or god inspires. . . . Pandarus, at his brother's
fall, sees how fortune stands, what hap rules the day; and swinging the
gate round on its hinge with all his force, pushes it to with his broad
shoulders, leaving many of his own people shut outside the walls in the
desperate conflict, but shutting others in with him as they pour back in
retreat. Madman! who saw not the Rutulian prince burst in amid their
columns, and fairly shut him into the town, like a monstrous tiger among
the silly flocks. At once strange light flashed from his eyes, and his
armour rang terribly; the blood-red plumes flicker on his head, and
lightnings shoot sparkling from his shield. In sudden dismay the
Aeneadae know the hated form and giant limbs. Then tall Pandarus leaps
forward, in burning rage at his brother's death: 'This is not the palace
of Amata's dower,' he cries, 'nor does Ardea enclose Turnus in her
native walls. Thou seest a hostile camp; escape hence is hopeless.' To
him Turnus, smiling and cool: 'Begin with all thy valiance, and close
hand to hand; here too shalt thou tell that a Priam found his Achilles.'
He ended; the other, putting out all his strength, hurls his rough
spear, knotty and unpeeled. The breezes caught it; Juno, daughter of
Saturn, [746-780]made the wound glance off as it came, and the spear
sticks fast in the gate. 'But this weapon that my strong hand whirls,
this thou shalt not escape; for not such is he who sends weapon and
wound.' So speaks he, and rises high on his uplifted sword; the steel
severs the forehead midway right between the temples, and divides the
beardless cheeks with ghastly wound. He crashes down; earth shakes under
the vast weight; dying limbs and brain-spattered armour tumble in a heap
to the ground, and the head, evenly severed, dangles this way and that
from either shoulder. The Trojans scatter and turn in hasty terror; and
had the conqueror forthwith taken thought to burst the bars and let in
his comrades at the gate, that had been the last day of the war and of
the nation. But rage and mad thirst of slaughter drive him like fire on
the foe. . . . First he catches up Phalaris; then Gyges, and hamstrings
him; he plucks away their spears, and hurls them on the backs of the
flying crowd; Juno lends strength and courage. Halys he sends to join
them, and Phegeus, pierced right through the shield; then, as they
ignorantly raised their war-cry on the walls, Alcander and Halius,
Noemon and Prytanis. Lyn