Book 10
“Now bend to your stout oars, my chosen brave.
287
Lift each ship forward, till her beak shall cleave
yon hostile shore; and let her keel's full weight
the furrow drive. I care not if we break
our ship's side in so sure an anchorage,
if once we land.” While Tarchon urged them thus,
the crews bent all together to their blades
and sped their foaming barks to Latium's plain,
till each beak gripped the sand and every keel
lay on dry land unscathed:—all save thine own,
O Tarchon! dashed upon a sand-bar, she!
Long poised upon the cruel ridge she hung,
tilted this way or that and beat the waves,
then split, and emptied forth upon the tide
her warriors; and now the drifting wreck
of shattered oars and thwarts entangles them,
or ebb of swirling waters sucks them down.
Turnus no lingering knows, but fiercely hurls
308
his whole line on the Teucrians, and makes stand
along the shore. Now peals the trumpet's call.
Aeneas in the van led on his troop
against the rustic foe, bright augury
for opening war, and laid the Latins low,
slaughtering Theron, a huge chief who dared
offer Aeneas battle; through the scales
of brazen mail and corselet stiff with gold
the sword drove deep, and gored the gaping side.
Then smote he Lichas, from his mother's womb
ripped in her dying hour, and unto thee,
O Phoebus, vowed, because his infant days
escaped the fatal steel. Hard by him fell
stout Cisseus and gigantic Gyas; these
to death were hurled, while with their knotted clubs
they slew opposing hosts; but naught availed
Herculean weapons, nor their mighty hands,
or that Melampus was their sire, a peer
of Hercules, what time in heavy toils
through earth he roved. See next how Pharon boasts!
But while he vainly raves, the whirling spear
smites full on his loud mouth. And also thou,
