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Lausus received the first stroke of Æneas' sword on his buckler, while the Rutulians with loud shouts applauded him, and poured on the Trojan hero a tempest of darts. Against this he protected himself with his shield, and meanwhile, pitying the youth and courage of Lausus, spoke to him in words of warning: "Why do you thus rush on your own destruction, and attempt what is beyond your strength?
Now indeed Rutulians and Trojans and all Italy turned in emulous gaze, and they who held the high city, and they whose ram was battering the foundations of the wall, and unarmed their shoulders. Latinus himself stands in amaze at the mighty men, born in distant quarters of the world, met and making decision with the sword.
The Rutulians and Latians were amazed at this sudden change, not knowing the cause, but looking back, they too beheld the fleet approaching the shore. The brave Turnus however was not dismayed at the sight.
The crowd of readers who expected politics and scandal, speculations on the projects of Victor Amadeus, and anecdotes about the jollities of convents and the amours of cardinals and nuns, were confounded by finding that the writer's mind was much more occupied by the war between the Trojans and Rutulians than by the war between France and Austria; and that he seemed to have heard no scandal of later date than the gallantries of the Empress Faustina.
Lausus being hard pressed by the Arcadians, King Turnus was called to his assistance, and rushing up he cried to the Rutulians, "Desist you for a moment from the battle. I alone will fight Pallas. Would that his father were here to see." Hearing these words the brave son of Evander advanced boldly into the open plain between the two hosts.
He was now old and had no male descendant, but had one charming daughter, Lavinia, who was sought in marriage by many neighboring chiefs, one of whom, Turnus, king of the Rutulians, was favored by the wishes of her parents. But Latinus had been warned in a dream by his father Faunus, that the destined husband of Lavinia should come from a foreign land.
He found the hero attended by his faithful Achates, and, Pallas soon joining them, the old king spoke thus: "Illustrious Trojan, it is but little we can do in so great a cause. Our state is feeble, hemmed in on one side by the river, on the other by the Rutulians. But I propose to ally you with a people numerous and rich, to whom fate has brought you at the propitious moment.
But now they fail; for where the vast mass presses close, the Teucrians roll a huge block tumbling down that makes a wide gap in the Rutulians and crashes through their armour-plating.
At this point two brothers, Pan'da-rus and Bit'i-as, sons of the Trojan Al-ca'non, of Mount Ida, tall and powerful youths, threw open the gate at which they were posted as sentinels, and standing within, one on each side, they challenged the foe to enter. The Rutulians rushed forward as soon as they saw the passage open. Several of them were slain at the threshold by the valiant brothers.
The Rutulians were astonished at this spectacle, but Turnus was still undismayed, and speaking to his people he declared that what they had just seen was bad for the Trojans themselves, for that now they had no longer means of escape, their ships having disappeared. "As for their much talked of destiny," said he, "it has been fulfilled, since they have reached the land of Italy.
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