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A hostile camp around you see,
Shut in without the power to flee.'
Then Turnus with untroubled mien:
'Begin, and let your strength be seen:
Soon shall you tell in Priam's ear
You found a new Achilles here.'
Strong Pandarus launches on the wind
A knotted spear, unpeeled its rind,
With mighty effort flung:
Saturnia caught it as it came
And turned it from its destined aim:
Fixed in the gate it hung.
'Not thus shall err my trusty brand,
Sped by a surer, stronger hand:'
Then, rising tiptoe as he speaks,
Turnus uplifts the falchion keen:
With force resistless sweeping down
It crashes on the warrior's crown,
And ample brows and beardless cheeks
Are severed clear and clean.
At once the mighty ruin sounds;
The firm earth trembles and rebounds;
His armour, splashed with blood and brain,
His giant members load the plain:
On either shoulder, cleft in twain,
The ghastly head is seen.
The Trojans fly in wild dismay:
O, then had Turnus thought
To force the fastenings of the gates
And call within his valiant mates,
The nation and the war that day
Alike to end had brought!
But rage and blind desire to slay
Still drive him on the recreant prey.
First Phalaris beneath him dies
And Gyges, hamstrung as he flies: