them to the night;
The horsemen cast themselves before each crossway known aright,
And every outgoing there is with guard they girdle round. 379
Rough was the wood; a thicket-place where black holm-oaks abound,
And with the tanglement of thorns choked up on every side,
The road but glimmering faintly out from where the foot-tracks hide.
The blackness of overhanging boughs and heavy battle-prey
Hinder Euryalus, and fear beguiles him of the way.
Nisus comes out, and now had won unwitting from the foe,
And reached the place from Alba's name called Alban Meadows now;
Where King Latinus had as then his high-built herd-houses.
So there he stands, and, looking round, his fellow nowhere sees:

"Hapless Euryalus! ah me, where have I left thy face?
Where shall I seek thee, gathering up that tangle of the ways 390
Through the blind wood?"
So therewithal he turns upon his track,
Noting his footsteps, and amid the hushed brake strays aback,
Hearkening the horse-hoofs and halloos and calls of following folk.
Nor had he long abided there, ere on his ears outbroke
Great clamour, and Euryalus he sees, whom all the band
Hath taken, overcome by night, and blindness of the land,
And wildering tumult: there in vain he strives in battle-play.
Ah, what to do? What force to dare, what stroke to snatch away
The youth? Or shall he cast himself amid the swords to die,
And hasten down the way of wounds to lovely death anigh? 400
Then swiftly, with his arm drawn back and brandishing his spear,
He looks up at the moon aloft, and thuswise poureth prayer:

"To aid, thou Goddess! Stay my toil, and let the end be good!
Latonian glory of the stars, fair watcher of the wood,
If ever any gift for me upon thine altars gave
My father Hyrtacus; if I for thee the hunting drave;
If aught I hung upon thy dome, or set upon thy roof,
Give me to break their gathered host, guide thou my steel aloof!"

He spake, and in the shafted steel set all his body's might, 409
And hurled it: flying forth the spear clave through the dusk of night,
And, reaching Sulmo turned away, amidst his back it flew,
And brake there; but the splintering shaft his very heart pierced through,
And o'er he rolleth, vomiting the hot stream from his breast:
Then heave his flanks w