Book 5
and while he struggled Abas pierced his side.—
74
He fell not to the floor, but dying hung
suspended from the door-post by his hand.
And of the friends of Perseus, Melaneus
was slain, and Dorylas whose wealth was large
in Nasamonian land. No other lord,
as Dorylas, such vast estates possessed;
no other owned so many heaps of corn.
The missile steel stood fastened in his groin,
obliquely fixed,—a fatal spot—and when
the author of his wound, Halcyoneus
the Bactrian, beheld his victim thus,
rolling his eyes and sobbing forth his soul,
he railed; “Keep for yourself of all your lands
as much as you can cover.” And he left
hurled after him a spear, which, in his need,
he ripped out from the wound, yet warm, and struck
the boaster on the middle of his nose.
The piercing steel, passed through his nose and neck,—
remained projecting from the front and back.
And while good fortune helped his hand, he slew
Clanis and Clytius, of one mother born,
but with a different wound he slaughtered each:
for, leveled by a mighty arm, his ashen spear
drove through the thighs of Clytius, right and left,
and Clanis bit the javelin with his teeth.
And by his might, Mendesian Celadon
and Atreus fell, his mother of the tribes
of Palestine, his father was unknown.
Aethion, also, who could well foresee
the things to come, but was at last deceived
by some false omen. And Thoactes fell,
the armour-bearer of the king; and, next,
the infamous Agyrtes who had slain
his father. These he slew; and though his strength
was nearly spent, so many more remained:
for now the multitude with one accord
conspired to slaughter him. From every side
