Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/302

encounter? why so slow? will you never lodge the War-god
better than in that windy tongue, those flying feet?
What? beaten? I? who, foulest of slanderers, will justly
brand me as beaten, that shall look on Tiber still swelling
with Ilion's best blood, on Evander's whole house prostrate 5
root and branch, and his Arcadians stripped naked of their
armour? It was no beaten arm that Bitias and giant
Pandarus found in me, or the thousand that I sent to
death in a single day with my conquering hand, shut up
within their walls, pent in by the rampart of the foe. No 10
hope from war? Croak your bodings, madman, in the
ears of the Dardan and of your own fortunes. Ay, go
on without cease, throwing all into measureless panic,
heightening the prowess of a nation twice conquered already,
and dwarfing no less the arms of your king. See, 15
now the lords of the Myrmidons[o] are quaking at the martial
deeds of Phrygia, Tydeus' son, Thessalian Achilles,
and the rest, and river Aufidus is in full retreat from the
Hadrian sea. Or listen when the trickster in his villany
feigns himself too weak to face a quarrel with me, and 20
points his charges with the sting of terror. Never, I
promise you, shall you lose such life as yours by hand of
mine—be troubled no longer—let it dwell with you and
retain its home in that congenial breast. Now, gracious
sire, I return to you and the august matter that asks our 25
counsel. If you have no hope beyond in aught our arms
can do, if we are so wholly forlorn, destroyed root and
branch by one reverse, and our star can never rise again,
then pray we for peace and stretch craven hands in suppliance.
Yet, oh, had we but one spark of the worth that 30
once was ours, that man I would esteem blest beyond
others in his service and princely of soul, who, sooner than
look on aught like this, has lain down in death and once
for all bitten the dust. But if we have still store of power,
and a harvest of youth yet unreaped, if there are cities 35
and nations of Italy yet to come to our aid, if the Trojans
as well as we have won their glory at much bloodshed's
cost—for they too have their deaths—the hurricane has