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And home again at night repair
E'en of itself, how late soe'er.
So now 'twas wandering when the pack
Gave tongue and followed on its track,
As sheltered from the noontide beam
It floated listless down the stream.
Ambition fired Ascanius too;
The shaft he aimed, the bow he drew:
Fate guides his hand: with whirring speed
Through flank and belly flies the reed.
Homeward the wounded creature fled,
Took refuge in the well-known shed,
And bleeding, crying as for aid,
Through all the house its moaning made.
With flat hand smiting on each arm
Poor Silvia gives the first alarm,
And calls the rural folk:
They—for the fury-pest unseen
Is lurking in the woodland green—
Or ere she deems, are close at hand;
One grasps a charred and hardened brand,
And one a knotted oak:
Whate'er the seeker's haste may find
Does weapon's work for fury blind.
Stout Tyrrheus, as he splits in four
With wedge on wedge a tree's tough core,
Leaps forth, his hatchet still in hand,
And, breathing rage, arrays his band.
The goddess from her vantage tower
Perceives, and seizes mischief's hour,
Flies to the summit of the stall,
And thence shrills out the shepherd's call,
With harsh Tartarean voice in air
Pitching on high the horn's hoarse blare.
That sound the forest line convulsed;
The long vibration throbbed and pulsed
Through all the depth of wood: