n flood, bars his way. More doubtful
for his charge than for himself, hastily, with love-prompted art, he
swathes the babe in stripped bark--binds her to the shaft of his huge
oaken spear--dedicates her with a prayer to the virgin goddess of woods,
and of the woodland chase--hurls, from a gigantic hand, the weapon across
the tempestuous flood--and, ere his pursuers have reached him, plunges in,
breasts the waters, and, saving and saved, swims across. In the forest
depths, amongst imbosoming hills, the rugged sire fosters the vowed
follower of Diana. The nursling of the wild grows up a bold and skilled
huntress; and now that war storms in the land, she, with her huntress
companions, joins the war. Some unexplained reconciliation, or perhaps
restoration, has taken effect; for, along with her armed maidens, she
leads the troops of the Volscians. In the field she fights like a virago;
but her entrance thither was against the desire of the goddess, for it
dooms her to die. Her eager following of a gorgeously armed warrior
exposes her to a treacherous aim, and she falls. The provident goddess had
put her own bow, and an arrow from her own quiver, into the hands of a
nymph chosen to execute the vengeance of the impending death, and that
arrow flies to its mark.

"Nor, after that, in towns which walls enclose,
Would trust his hunted life amidst his foes;
But, rough, in open air he chose to lie;
Earth was his couch, his covering was the sky.
On hills unshorn, or in a desert den,
He shunn'd the dire society of men.
A shepherd's solitary life he led;
His daughter with the milk of mares he fed.
The dugs of bears, and every savage beast,
He drew, and through her lips the liquor press'd.
The little amazon could scarcely go,
He loads her with a quiver and a bow;
And, that she might her staggering steps command,
He with a slender javelin fills her hand.
Her flowing hair no golden fillet bound;
Nor swept her trailing robe the dusty ground.
Instead of these, a tiger's hide o'erspread
Her back and shoulders, fasten'd to her head.
The flying dart she first attempts to fling,
And round her tender temples toss'd the sling;
Then as her strength with years increased, began }
To pierce aloft in air the soaring swan, }
And from the clouds to fetch the heron and the crane. }
The Tuscan matrons with each other vied,
To bless their rival sons with such a bride;
But she