, sword in hand,
Room 'twixt the hauberk and the helmet found
And lopped the head with his avenging brand,
And left the bleeding trunk to welter on the sand.

L. While Turnus thus dealt havoc as he flew,
Back with AEneas from the combat went
Ascanius, Mnestheus, and Achates true,
And helped the bleeding hero to his tent.
Faltering and pale, as on the spear he leant,
Fretting, and tugging at the shaft in vain,
Quick help he summons,--with the broadsword's rent
The wound to widen, and the lurking bane
Cut out, and send him back to battle on the plain.

LI. Iapis, son of Iasus, was there,
The best-beloved of Phoebus. Long ago
Apollo, fired to see a youth so fair,
His arts and gifts had offered to bestow,
His augury, his lyre, his sounding bow.
But he, in hope a bed-rid parent's days
To lengthen, sought the leech's craft to know,
The power of simples, and the silent praise
Of healing arts, and scorned the great Apollo's bays.

LII. Dark-frowning stands, still propt upon his spear,
AEneas, heedless of his friends around
And young Iulus, weeping in his fear.
Tight-girt like Paeon, with the robes upbound,
Beside him kneels the aged leech renowned.
With busy haste Apollo's salves he tries,
In vain, in vain he coaxes in the wound
The stubborn steel, the pincer's teeth he plies:
Fate bides averse, his help the healing god denies;

LIII. And more and more, along the echoing wold,
The war's wild horror thickens on the ear,
And storm-like, in the darkened skies uprolled,
The driving dust-clouds show the danger near.
Now horsemen, galloping in haste, appear,
And darts and arrows, as the foe draw nigh,
Fall in the tents, and fill the camp with fear,
And a grim clamour mounts the vaulted sky,
The shouts of those that fight, the groans of those that die.

LIV. Then, Venus, for her darling filled with grief,
A stalk of dittany on Ida's crown
Seeks out, and gathers, for his wound's relief,
The flower of purple and the leaves of down.
(To wounded wild-goats 'twas a plant well-known)
This brings the Goddess, veiled in mist, and brews
In a bright bowl a mixture of her own,
And, steeped in water from the stream, she strews
Soft balm of fragrant scent, and sweet ambrosial dews.

LV. Therewith the leech, unwitting, rinsed the wound,
And the pain fled, and all the blood was st