Goddesses, of sea!"

Straightway the ships brake each the chain that tied them to the bank,
And, as the dolphins dive adown, with plunging beaks they sank
Down to the deeps, from whence, O strange! they come aback once more;
As many brazen beaks as erst stood fast beside the shore, 120
So many shapes of maidens now seaward they wend their ways.

Appalled were those Rutulian hearts; yea, feared with all amaze,
Messapus sat mid frighted steeds: the rough-voiced stream grew black;
Yea, Tiberinus from the deep his footsteps drew aback.
But Turnus of the hardy heart, his courage nothing died;
Unmoved he stirs their souls with speech, unmoved he falls to chide:

"These portents seek the Teucrians home; the very Jupiter
Snatches their wonted aid from them, that might not bide to bear
Rutulian fire and sword: henceforth the sea-plain lacketh road
For Teucrian men: their flight is dead, and half the world's abode 130
Is reft from them: and earth, forsooth, upon our hands it waits,
With thousands of Italian swords. For me, I fear no Fates:
For if the Phrygians boast them still of answering words of God,
Enough for Venus and the Fates that Teucrian men have trod
The fair Ausonia's fruitful field: and answering fates have I:
A wicked folk with edge of sword to root up utterly,
For stolen wife: this grief hath grieved others than Atreus' sons,
And other folk may run to arms than those Mycenian ones.
--Enough one downfall is, say ye?--Enough had been one sin.
Yea, I had deemed all womankind your hatred well might win. 140
--Lo, these are they to whom a wall betwixt the sword and sword,
The little tarrying of a ditch,--such toys the death to ward!--
Give hearts of men! What, saw they not the war-walls of Troy-town,
The fashioning of Neptune's hand, amid the flame sink down?
But ye, my chosen, who is dight with me to break the wall,
That we upon their quaking camp with point and edge may fall?
No need I have of Vulcan's arms or thousand ships at sea
Against these Teucrians; yea, though they should win them presently,
The Tuscan friendship: deeds of dusk and deedless stolen gain
Of that Palladium, and the guards of topmost castle slain, 150
Let them not fear: we shall not lurk in horse's dusky womb:
In open day to gird your walls with wildfire is the doom.