Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/426

She spoke, and speaking, dropped her rein,
Perforce descending to the plain.
Then by degrees she slips away
From all that heavy load of clay:
Her languid neck, her drowsy head
She droops to earth, of vigour sped:
She lets her martial weapons go:
The indignant soul flies down below.
Loud clamours to the skies arose;
With fiercer heat the combat glows,
The Volscian princess slain;
On, on they push, the Teucrian power,
The Tyrrhene chiefs, their nation's flower,
The Arcad horseman train.

Meanwhile Diana's sentinel,
Fair Opis, sits on mountain fell
The scene of blood to view:
Soon as Camilla she espied
O'erborne in battle's raging tide,
From her deep bosom, as she sighed,
These piteous words she drew:
'Too stern requital, hapless maid,
For that your error have you paid,
That venturous daring, which essayed
To brave the Trojan power:
Your woodland life, to Dian sworn,
Those heavenly arms in combat borne,
Alas! they left you all forlorn
In need's extremest hour.
Yet not unhonoured in your end
She lets you lie, your queen and friend,
Nor unavenged shall you descend
A name to after time:
For he whose arm has stretched in death
That sacred form, his forfeit breath
Shall compensate his crime.'