Antiphates, who
happened first to meet him, bastard son of great Sarpedon
by a Theban mother; the shaft of Italian cornel flies
through the yielding air, and lodging in the throat goes 5
deep down into the chest; the wound's dark pit spouts
forth a foaming torrent, and the cold steel grows warm
in the lungs it pierces. Then with strong hand he slays
Merops and Erymas and then Aphidnus, then Bitia
with his blazing eyes and his boiling valour—not with a 10
dart, for to a dart he would not have surrendered his life—no;
it was a whirled phalaric lance that came hurtling
fiercely, shot like a thunderbolt, which neither two bulls'
hides nor a trusty corselet with double golden plait could
withstand: the massive limbs sink and fall: earth groans, 15
and the vast buckler thunders on the body. Even thus
sometimes on Baiæ's Eubceanan] coast falls a pile of stone,
which men compact with mighty blocks and then fling
into the sea; thus it comes down with protracted head-*long
ruin, and dashing on the shallows settles into its 20
place; the sea is all disturbed, and the murky sand rises
to the surface; the crash shakes Prochyta[o] to her depths,
and Inarime's[o] rugged bed, laid by Jove's command upon
Typhoeus.

Now Mars, the lord of arms, inspires the Latians with 25
strength and courage, and plants his stings deep in their
bosoms, while among the Teucrians, he sends Flight and
grisly Terror. They flock from this side and from that,
now that scope for battle is given, and the warrior-god
comes down on their souls. When Pandarus saw his 30
brother's corpse laid low, and knew the posture of fortune
and the chance that was swaying the day, with a mighty
effort he turns the gate on its hinge, pushing with his broad
shoulders, and leaves outside many of his comrades shut out
from the camp all in the cruel battle, while others he shuts 35
in with himself, admitting them as they stream onward—madman,
to have failed to see the king of the Rutulians in
the middle of the company storming in, and to have shut