One who haply swam Amid the battle, chanced upon a death Strange and unheard of; for two meeting prows Transfixed his body.

At the double stroke Wide yawned his chest; blood issued from his mouth With flesh commingled; and the brazen beaks Resounding clashed together, by the bones Unhindered: now they part and through the gap Swift pours the sea and drags the corse below.
Next, of a shipwrecked crew, the larger part Struggling with death upon the waters, reached A comrade bark; but when with elbows raised do They seized upon the bulwarks and the ship Rolled, nor could bear their weight, the ruthless crew Hacked off their straining arms; then maimed they sank Below the seething waves, to rise no more.
Now every dart was hurled and every spear, The soldier weaponless; yet their rage found arms: One hurls an oar; another's brawny arm Tugs at the twisted stern; or from the seats The oarsmen driving, swings a bench in air.
The ships are broken for the fight.

They seize The fallen dead and snatch the sword that slew.
Nay, many from their wounds, frenzied for arms, Pluck forth the deadly steel, and pressing still Upon their yawning sides, hurl forth the spear Back to the hostile ranks from which it came; Then ebbs their life blood forth.
But deadlier yet Was that fell force most hostile to the sea; For, thrown in torches and in sulphurous bolts Fire all-consuming ran among the ships, Whose oily timbers soaked in pitch and wax Inflammable, gave welcome to the flames.
Nor could the waves prevail against the blaze Which claimed as for its own the fragments borne Upon the waters.

Lo! on burning plank One hardly 'scapes destruction; one to save His flaming ship, gives entrance to the main.
Of all the forms of death each fears the one That brings immediate dying: yet quails not Their heart in shipwreck: from the waves they pluck The fallen darts and furnishing the ship Essay the feeble stroke; and should that hope Still fail their hand, they call the sea to aid And seizing in their grasp some floating foe Drag him to mutual death.
But on that day Phoceus above all others proved his skill.
Well trained was he to dive beneath the main And search the waters with unfailing eye; And should an anchor 'gainst the straining rope Too firmly bite the sands, to wrench it free.
Oft in his fatal grasp he seized a foe Nor loosed his grip until the life was gone.
Such was his frequent deed; but this his fate: For rising, victor (as he thought), to air, Full on a keel he struck and found his death.
Some, drowning, seized a hostile oar and checked The flying vessel; not to die in vain, Their single care; some on their vessel's side Hanging, in death, with wounded frame essayed To check the charging prow.
Tyrrhenus high Upon the bulwarks of his ship was struck By leaden bolt from Balearic sling Of Lygdamus; straight through his temples passed The fated missile; and in streams of blood Forced from their seats his trembling eyeballs fell.
Plunged in a darkness as of night, he thought That life had left him; yet ere long he knew The living rigour of his limbs; and cried, "Place me, O friends, as some machine of war Straight facing towards the foe; then shall my darts Strike as of old; and thou, Tyrrhenus, spend Thy latest breath, still left, upon the fight: So shalt thou play, not wholly dead, the part That fits a soldier, and the spear that strikes Thy frame, shall miss the living." Thus he spake, And hurled his javelin, blind, but not in vain; For Argus, generous youth of noble blood, Below the middle waist received the spear And failing drave it home.

His aged sire From furthest portion of the conquered ship Beheld; than whom in prime of manhood none, More brave in battle: now no more he fought, Yet did the memory of his prowess stir Phocaean youths to emulate his fame.
Oft stumbling o'er the benches the old man hastes To reach his boy, and finds him breathing still.
No tear bedewed his cheek, nor on his breast One blow he struck, but o'er his eyes there fell A dark impenetrable veil of mist That blotted out the day; nor could he more Discern his luckless Argus.