lieth no long way out
To find the foe! on every side they hedge the wall about
Go we against them!--tarriest thou? and is thy Mars indeed
A dweller in the windy tongue and feet well learned in speed, 390
The same today as yesterday?
--I beaten! who of right, O beast! shall brand me beaten man,
That seeth the stream of Ilian blood swelling the Tiber's flow,
Who seeth all Evander's house uprooted, laid alow;
Who seeth those Arcadian men stripped of their battle-gear?
Big Pandarus, stout Bitias, found me no craven there,
Or all the thousand whom that day to Tartarus I sent,
When I was hedged by foeman's wall and mound's beleaguerment
No health in war? Fool, sing such song to that Dardanian head, 399
And thine own day! cease not to fright all things with mighty dread.
Cease not to puff up with thy pride the poor twice-conquered folk,
And lay upon the Latin arms the weight of wordy yoke.
Yea, sure the chiefs of Myrmidons quake at the Phrygian sword,
Tydides and Achilles great, the Larissaean lord;
And Aufidus the flood flees back unto the Hadriac sea.
But now whereas this guile-smith fains to dread mine enmity,
And whetteth with a fashioned fear the bitter point of strife--
Nay, quake no more! for this mine hand shall spill no such a life;
But it shall dwell within thy breast and have thee for a mate.--
Now, Father, unto thee I turn, and all thy words of weight; 410
If every hope of mending war thou verily lay'st down;
If we are utterly laid waste, and, being once overthrown,
Have fallen dead; if Fate no more may turn her feet about,
Then pray we peace, and deedless hands, e'en as we may, stretch out.
Yet if of all our ancient worth some little yet abide,
I deem him excellent of men, craftsmaster of his tide,
A noble heart, who, lest his eyes should see such things befall,
Hath laid him down in death, and bit the earth's face once for all.
And if we still have store of force, and crop of youth unlaid,
And many a town, and many a folk of Italy to aid; 420
And if across a sea of blood the Trojan glory came,
And they too died, and over all with one blast and the same
The tempest swept; why shameless thus do our first footsteps fail?
Why quake our limbs, yea e'en before they feel the trumpet's gale?
A many things the shifting time, the lo