Steeds

Then the bear ran to her wheelbarrow, threw off her bear's skin, and touched it with the magic wand that the witch had given her. In a moment the skin was changed into an exquisite ball dress woven out of moon-beams, and the wheel-barrow was changed into a carriage drawn by two prancing steeds.

So sank the furious wave, / when through the clear sky looking o'er the main, / the sea-king lashed his steeds and slacked the favouring rein.

When lo, before him in the wood appears / his mother, in a virgin's arms arrayed, / in form and habit of a Spartan maid, / or like Harpalyce, the pride of Thrace, / who tires swift steeds, and scours the woodland glade, / and outstrips rapid Hebrus in the race. / So fair the goddess seemed, apparelled for the chase.

Not far, with tears, the snowy tents he knew / of Rhesus, where Tydides, bathed in blood, / broke in at midnight with his murderous crew, / and drove the hot steeds campward, ere the food / of Trojan plains they browsed, or drank the Xanthian flood.

Nor lacks my sire his presents; for the rest / steeds, guides and arms he finds, and oarsmen of the best.

Lo, here, first omen offered to our eyes, / four snow-white steeds are grazing on the plain.

Now came, preceded by lictors with their fasces, the vestal virgins, seated in silver chariots drawn by milk-white steeds, followed closely by another band of flamens, leading a long line of hostia (oxen to be sacrificed), their horns richly gilded, their heads adorned with wreaths, each animal led by a victimarius.

Gravely wounded, Troilo falls backward onto the runaway carriage. He still grips the reins of the fiery steeds, unable to stop them. His neck and hair hang loose, dragged along the road as the tip of the fatal lance scratches the ground.