Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/276

pray thee, Alcides, stand by me in my great endeavour.
Let Turnus see me strip the bloody arms from his dying
frame, and may his glazing eyes endure the sight of
a conqueror." Alcides heard the youth, and stifled a
heavy groan deep down in his breast, and shed forth ununavailing 5
tears. Then the Almighty Father bespeaks
his son with kindly words: "Each has his fixed day:
short and irretrievable is the span of all men; but to propagate
glory by great deeds, this is what worth can do.
Think of those many sons of gods who fell beneath Troy's 10
lofty walls: among whom died even Sarpedon, my own
offspring. For Turnus, too, the call of his destiny has
gone forth, and he has reached the term of his allotted
days." So he speaks, and turns away his eyes from the
Rutulian plain. 15

But Pallas with a mighty effort sends forth his spear,
and plucks from the hollow scabbard his flashing sword.
On flies the weapon, strikes where the margin of the
harness rises toward the shoulder, and forcing its way
through the buckler's edge, at last even grazed the mighty 20
frame of Turnus. Then Turnus, long poising his beam
with its point of sharp steel, hurls it at Pallas, with these
words: "See whether our weapon be not the keener."
So he: while cleaving those many plates of iron and
brass, spite of the bull-hides wound oft and oft about, 25
the point strikes through the shield's midst with quivering
impact, and pierces the corselet's barrier and the
mighty breast beyond. In vain the youth tears the
reeking dart from the wound: as it parts, blood and life
follow on its track. He falls forward on his wound: his 30
arms resound upon him, and with his bloody jaws in death
he bites the hostile earth. Standing over him, Turnus
began: "Men of Arcady, take heed and carry my words
to Evander: I send back Pallas handled as his sire deserves.
If there be any honour in a tomb, any solace in 35
burial, let him take it freely; his welcome of Æneas will
be costly notwithstanding." Then with his left foot as
he spoke, he trod on the dead, tearing away the belt's