Pale fly the hinds, mute stands the herd dismayed:
The heifers low, unknowing who shall sway
The grove, what lord and leader to obey;
They, with horns locked, their mutual rage outpour,
And thrust for thrust, and wound for wound repay,
Fast from their necks and dewlaps streams the gore,
And all the neighbouring wood rebellows to the roar;

XCIV. So, when both champions on the listed field,
The Trojan and the Daunian, eye to eye,
Met in the deadly conflict, shield to shield
Clanged, and a loud crash shattered through the sky.
And now great Jove, the Sire of gods on high,
Holds up the scales, and sets the long beam straight,
And in the balance lays their fates, to try
Each champion's fortune in the stern debate,
Whom battle's toil shall doom, where sinks the deathful weight.

XCV. Forth springs, in fancied safety, at his foe
Fierce Turnus, rising to his utmost height,
And planting all his body in the blow,
Strikes. A loud shout, of terror and delight
Goes up from Troy and Latium at the sight.
When lo, the falchion, as the stroke he plies,
Snaps short, and leaves him helpless. Naught but flight
Can aid him; swifter than the wind he flies,
As in his hand disarmed an unknown hilt he spies.

XCVI. When first his steeds were harnessed for the war,
In haste he snatched Metiscus' sword, 'tis said,
His sire's forgotten, as he climbed the car,
And well enough that weapon served his stead,
To smite the stragglers, while the Trojans fled;
But when it met, and countered in the fray
The arms of Vulcan, then the mortal blade,
Found faithless, like the brittle ice, gave way,
And in the yellow sand the sparkling fragments lay.

XCVII. So Turnus flies, and, doubling, but in vain,
Now here, now there, weaves many an aimless round;
For all about him, as he scours the plain,
The swarming legions of the foe are found,
And here the marsh, and there the bulwarks bound.
Nor less AEneas, though his stiff knee feels
The rankling arrow, and the hampering wound
Retards his pace, pursues him, as he wheels,
And dogs the flying foe, and presses on his heels.

XCVIII. As when some stag, a river in his face,
Or toils with scarlet feathers, set to scare,
A huntsman with his braying hounds doth chase.
Awed by the steep bank and the threatening snare,
A thousand ways he doubles here and there;