Their heads thrown back avoid the stroke;
Their mighty arms the tight provoke.
That on elastic youth relies,
This on vast limbs and giant size;
But the huge knees with age are slack,
And fitful gasps the deep chest rack.
Full many a blow the heroes rain
Each on the other, still in vain:
Their hollow sides return the sound,
Their battered chests the shock rebound:
'Mid ears and temples come and go
The wandering gauntlets to and fro:
The jarred teeth chatter 'neath the blow.
Firm stands Entellus in his place,
A column rooted on its base;
His watchful eye and shrinking frame
Alone avoid the gauntlet's aim.
Like leaguer who invests a town,
Or sits before a hill-fort down,
The younger champion tasks his art
To find the bulwark's weakest part;
This way and that unwearied scans,
And vainly tries a thousand plans.
Entellus, rising to the blow,
Puts forth his hand: the wary foe
Midway in air the mischief spied,
And, deftly shifting, slipped aside.
Entellus' force on air is spent:
Heavily down with prone descent
He falls, as from its roots uprent
A pine falls hollow, on the side
Of Erymanth or lofty Ide."
Acestes rushes in, like an attentive second, to raise his friend; and Entellus, roused to fury by his fall, renews the fight savagely:—
