Fierce blazed the wrath of Turnus, and he wrung Speech from his breast, deep groaning in his gall.
"Glib art thou, Drances, voluble of tongue, When hands are needed, and the trumpets call.
The council summoned, thou art first of all.
Not this the hour thy vapouring to outpour, Though big thy talk, and brave the words, that fall From craven lips, while ramparts stand before, To guard thee safe from foes, nor trenches swim with gore.
L.

"Rave on, and thunder in thy wonted strain, And brand me coward, thou whose hands can slay Such Trojan hosts, whose trophies grace the plain.
What worth can do, and manhood can essay, We twain may venture.

Sooth, not far away Need foes be sought; around the walls they throng.
March we to meet them! Dotard, why delay?
Still dwells thy War-God in a windy tongue, And flying feet, and knees all feeble and unstrung?
LI.

"I beaten?
Who, foul spawn of earth, shall call Me beaten?
who, that saw swoln Tiber flow Red with the blood of Trojans, ay, and all Evander's house and progeny laid low, And fierce Arcadians vanquished at a blow?
Not such dead Pandarus and Bitias found This right hand, nor those thousands hurled below In one short day, when battlement and mound Hemmed me in hostile walls, and foemen swarmed around.
LII.

"No hope from war ?--Go, fool, to Dardan ears These bodings whisper, to thy new ally.
Go, swell the panic, spread the coward's fears.
Puff up the foemen's prowess to the sky,-- Twice-conquered churls,--and Latin arms decry.
See now, forsooth, the Myrmidons afraid Of Phrygian arms, Tydides fain to fly, Achilles trembling, Aufidus in dread Shrunk from the Hadrian deep, and cowering in his bed.
LIII.