This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
BOOK VIII.
283

Each from his moorings, on they pour,
And three-toothed beak and back-drawn oar
Plough up in foam the marble floor.
Who saw had deemed that Cyclads, torn
From their firm roots, were onward borne
Colliding on the surge,
That hills with hills in conflict meet:
The mighty chiefs their tower-armed fleet
With such propulsion urge.
With hand or enginery they throw
Live darts ablaze with fiery tow:
The sea-god's verdant fields look red,
Incarnadined with heaps of dead.
Her native timbrel in her hand,
The queen to battle calls her band,
Infatuate!—nor perceives as yet
Two snakes behind with fangs a-whet.
Anubis and each monster strange
That Egypt's land reveres
'Gainst Neptune, Venus, Pallas range,
And shake their uncouth spears.
There where they battle, host and host,
Raves grisly Mars, in steel embossed:
The Furies frown on high:
With mantle rent glad Discord walks,
Bellona fierce behind her stalks,
Her scourge of crimson dye.
Then Actian Phœbus bends his bow:
Scared by that terror, flies the foe,
Arabia, Egypt, Ind:
The haughty dame in wild defeat
Is shaking out her loosened sheet,
And standing to the wind.
She, wanning o'er with death foreseen,
Through corpses flies, devoted queen,
By wave and Zephyr sped: