475While Turnus fills the Rutulians with bold spirit, Allecto speeds on Stygian wings against the Teucrians, having spied out with a new trick the place on the shore where handsome Iulus was hunting wild beasts with snares and on the run. 479Here the maiden of Cocytus throws a sudden madness on the hounds and touches their nostrils with a familiar scent, so that they would hotly chase a stag; 481and this was the first cause of the troubles and fired the countrymen's hearts for war. 483There was a stag of outstanding beauty and with huge antlers, which the sons of Tyrrhus and their father Tyrrhus were rearing, torn from its mother's udder; to him the royal herds were obedient, and the care of the plain far and wide was entrusted.
487Their sister Silvia, with every care, used to adorn its antlers, as it grew used to her commands, entwining them with soft garlands, and she would comb the wild creature and wash it in a clear spring. 490It, tolerant of the hand and used to its masters' table, would wander in the woods and return home of its own accord to the familiar threshold, however late in the night. 493As it strayed far off, the raging hounds of Iulus, out hunting, startled it, when it happened to be floating down the river and cooling its heat on the green bank. 496Ascanius himself too, fired with love of outstanding glory, aimed shafts from his curved bow; 498nor did a god fail his erring hand, and the arrow, driven with a loud whirr, came through belly and flanks.
500But the wounded beast fled back inside the familiar house and crept groaning into its stall, and, bleeding and like one begging, filled the whole house with its complaint. 503Silvia, the sister, first, beating her arms with her palms, calls for help and summons the hardy countrymen. 505They, since the cruel plague lurks in the silent woods, appear unexpectedly, one armed with a fire-hardened stake, another with the knots of a heavy club: whatever each finds as he searches, anger makes a weapon. 508Tyrrhus calls out the bands, just as he happened to be splitting an oak into four with driven wedges, panting savagely, the axe snatched up.