365Perhaps the Pylian too would have perished before the times of Troy; but taking a run, with his spear planted, he vaulted up into the branches of a tree that stood nearest, and, safe in his position, looked down on the enemy he had escaped. 369The beast, savage, sharpening his tusks on an oak trunk, threatens destruction, and, trusting in his freshly whetted weapons, gored the thigh of the great son of Eurytus with his hooked snout. 372But the twin brothers, not yet stars in the sky, both conspicuous, were both riding on horses whiter than snow, both shaking the points of their spears, brandished through the air, with a quivering motion.
376They would have made wounds, had not the bristly beast gone into the shady woods, places passable neither for javelins nor for horse. 378Telamon pursues, and, careless in his eagerness to go, fell headlong, caught by the root of a tree. 380While Peleus lifts him up, the girl of Tegea set a swift arrow to the string and shot it from her curved bow. 382Fixed below the beast's ear, the shaft grazed the surface of his body and reddened his bristles with a little blood. 384Yet she herself was not more glad at the success of her shot than Meleager was. 385He is thought to have been the first to see it and the first to show the blood he had seen to his comrades, and to have said: 'You will carry off the honour your courage has earned.' 388The men blushed and urge one another on and add courage with their shouting and hurl their weapons without order: the crowd hampers the throws and blocks the very blows it aims.
391Look, the Arcadian with his double axe, raging against his own fate: 'Learn, young men, how far men's weapons surpass women's, and give way to my work!' 393he said. 394'Though Latona's daughter herself protect it with her own arms, yet in spite of Diana my right hand will destroy it.' 396Such were the words he had uttered, swollen with boastful speech, and raising the two-edged axe in both hands, he had risen on his toes, poised on the tips of his feet. 399The beast catches him in his daring, and, where the way to death is nearest, aimed both tusks at the top of his groin. 401Ancaeus falls, and his entrails slip out and flow, tangled with much blood: the earth is soaked with gore.
403Pirithous, offspring of Ixion, was going against the enemy, brandishing his hunting spear in his strong right hand. 405To him the son of Aegeus said: 'Stand back, you who are dearer to me than myself, part of my soul! 406the brave may keep their distance: rash courage harmed Ancaeus.' 408He spoke and hurled his heavy cornel-wood spear with its bronze point. 409Though it was well balanced and likely to fulfil his wish, a leafy branch, cut from a tree, stood in its way. 411The son of Aeson too threw a javelin: chance turned it from the boar to the death of an undeserving dog, and, hurled between its flanks, it was pinned through the flanks into the ground.
414But the hand of Oeneus' son has mixed fortune: of the two spears he threw, the first stuck in the earth, the second in the middle of the back. 416Without delay, while the beast rages, while he spins his body round and pours out hissing foam with fresh blood, the author of the wound is there and provokes the enemy to fury and buries his gleaming hunting spear in the shoulders facing him. 420His comrades bear witness to their joy with a favouring shout and seek to join their right hands with his victorious right hand, and gaze in wonder at the huge beast lying over a large stretch of ground, and do not yet think it safe to touch him; 424but still each of them stains his weapons with its blood.
425He himself, setting his foot on it, pressed down the deadly head and said: 'Take the spoil that is mine by right, Nonacrian girl, and let my glory come to be shared with you.' 428At once he gives her the skin, the back bristling with stiff bristles, and the head remarkable for its great tusks. 430For her the giver of the gift is a joy, together with the gift: the others were jealous, and there was a murmur through the whole company. 432Of these, stretching out their arms and shouting in loud voices, the sons of Thestius cry: 'Come, put it down, woman, and do not steal our honours, and do not let confidence in your beauty deceive you, in case the giver, captured by love, should be far from you,' and they take the gift from her, and from him the right to give it.
437The son of Mars did not bear it, and gnashing his teeth in swelling anger, he said: 'Learn, you robbers of another's honour, how far deeds differ from threats,' and pierced with impious steel the breast of Plexippus, which feared no such thing. 441Toxeus, in doubt what to do, and both wishing to avenge his brother and fearing his brother's fate, he does not allow to doubt for long, and he warmed again in a brother's blood the weapon hot from the former slaughter. 445Althaea was carrying gifts to the temples of the gods for her son's victory when she sees her brothers being brought back dead. 447She beats her breast and fills the city with mournful cries, and changed her golden clothes for black.
449But as soon as the author of their death was made known, all grief fell away, and from tears she turned to a passion for punishment.