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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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To bless their rival sons with such a bride; But she disdains their love, to share with me The sylvan shades and vow'd virginity. And, O! I wish, contented with my cares Of salvage spoils, she had not sought the wars! Then had she been of my celestial train, And shunn'd the fate that dooms her to be slain. But since, opposing Heav'n's decree, she goes To find her death among forbidden foes, Haste with these arms, and take thy steepy flight. Where, with the gods, averse, the Latins fight. This bow to thee, this quiver I bequeath, This chosen arrow, to revenge her death: By whate'er hand Camilla shall be slain, Or of the Trojan or Italian train, Let him not pass unpunish'd from the plain. Then, in a hollow cloud, myself will aid To bear the breathless body of my maid: Unspoil'd shall be her arms, and unprofan'd Her holy limbs with any human hand, And in a marble tomb laid in her native land." She said. The faithful nymph descends from high With rapid flight, and cuts the sounding sky: Black clouds and stormy winds around her body fly. By this, the Trojan and the Tuscan horse, Drawn up in squadrons, with united force, Approach the walls: the sprightly coursers bound, Press forward on their bits, and shift their ground. Shields, arms, and spears flash horribly from far; And the fields glitter with a waving war. Oppos'd to these, come on with furious force Messapus, Coras, and the Latian horse; These in the body plac'd, on either hand Sustain'd and clos'd by fair Camilla's band. Advancing in a line, they couch their spears; And less and less the middle space appears. Thick smoke obscures the field; and scarce are seen The neighing coursers, and the shouting men. In distance of their darts they stop their course; Then man to man they rush, and horse to horse. The face of heav'n their flying jav'lins hide, And deaths unseen are dealt on either side. Tyrrhenus, and Aconteus, void of fear, |
