way, the dread goddess denies fulfilment. Then through his soul shifting fancies whirl; he gazes on his Rutulians and the town, he falters in fear, and trembles at the threatening lance; neither sees he whither he may escape, nor with what force bear against the foe; nor anywhere is his car, nor his sister, the charioteer. 919 As he wavers, Aeneas brandishes the fateful spear, seeking with his eyes the happy chance, then hurls it from far with all his strength. Never stone shot from engine of siege roars so loud, never crash so great bursts from thunderbolt. Like black whirlwind on flies the spear, bearing fell destruction, and pierces the corslet's rim and the sevenfold shield's utmost circle whizzing it passes right through the thigh. Under the blow, with knee beneath him bent down to earth, huge Turnus sank. Up spring with a groan the Rutulians all; the whole hill reechoes round about, and far and near the wooded steeps send back the sound. He, in lowly suppliance, uplifting eyes and pleading hands: "Yea, I have earned it," he cries, "and I ask not mercy; use thou thy chance. If any thought of a parent's grief can touch thee, I pray thee-in Anchises thou, too, hadst such a father-pity Daunus' old age, and give back me, or, if so thou please, my lifeless body, to my kin. Victor thou art; and as vanquished, have the Ausonians seen me stretch forth my hands Lavinia is thine for wife; press not thy hatred further." : 938 Fierce in his arms, Aeneas stood with rolling eyes, and stayed his hand; and now more and more, as he paused, these words began to sway him, when lo! high on the shoulder was seen the luckless baldric, and there flashed the belt with its well Pallantis pueri, victum quem volnere Turnus 952 cf. XI. 831. 945 950 known studs-belt of young Pallas, whom Turnus had smitten and stretched vanquished on earth, and now wore on his shoulders his foeman's fatal badge.1 The other, soon as his eyes drank in the trophy, that memorial of cruel grief, fired with fury and terrible in his wrath: "Art thou, thou clad in my loved one's spoils, to be snatched hence from my hands? 'Tis Pallas, Pallas who with this stroke sacrifices thee, and takes atonement of thy guilty blood! So saying, full in his breast he buries the sword with fiery zeal. But the other's limbs grew slack and chill, and with a moan life passed indignant to the Shades below. 1 cf. Aen. x. 496 ff. There seems to be a double meaning in inimicum. |