ndmen shudder from afar; it will deal
havoc to their trees and destruction to their crops, and make a broad
path of ruin; the winds fly before it, and bear its roar to the beach;
so the Rhoetean captain drives his army full on the foe; one and all
they close up in wedges, and mass their serried ranks. Thymbraeus smites
massive Osiris with the sword, Mnestheus slays Arcetius, Achates Epulo,
Gyas Ufens: Tolumnius the augur himself goes down, he who had hurled the
first weapon against the foe. Their cry rises to heaven, and in turn the
routed Rutulians give backward in flight over the dusty fields. Himself
he deigns not to cut down the fugitives, nor pursue such as meet him
fair on foot or approach in arms: Turnus alone he tracks and searches in
the thick haze, alone calls him to conflict. Then panic-stricken the
warrior maiden flings Turnus' charioteer out over his reins, and leaving
him far where he slips from the [471-504]chariot-pole, herself succeeds
and turns the wavy reins, tones and limbs and armour all of Metiscus'
wearing. As when a black swallow flits through some rich lord's spacious
house, and circles in flight the lofty halls, gathering her tiny food
for sustenance to her twittering nestlings, and now swoops down the
spacious colonnades, now round the wet ponds; in like wise dart
Juturna's horses amid the enemy, and her fleet chariot passes flying
over all the field. And now here and now here she displays her
triumphant brother, nor yet allows him to close, but flies far and away.
None the less does Aeneas thread the circling maze to meet him, and
tracks his man, and with loud cry cries on him through the scattered
ranks. Often as he cast eyes on his enemy and essayed to outrun the
speed of the flying-footed horses, so often Juturna wheeled her team
away. Alas, what can he do? Vainly he tosses on the ebb and flow, and in
his spirit diverse cares make conflicting call; when Messapus, who haply
bore in his left hand two tough spear-shafts topped with steel, runs
lightly up and aims and hurls one of them upon him with unerring stroke.
Aeneas stood still, and gathered himself behind his armour, sinking on
bended knee; yet the rushing spear bore off his helmet-spike, and dashed
the helmet-plume from the crest. Then indeed his wrath swells; and
forced to it by their treachery, while chariot and horses disappear, he
calls Jove oft and again to witness, and the altars of the violated
treaty, and now at last plunges ami