the forehead of the fronting foe, and stretched him at full length on the expanse of sand.
Then first, they say, Ascanius levelled in war his winged arrow, used till then to terrify the beasts of chase, and laid low by strength of hand the brave Numanus, Remulus 5 by surname, who had lately won and wedded Turnus' younger sister. He was stalking in front of the host, vaunting aloud things meet and unmeet to tell, in the insolence of new-blown royalty, and venting his pride in clamorous tones: "Are ye not ashamed to be imprisoned 10 yet again in leaguer and rampart, twice-captured Phrygians, and to put your walls between you and death? Lo, these are the men who demand our wives at the sword's edge! What god, what madness, has driven you to Italy? You will not find the Atridæ here, nor Ulysses the forger of 15 speech. A hardy race even from the stock, we bring our sons soon as born to the river's side, and harden them with the water's cruel cold. Our boys spend long days in the chase, and weary out the forest; their sport is to rein the steed, and level shafts from the bow. Our youth, strong 20 to labour and schooled by want, subdues the earth with the rake, or shakes the city's walls with battle. All our life we ply the steel; with the butt of our spears we belabour our cattle; old age, which dulls all else, impairs not the force of our hearts or changes our fresh vigour; 25 the hoary head is clasped by the helmet; our constant joy is to bring home new booty and live by rapine. Yours are embroidered garments of saffron and gleaming purple; sauntering and sloth are your delight; your pleasure is to indulge the dance; your tunics have sleeves and your turbans 30 strings. Phrygian dames in sooth—for Phrygian men ye are not—get you to the heights of Dindymus, where the pipe utters its two-doored note to your accustomed ears. The Idæan mother's cymbals, the Berecyntian flute, are calling you to the revel; leave arms to 35 men, and meddle no more with steel."
Such boasting and such ill-omened talk Ascanius could bear no longer; setting his breast to the bow-string of
