Book 12
or flying o'er the field from Turnus' blade,
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or from the Trojan King? Did Jove ordain
so vast a shock of arms should interpose
'twixt nations destined to perpetual bond?
Aeneas met the Rutule Sucro—thus
staying the Trojan charge—and with swift blow
struck at him sidewise, where the way of death
is quickest, cleaving ribs and rounded side
with reeking sword. Turnus met Amycus,
unhorsed him, though himself afoot, and slew
Diores, his fair brother (one was pierced
fronting the spear, the other felled to earth
by strike of sword), and both their severed heads
he hung all dripping to his chariot's rim.
But Talon, Tanais, and Cethegus brave,
three in one onset, unto death went down
at great Aeneas' hand; and he dispatched
ill-starred Onites of Echion's line,
fair Peridia's child. Then Turnus slew
two Lycian brothers unto Phoebus dear,
and young Menoetes, an Arcadian,
who hated war (though vainly) when he plied
his native fisher-craft in Lerna's streams,
where from his mean abode he ne'er went forth
to wait at great men's doors, but with his sire
reaped the scant harvest of a rented glebe.
as from two sides two conflagrations sweep
dry woodlands or full copse of crackling bay,
or as, swift-leaping from the mountain-vales,
two flooded, foaming rivers seaward roar,
each on its path of death, not less uproused,
speed Turnus and Aeneas o'er the field;
now storms their martial rage; now fiercely swells
either indomitable heart; and now
each hero's full strength to the slaughter moves.
Behold Murranus, boasting his high birth
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from far-descended sires of storied name,
the line of Latium's kings! Aeneas now
with mountain-boulder lays him low in dust,
smitten with whirlwind of the monster stone;
