While clinging to the horns the trunk expires, The sever’d head consumes amid the fires.

Then Phineus, who from far his javelin threw, Broteas and Ammon, twins and brothers, slew; For knotted gauntlets matchless in the field; But gauntlets must to swords and javelins yield. Ampycus next, with hallow’d fillets bound, As Ceres’ priest, and with a mitre crown’d, His spear transfix’d, and struck him to the ground.

O Iapetides, with pain I tell How you, sweet lyrist, in the riot fell: What worse than brutal rage his breast could fill Who did thy blood, O bard celestial! spill? Kindly you press’d amid the princely throng, To crown the feast, and give the nuptial song: Discord abhorr’d the music of thy lyre, Whose notes did gentle peace so well inspire: Thee when fierce Pettalus far off espied, Defenceless with thy harp, he scoffing cried, “Go, to the ghosts thy soothing lessons play; We loathe thy lyre, and scorn thy peaceful lay;” And, as again he fiercely bid him go, He pierced his temples with a mortal blow. His harp he held, though sinking on the ground, Whose strings in death his trembling fingers found, By chance, and tuned by chance a dying sound.

With grief Lycormas saw him fall, from far, And wresting from the door a massy bar, Full in his poll lays on a load of knocks, Which stun him, and he falls like a devoted ox. Another bar Pelates would have snatch’d, But Corythus his motions slyly watch’d; He darts his weapon from a private stand, And rivets to the post his veiny hand; When straight a missive spear transfix’d his side, By Abas thrown, and, as he hung, he died.

Melaneus on the prince’s side was slain, And Dorylas, who own’d a fertile plain, Of Nasamonia’s fields the wealthy lord, Whose crowded barns could scarce contain their hoard: A whizzing spear obliquely gave a blow, Stuck in his groin, and pierced the nerves below: His foe beheld his eyes convulsive roll, His ebbing veins, and his departing soul, Then taunting said: “Of all thy spacious plains, This spot thy only property remains.” He left him thus; but had no sooner left, Than Perseus in revenge his nostrils cleft; From his friend’s breast the murdering dart he drew, And the same weapon at the murderer threw; His head in halves the darted javelin cut, And on each side the brain came issuing out.

Fortune his friend, his deaths around he deals, And this his lance, and that his falchion feels: Now Clytius dies; and, by a different wound, The twin, his brother Clanis, bites the ground: In his rent jaw the bearded weapon sticks, And the steel’d dart does Clytius’ thigh transfix. With these Mendesian Celadon he slew; And Astreus next, whose mother was a Jew; His sire uncertain: then by Perseus fell Aethion, who could things to come foretell; But now he knows not whence the javelin flies That wounds his breast, nor by whose arm he dies.

The squire to Phineus next his valour tried, And fierce Agyrtes stain’d with parricide.

As these are slain, fresh numbers still appear, And wage with Perseus an unequal war; To rob him of his right⁠—the maid he won, By honour, promise, and desert his own. With him the father of the beauteous bride, The mother, and the frighted virgin, side: With shrieks and doleful cries they rend the air: Their shrieks confounded with the din of war, With clashing arms, and groanings of the slain, They grieve unpitied, and unheard complain. The floor with ruddy streams Bellona stains; And Phineus a new war with double rage maintains.