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bulwark of the war has fallen in tall Orodes," and his
comrades shout in unison, taking up the triumphal pæan.
The dying man returns: "Whoever thou art, thy victorious
boasting shall not be long or unavenged; for thee,
too, a like fate is watching, and thou shalt soon lie on 5
these self-same fields." Mezentius answers, with hate
mantling in his smile: "Die now. The sire of gods and
king of men shall make his account with me." So saying,
he drew forth the spear from the body: the heavy rest
of iron slumber settles down on its eyes, and their beams 10
are curtained in everlasting night.

Cædicus slaughters Alcathous, Sacrator Hydaspes, Rapo
kills Parthenius and Orses of iron frame, Messapus slays
Clonius and Ericetes, Lycaon's son, that grovelling on the
ground by a fall from his unbridled steed, this encountered 15
foot to foot. Prancing forward came Agis of Lycia; but
Valerus, no unworthy heir of his grandsire's prowess,
hurls him down; Thronius falls by Salius, and Salius by
Nealces, hero of the javelin and the shaft that surprises
from far. 20

And now the War-god's heavy hand was dealing out to
each equal measures of agony and carnage; alike they
were slaying, alike falling dead, victors and vanquished
by turns, flight unthought of both by these and by those.
The gods in Jove's palace look pityingly on the idle rage 25
of the warring hosts—alas, that death-doomed men
should suffer so terribly! Here Venus sits spectator,
there over against her Saturnian Juno. Tisiphone, ashy
pale, is raving among thousands down below. But see!
Mezentius, shaking his giant spear, is striding into the 30
field, an angry presence. Think of the stature of Orion,
as he overtops the billows with his shoulders, when he
stalks on foot through the very heart of Nereus' mighty
depths that part before him, or as carrying an aged ash
in triumph from the hill-top he plants his tread on the 35
ground, and hides his head among the clouds above:
thus it is that Mezentius in enormous bulk shoulders his
way. Æneas spies him along the length of the battle,