Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/315

has profaned your person, shall atone it by the death he
has earned." Under the lofty mountain's shade there
stood a vast mound of earth, the tomb of Dercennus, an
old Laurentine king, shrouded with dark ilex: here the
beauteous goddess first alights with a rapid bound, and 5
spies out Arruns from the barrow's height. Soon as she
saw him gleaming in his armour, and swelling with vanity,
"Why stray from the path?" cries she; "turn your feet
hitherward! come hither to your death, and receive
Camilla's guerdon! Alack! and are you too to be slain 10
by the shafts of Dian?" She said, and with the skill of
Thracian maiden drew a swift arrow from her gilded quiver,
bent the bow with deadly aim, and drew it far apart, till
the arching ends met together, and with her two hands
she touched, the barb of steel with her left, her breast with 15
her right and the bowstring. Forthwith the hurtling of
the shaft and the rush of the breeze reached Arruns' ear
at the moment the steel lodged in his body. Him gasping
and groaning his last his comrades leave unthinking in the
unmarked dust of the plain: Opis spreads her wings, and 20
is borne to skyey Olympus.

First flies, its mistress lost, Camilla's light-armed company;
fly the Rutules in rout, flies keen Atinas; leaders
in disarray and troops in devastation make for shelter,
turn round, and gallop to the walls. None can sustain 25
in combat the Teucrians' deadly onset or resist the stream;
they throw their unstrung bows on their unnerved
shoulders, and the hoof of four-foot steeds shakes the
crumbling plain. On rolls to the ramparts a cloud of dust,
thick and murky; and the matrons from their sentry-posts, 30
smiting on their breasts, raise a shriek as women
wont[o] to the stars of heaven. Who first pour at speed
through the open gates are whelmed by a multitude of
foemen that blends its crowd with theirs; they scape not
the agony of death, but on the very threshold, with their 35
native walls around them, in the sanctuary of home, they
breathe away their lives. Some close the gates: they dare
not give ingress to their friends nor take them within the