ng laborious days,
Have mended oft: a many men hath Fortune's wavering ways
Made sport of, and brought back again to set on moveless rock.
The AEtolian and his Arpi host help not our battle-shock.
Yet is Messapus ours, and ours Tolumnius fortunate,
And many a duke and many a folk; nor yet shall tarry late 430
The glory of our Latin lords and this Laurentian lea.
Here too Camilla, nobly born of Volscian stock, shall be,
Leading her companies of horse that blossom brass all o'er.
But if the Teucrians me alone are calling to the war,
And thus 'tis doomed, and I so much the common good withstand--
Well, victory hath not heretofore so fled my hated hand
That I should falter from the play with such a prize in sight:
Fain shall I face him, yea, though he outgo Achilles' might,
And carry battle-gear as good of Vulcan's fashioning,
For you, and for Latinus here, my father and my king, 440
I, Turnus, second unto none in valour of old years,
Devote my life. AEneas calls me only of the peers?
--O that he may!--not Drances here--the debt of death to pay
If God be wroth, or if Fame win, to bear the prize away."

But while amid their doubtful fate the ball of speech they tossed,
Contending sore, AEneas moved his camp and battle-host;
And lo, amid the kingly house there runs a messenger
Mid tumult huge, who all the town to mighty dread doth stir,
With tidings how the Teucrian host and Tuscan men of war
Were marching from the Tiber flood, the meadows covering o'er. 450
Amazed are the minds of men; their hearts with tremor shake,
And anger stirred by bitter stings is presently awake:
In haste and heat they crave for arms; the youth cries on the sword,
The Fathers mutter sad and weep: with many a wrangling word
A mighty tumult goeth up, and toward the sky doth sweep:
Not otherwise than when the fowl amid the thicket deep
Sit down in hosts; or when the swans send forth their shrilling song
About Padusa's fishy flood, the noisy pools among.

"Come, fellow-folk," cries Turnus then, for he the time doth seize,
"Call ye to council even now, and sit and praise the peace, 460
And let the armed foe wrack the realm!"
Nor more he said withal,
But turned about and went his ways from that high-builded hall.
Sai