rom a plain,
and looks down upon the fields below. After the heroes are come there,
some extend the nets; some take the couples off the dogs, some follow
close the traces of his feet, and are anxious to discover their own
danger. There is a hollow channel, along which rivulets of rain water
are wont to discharge themselves. The bending willows cover the lower
parts of the cavity, and smooth sedges, and marshy rushes, and oziers,
and thin reeds with their long stalks. Aroused from this spot, the boar
rushes violently into the midst of the enemy, like lightning darted from
the bursting clouds. In his onset the grove is laid level, and the wood,
borne down, makes a crashing noise. The young men raise a shout, and
with strong right hands hold their weapons extended before them,
brandished with their broad points. Onward he rushes, and disperses the
dogs, as any one {of them} opposes his career; and scatters them, as
they bark {at him}, with sidelong wounds. The spear that was first
hurled by the arm of Echion, was unavailing, and made a slight incision
in the trunk of a maple tree. The next, if it had not employed too much
of the strength of him who threw it, seemed as if it would stick in the
back it was aimed at: it went beyond. The owner of the weapon was the
Pagasaean Jason. "Phoebus," said the son of Ampycus,[60] "if I have
worshipped thee, and if I do worship thee, grant me {the favour} to
reach what is {now} aimed at, with unerring weapon." The God consented
to his prayer, so far as he could. The boar was struck by him, but
without a wound; Diana took the steel head from off the flying weapon;
the shaft reached him without the point. The rage of the monster was
aroused, and not less violently was he inflamed than the lightnings;
light darted from his eyes, and flame was breathed from his breast. As
the stone flies, launched by the tightened rope, when it is aimed[61] at
either walls, or towers filled with soldiers, with the like unerring
onset is the destroying boar borne on among the youths, and lays upon
the ground Eupalamus and Pelagon,[62] who guard the right wing. {Thus}
prostrate, their companions bear them off. But Enaesimus, the son of
Hippocoon, does not escape a deadly wound. The sinews of his knee, cut
{by the boar}, fail him as he trembles, and prepares to turn his back.

Perhaps, too, the Pylian {Nestor} would have perished[63] before the
times of the Trojan {war}: but taking a spring, by means of his lan