's countrymen. Loud cheers
The welkin rend, and, bursting through the line,
Forth runs Acestes, and his friend uprears,
Pitying his fallen worth and fellowship of years.
LXII. Fearless, unshaken, with his soul aflame
For vengeance, up Entellus springs again,
And conscious valour and the sense of shame
Rouse all his strength as, burning with disdain,
He drives huge Dares headlong o'er the plain,
Now right, now left, keeps pummelling his foe;
No stint, no stay; as rattling hailstones rain
On roof-tops, so with many a ceaseless blow
Each hand in turn he plies, and pounds him to and fro.
LXIII. But good AEneas suffered not too far
The strife to rage, not let Entellus slake
His wrath, but rescued Dares from the war,
Sore-spent, and thus in soothing terms bespake,
"Poor friend! what madness doth thy mind o'ertake?
Feel'st not that more than mortal is his aid?
The gods are with him, and thy cause forsake.
Yield then to heaven and desist."--He said,
And with his voice straightway the deadly strife allayed.
LXIV. Then, stirred with pity, the Dardanian throng
Their vanquished kinsman from the contest bore.
His sick knees wearily he drags along,
Feeble and helpless, for his wound is sore;
And loosened teeth and clots of curdled gore
Spout forth, as o'er his shoulders nods each way
The drooping head. They lead him to the shore,
His gifts, the sword and helmet; but the bay
And bull Entellus takes, the victor of the day.
LXV. Forth steps the champion, glorying in the prize,
Pride in his port, defiance on his brow.
"See, Goddess-born; ye Teucrians, mark," he cried,
"What strength Entellus in his youth could show;
How dire a doom ye warded from his foe."
He spake and, standing opposite the bull,
Swung back his arm, and, rising to the blow,
Betwixt the horns with hardened glove smote full,
And back upon the brain drove in the splintered skull.
LXVI. Down drops the beast, and on the earth lies low,
Quivering but dead. Then o'er him, as he lay,
Entellus cries "O Eryx, hear my vow.
This life, for Dares, I devote this day,
A nobler victim and a worthier prey.
Accept it thou who taught'st this arm to wield
The gloves of death. Unvanquished in the fray
These withered arms their latest offering yield,
These gauntlets I resign, and here renounce the field."
LXVII. Next cries
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