For Camilla Wren McDaniel
from Virgil’s Aeneid, VII, 803–817 The best for last: Camilla at the head Of her cavalry, a warrior queen not bred For girlish tasks and weaving at the loom, She strides before her squadrons all abloom With bronze, a maiden toughened for the fight— And swift—she could outstrip the wind in flight, And skimming over a field of standing wheat, Would not have bruised one ripe ear with her feet, And racing over the sea, above the top Of the waves, would not have touched a single drop. The young men from the fields and matrons throng Leaving their chores to watch her go along, Gazing in amazement to behold her: A purple cape aflutter at her shoulder, Her tresses caught up with a golden clasp, A quiver and a javelin in her grasp.
— translated from the Latin by A. E. Stallings