74See, Phorbas of Syene, son of Metion, and Amphimedon the Libyan, eager to join battle, had slipped and fallen in the blood with which the ground, soaked far and wide, was warm: as they rose a sword stopped them, driven into the ribs of the one, the throat of Phorbas. 79But Erytus, son of Actor, whose weapon was a broad double axe, Perseus does not attack with his hooked sword, but lifts in both hands a huge mixing-bowl, standing out with high reliefs and of great weight of metal, and dashes it against the man; 83he vomits red gore, and, falling on his back, beats the ground with his dying head.
85Then he lays low Polydegmon, sprung from the blood of Semiramis, and Caucasian Abaris, and Lycetus son of Spercheus, and Helix with his unshorn hair, and Phlegyas and Clytus, and treads on the heaped-up piles of the dying. 89Nor did Phineus dare to meet his enemy hand to hand; he hurls a javelin: chance carried it astray onto Idas, who had kept out of the war in vain and followed neither side. 92He, glaring at pitiless Phineus with fierce eyes, says, 'Since I am dragged into taking sides, receive, Phineus, the enemy you have made, and pay for wound with this wound'; 95and now, about to hurl back the weapon drawn from his wound, he fell, collapsing on limbs drained of blood.
97Here too Hodites, first of the Cephenes after the king, lies slain by the sword of Clymenus; 98Hypseus strikes Prothoenor, Lynceus' descendant strikes Hypseus. 99There was among them too the aged Emathion, a lover of justice and one who feared the gods; 101who, since his years prevent him from waging war, fights by speaking, and advances and curses the wicked arms. 103As he clasps the altar with trembling hands, Chromis strikes off his head with a sword; 104which fell straight onto the altar, and there with half-living tongue uttered words of cursing, and breathed out its life amid the flames. 107Then twin brothers, Broteas and Ammon, unconquered with the boxing-glove, if swords could be conquered by gloves, fell by the hand of Phineus, and Ceres' priest Ampycus, his temples veiled with a white fillet.
111You too, son of Lampetus, not meant to be put to such uses, but to play the lyre with your voice, a work of peace, had been bidden to grace the banquet and the festival with singing. 114As he stood apart, holding his unwarlike plectrum, Pettalus, mocking him, said, 'Sing the rest to the Stygian shades,' and fixed his point in his left temple. 117He falls, and with dying fingers touches the strings of the lyre once more, and by chance the song was piteous. 119Fierce Lycormas does not let him fall unavenged, and, snatching the stout bar from the right doorpost, dashed it against the bones in the middle of his neck: and he sank to the ground like a slaughtered bullock.
123Cinyphian Pelates was trying to pull away the oak bar of the left doorpost too: as he tried, his right hand was pinned by the spear of Corythus the Marmaridian and stuck fast to the wood. 126As he stuck there, Abas pierced his side: and he did not collapse, but hung dying from the doorpost, which held his hand fast. 128Menaleus too is laid low, who had followed Perseus' camp, and Dorylas, richest in Nasamonian land, Dorylas rich in land, than whom no other had owned land more widely or raised so many heaps of incense. 132The iron thrown at him stood fixed in his groin, slantwise: that is a deadly place.
133When the author of the wound, Bactrian Halcyoneus, saw him sobbing out his life and rolling his eyes, he said, 'Of all your lands, keep this patch of earth you lie on,' and left the bloodless body. 137The avenger, Abas' descendant, hurls at him the spear snatched from the warm wound; 138which, taken in the middle of the nose, was driven out through the neck and juts out on both sides. 140And while Fortune aids his hand, he laid low Clytius and Clanis, born of one mother, with different wounds: for the heavy ash, poised by his strong arm, was driven through both thighs of Clytius, while Clanis bit the javelin with his mouth.
144Mendesian Celadon falls too; Astreus falls, born of a Palestinian mother and an uncertain father, and Aethion, once shrewd at seeing what was to come (then deceived by a false bird), and Thoactes, the king's armour-bearer, and Agyrtes, infamous for slaying his father. 149Yet more remains than has been spent: for all have one aim, to crush one man; on every side the sworn bands fight for a cause that assails merit and good faith: on his side his father-in-law, loyal in vain, and his new bride with her mother lend support and fill the halls with wailing. 154But the clash of arms drowns them, and the groans of the falling, and Bellona drenches with much blood the household gods once polluted, and stirs up the battle anew.
157Phineus and the thousand who followed Phineus surround the one man: weapons fly thicker than winter hail past both his sides and past his eyes and ears. 160He sets his shoulders against the stones of a great column, and, keeping his back safe and turned to face the opposing ranks, he withstands their onslaught. 162On the left pressed Chaonian Molpeus, on the right Nabataean Echemmon. 164As a tigress, goaded by hunger, when she hears the lowing of two herds in different valleys, does not know which to rush upon first and burns to rush on both, so Perseus, uncertain whether to turn right or left, drove off Molpeus with a wound that pierced his leg, and is content with his flight: for Echemmon gives him no time, but rages, and, eager to deal a wound to his neck with a leap, driving his sword with force not looked to, he broke it, and the blade, striking the very edge of the column, flew apart and lodged in its master's throat.
174Yet that blow did not give causes strong enough for death: as he trembled and stretched out his unarmed arms in vain, Perseus ran him through with the Cyllenian curved sword.