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A woman chases you—ye fly:
Why don that useless armour? why
Parade your idle steel?
Yet all too quick your ears to heed
The call of laughing dames,
Or when the piper's scrannel reed
The Bacchic dance proclaims:
Then with keen eyes and hungry throat
On meat and brimming cups ye gloat,
Till seers announce the victim good
And feast-time bids you to the wood.'
This said, prepared himself to bleed,
'Gainst Venulus he spurs his steed,
Plucks from his horse the unwary foe
And bears him on his saddle-bow.
All Latium turns astonished eyes,
And deafening clamours mount the skies;
Swift o'er the champaign Tarchon flies,
The chief before him still:
The spearhead from the shaft he broke,
And scans him o'er, to plant a stroke
Which may the readiest kill:
The victim, struggling, guards his neck,
And still by force keeps force in check.
E'en as an eagle bears aloft
A serpent in her taloncd nails;
The reptile writhes him oft and oft,
Rears in his ire his stiffening scales,
And darts his hissing jaws on high:
She with quick wing still beats the sky,
While her sharp beak his life assails:
So Tarchon from the midmost foe
In triumph bears his prey;
His heartened Lydians catch the glow,
And back their chief's essay.