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in his cowardice; their harness he gives to Lausus to
wear on his shoulders, their crests to adorn his head.
Euanthes, too, the Phrygian, and Mimas, Paris' playmate,
borne by Theano to Amycus his sire, the self-same night
when Cisseus' royal daughter, teeming with a firebrand, 5
gave birth to Paris; he sleeps beneath his father's walls,
while Mimas has his rest on Laurentum's unknown shore.
Like as the mighty boar driven by fangs of hounds from
mountain heights, the boar whom pine-crowned Vesulus
or Laurentum's pool shelters these many years, pastured 10
on the reedy jungle, soon as he finds himself among the
nets, stands at bay, snorting with fury and bristling his
back; none has the courage to flame forth and come near
him; at safe distance they press him with their darts
and their cries; even so of them who hate Mezentius with 15
a righteous hate, none has the heart to face him with
drawn steel; with missiles and deafening shouts they
assail him from afar; while he, undaunted, is pausing
now here, now there, gnashing his teeth, and shakes off
the javelins from his buckler's hide. There was one 20
Acron from Corythus' ancient borders, a Grecian wight,
who had fled forth leaving his nuptials yet to celebrate;
him, when Mezentius saw at distance scattering the intervening
ranks, in pride of crimson plumage and the purple
of his plighted bride, even as oft a famished lion ranging 25
through high-built stalls—for frantic hunger is his
prompter—if he chance to mark a flying goat or towering-antlered
deer, grins with huge delight, sets up his
mane, and hangs over the rent flesh, while loathly blood
laves his insatiate jaws—so joyfully springs Mezentius 30
on the foe's clustering mass. Down goes ill-starred Acron,
spurns the blackened ground in the pangs of death, and
dyes with blood the broken spear. Nor did the chief
deign to strike down Orodes as he fled, or deal from a
spear-throw a wound unseen; full in front he meets him, 35
and engages him as man should man, prevailing not by
guile but by sheer force of steel. Then with foot and
lance planted on the back-flung body: "See, gallants, a