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still fought his foe and thrust with falchion bare;
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but the fierce pace of whirling wheel and pole
flung him down prone, and stretched him on the plain.
Then Turnus, aiming with relentless sword
between the corselet's edge and helmet's rim
struck off his whole head, leaving on the sands
the mutilated corpse. While thus afield
victorious Turnus dealt out death and doom,
Mnestheus, Achates true, and by their side
Ascanius, have carried to the camp
Aeneas, gashed and bleeding, whose long lance
sustained his limping step. With fruitless rage
he struggled with the spear-head's splintered barb,
and bade them help him by the swiftest way
to carve the wound out with a sword, to rip
the clinging weapon forth, and send him back
to meet the battle. Quickly to his side
came Iapyx, dear favorite and friend
of Phoebus, upon whom the god bestowed
his own wise craft and power, Iove-impelled.
The gifts of augury were given, and song,
with arrows of swift wing: he when his sire
was carried forth to die, deferred the doom
for many a day, by herbs of virtue known
to leechcraft; and without reward or praise
his silent art he plied. Aeneas stood,
bitterly grieving, propped upon his spear;
a throng of warriors were near him, and
Iulus, sorrowing. The aged man
gathered his garments up as leeches do,
and with skilled hand and Phoebus' herbs of power
bustled in vain; in vain his surgery
pried at the shaft, and with a forceps strong
seized on the buried barb. But Fortune gave
no remedy, nor did Apollo aid
his votary. So more and more grim fear
stalks o'er the field of war, and nearer hies
the fatal hour; the very heavens are dust;
the horsemen charge, and in the midmost camp
a rain of javelins pours. The dismal cry
