1 Earth utters a moan; the sword-strokes fall thick and fast, chance and valour joining in one.
2 While Turnus fills the Rutulian minds with valour, Allecto on Stygian wing hastens towards the Trojans.
3 I blame no one; what valour's utmost could do is done; we have fought with our whole kingdom's strength.
4 Trial is open of what live valour can do; nor indeed is our foe far to seek; on all sides they surround our walls.
5 Nor do Teucrians alone pay forfeit of their blood; once and again valour returns even in conquered hearts, and the victorious Grecians fall.
6 Answering whom Euryalus speaks thus: 'Let but the day never come to prove me degenerate from this daring valour; fortune may fall prosperous or adverse.'
7 But the hero, not dulled nor dismayed by his mishap, returns the keener to battle, and grows violent in wrath, while shame and resolved valour kindle his strength.
8 Then with kindly words the father accosts his son: 'Each hath his own appointed day; short and irrecoverable is the span of life for all: but to spread renown by deeds is the task of valour.'
9 This is he, the wanderer from a foreign home, foreshewn of fate for his son, and called to a realm of equal dominion, whose race should be excellent in valour and their might overbear all the world.
10 But the victor deigned not to bring down Orodes with the blind wound of his flying lance as he fled; full face to face he meets him, and engages man with man, conqueror not by stealth but armed valour.
11 At the distracting picture of his fortune Turnus froze in horror and stood in dumb gaze; together in his heart sweep the vast mingling tides of shame and maddened grief, and love stung to frenzy and resolved valour.
12 When the shield is adjusted by his side and the corslet on his back, he clasps Ascanius in his armed embrace, and lightly kissing him through the helmet, cries: 'Learn of me, O boy, valour and toil indeed, fortune of others.'
13 The coverings are curiously wrought in splendid purple; on the tables is massy silver and deeds of ancestral valour graven in gold, all the long course of history drawn through many a heroic name from the nation's primal antiquity.
14 Thereafter he goes to the ships and revisits his crew, of whose company he chooses the foremost in valour to attend him to war; the rest glide down the water and float idly with the descending stream, to come with news to Ascanius of his father's state.
15 Furthermore there came, sent by King Archippus, the priest of the Marruvian people, dressed with prosperous olive leaves over his helmet, Umbro excellent in valour, who was wont with charm and touch to sprinkle slumberous dew on the viper's brood and water-snakes of noisome breath.
16 And as in sleep, when nightly rest weighs down our languorous eyes, we seem vainly to will to run eagerly on, and sink faint amidst our struggles; the tongue is powerless, the familiar strength fails the body, nor will words or utterance follow: so the disastrous goddess brings to naught all Turnus' valour as he presses on.