BOOK X

Meantime the palace of strong Olympus is thrown open, and the sire of gods and monarch of men summons a council to the starry chamber, whence, throned on high, he looks down on the length and breadth of earth, the camp of the Dardans and the people of Latium. They 5 take their seats in the double-gated mansion; he himself opens the court: “Mighty denizens of heaven, wherefore is your judgment turned backward, and whence such discord in your unkindly souls? I had forbidden that Italy should meet the Teucrians in the shock of war. What 10 strife is this in defiance of my law? What terror has prompted these or those to draw the sword and provoke the fight? There shall come a rightful time for combat—no need for you to hasten it—when fierce Carthage one day shall launch on the hills of Rome mighty ruin and the 15 opening of Alpine barriers. Then will your rancours be free to contend, your hands to plunder and ravage; for the present let be, and cheerfully ratify the peace that I have willed.”

Thus Jupiter in brief; but not brief was the answer 20 of golden Venus: “O Father! O eternal sovereignty of man and nature! for what else can there be which is left us to implore? Seest thou how the Rutulians insult? how Turnus is whirled through the battle by his haughty coursers, borne on the floodtide of war? No longer are 25 the Teucrians safe even in the shelter of their walls; within the gates, amidst the very mounds of the ramparts combat is waged, and the trenches overflow with carnage. Æneas is away in his ignorance. Wilt thou never let us have respite from siege? Once more the enemy is stooping over 30 the walls of our infant Troy, with a second army; once more Tydeus’ son from his Ætolian Arpi is rising against the Teucrians. Ay, my wounds, I ween, are yet in the future, and I, thine own offspring, am delaying the destined course of a mortal spear. If it is without your leave and 5 despite your will that the Trojans have won their way to Italy, let them expiate the crime and withdraw from them thine aid: but if they have but followed those many oracles given by powers above and powers underground, how can any now be able to reverse thine ordinance and write 10 anew the page of fate? Why should I remind thee of our fleet consumed on Eryx’ shore? why of the monarch of the storms and his raving winds stirred up from Æolia, or of Iris sent down from the clouds? Now she is even rousing the ghosts below—that portion of the world till then was 15 untried—and on a sudden Allecto is launched on upper air, and rages through the Italian cities. It is not for empire that I am disquieted; for that we hoped in the past, while our star yet shone: let them conquer whom thou wouldst have conquer. If there is no country on earth 20 which thy relentless spouse will allow the Teucrians, I adjure thee, father, by the smoking ruins of Troy overthrown, let me send away Ascanius safe from the war—let my grandson survive in life. Æneas, indeed, may be tossed on unknown waters, and follow such course as chance may 25 give him: _him_ let me have the power to screen and withdraw from the horrors of battle. Amathus is mine, and lofty Paphos, and high Cythera, and the mansion of Idalia: there let him pass his days unwarlike and inglorious. Let it be thy will that Carthage shall bow Ausonia beneath 30 her tyrannous sway; the Tyrian cities need fear no resistance from him. What has it advantaged him to have escaped the plague of war and fled through the hottest of the Argive fires, to have drained to the dregs all those dangers by sea and on broad earth, while the Teucrians 35 are in quest of Latium and a restored Pergamus? Give back, great sire, to our wretched nation their Xanthus and their Simois, and let the Teucrians enact once more the old tragedy of Ilium.” Then outspoke queenly Juno, goaded by fierce passion: “Why force you me to break my deep silence, and give forth in words my buried grief? Your Æneas—was it any man or god that compelled him to draw the sword, and come down as a foe on the Latian 5 king? Grant that he went to Italy at the instance of fate, at the impulse, in truth, of mad Cassandra; was it our counsel that he should leave his camp and place his life at the mercy of the winds? that he should trust the control of battle and his city to a boy—should tamper with 10 Tyrrhenian loyalty and stir up a quiet nation? What god, what cruel tyranny of ours, drove him thither to his hurt? is there a trace of Juno here, or of Iris sent down from the clouds? Ay, it is foul shame that the Italians should throw a belt of flame round the infant Troy—that Turnus 15 should plant a foot on the soil of his fathers, Turnus, whose grandsire was Pilumnus, whose mother the goddess Venilia. How call you it for the Trojans to invade Latium with their smoking torches, to put their yoke on a country that is none of theirs, and harry away its plunder—to 20 choose at will those whose daughters they would wed, and drag the plighted bride from the bosom—to bear suppliant tokens in the hand and arm their vessels to the teeth? You have power to withdraw Æneas from the hands of the Greeks, and offer them clouds and thin winds 25 for the man they seek—power to turn a fleet of ships into a bevy of Nymphs; and is it utterly monstrous for us to give the Rutulians a measure of aid in return? Æneas is away in ignorance, and in ignorance let him bide away. You have your Paphos, your Idalium, your lofty Cythera: 30 why meddle with a city brimming with war and with ungentle hearts? Is it we that are labouring to overturn from the foundation your feeble Phrygian fortunes? We? or the gallant who brought Greece down on the wretched Trojans? What reason was there that Europe 35 and Asia should stand up to fight, and a league be broken by treachery? Did I lead your Dardan leman to take Sparta by storm? did I put weapons in his hand, or fan the flame of war with the gales of love? Then had there been decency in your fears for your friends; now you are rising too late with unjust complaints, and flinging idly the language of quarrel.”

Such was the appeal of Juno: and the whole body of immortals 5 murmured assent on this side or on that, like new-born gales when they murmur, caught in the forest, and roll about mysterious sounds, disclosing to the sailor a coming storm. Then begins the almighty sire, whose is the chief sovereignty of the universe: at opening of his 10 mouth the lofty palace of the gods grows still, and earth shakes to her foundations; silent is the height of ether; the Zephyrs are sunk to rest, and Ocean subdues its waves to repose. “Take then to your hearts and engrave there these my words: since it may not be that Ausonian and 15 Teucrian should be united by treaty, and your wranglings brook no conclusion, be each man’s fortune to-day what it may, be the span of each man’s hope long or short, Trojan or Rutulian, I will show favour to neither, whether it be by destiny that the Italian leaguer encompasses the 20 camp, or by Troy’s baneful error and the warnings of hostile intelligence. Nor leave I the Rutulians free. Each man’s own endeavours shall yield him the harvest of labour or fortune. Jove, as king, is alike to all. Destiny shall find her own way.” By the river of his Stygian brother, by the 25 banks that seethe with pitch and are washed by the murky torrent, he nodded confirmation, and with his nod made all Olympus tremble. So ended their debate. Then from his golden throne rises Jove, and the immortals gathering round him usher him to his chamber. 30

Meantime the Rutulians press round each and all of the gates, eager to slaughter the soldiery and belt the ramparts with flame. But Æneas’ army is hemmed within the leaguered encampment, without hope of escape. In unavailing wretchedness they stand guarding the turret’s 35 height, and form a thin circle round the walls. Asius son of Imbrasus, and Hicetaon’s child Thymœtes, and the two Assaraci, and Castor and aged Thymbris are their front rank, by their side the two brethren of Sarpedon, Clarus and Themon both, come from noble Lycia. There is one carrying with the whole strain of his body a mighty rock, no small portion of a mountain, Acmon of Lyrnessus, a worthy peer of his father Clytius and his brother Menestheus. 5 Some repel the foe with javelins, some with stones: they launch the firebrand, they fit the arrow to the string. In the midst is he, Venus’ most rightful care, the royal boy of Dardany, his beauteous head uncovered: see him shine like a jewel islanded in yellow gold, an ornament for neck 10 or head, or as gleams ivory set by artist skill in box-wood or Orician terebinth[273]: his flowing hair streams over a neck of milky white and is gathered up by a ring of ductile gold. Thou, too, Ismarus, wast seen by tribes of warriors dealing wounds abroad and arming thy arrows with venom, gallant 15 branch of a Lydian house, from the land whose rich soil is broken up by the husbandmen and washed by Pactolus’ golden stream. Mnestheus, too, was there, whom yesterday’s triumph over Turnus repulsed from the rampart exalts to the stars, and Capys, who gives his name to 20 Campania’s mother city.

So they on this side and on that had waged all day the conflict of stubborn war; and now at midnight Æneas was ploughing the main. For soon as, leaving Evander, he entered the Etruscan camp, accosted the king, and told 25 him of his name and his race, for what he sues and what he offers, explains what arms Mezentius musters on his side, and what the excess of Turnus’ violence, warns him how little faith man can place in fortune, and seconds reasoning by entreaty, without a moment’s pause Tarchon 30 combines his forces and strikes a truce; and at once, freed from the spell of destiny, the Lydian race embarks according to heaven’s ordinance, under the charge of a foreign leader. First sails the vessel of Æneas, Phrygian lions harnessed on the prow; above them Ida spreads her shade, 35 of happiest augury to exiled Troy. There sits great Æneas brooding over the doubtful future of the war: and Pallas, close cleaving to his left side, keeps questioning him, now of the stars, the road-marks of the shadowy night, and now of all that he has borne by land and by sea.

Now, ye goddesses, open wide your Helicon,[274] and stir up the powers of song, to tell us what the army now following Æneas from the Tuscan shores, equipping its ships for 5 adventure, and sailing over the sea.

First comes Massicus, cleaving the waters in his brass-sheathed Tiger: in his train a band of a thousand warriors, who have left the walls of Clusium and the city Cosæ; their weapons a sheaf of arrows, light quivers for the 10 shoulder, and a bow of deadly aim. With him grim Abas: his whole band ablaze with gleaming armour, his vessel shining with a gilded Apollo. Populonia had sent him six hundred of her sons, all versed in war: Ilva three hundred, an island rich in the Chalybes’ unexhausted 15 mines. Third comes Asilas, the great interpreter ’tween gods and men, at whose bidding are the victims’ entrails, the stars of the sky, the tongues of augurial birds, and the flame of the prophetic lightning. With him hurry a thousand in close array, bristling with spears—subjected 20 to his command by the town of Pisa, which, sprung from Alpheus, took root on Etruscan soil. After these is Astur, fairest of form, Astur, proud of his steed and his glancing armour. Three hundred follow him, all with one loyal soul, from those who dwell in Cære and in 25 the plains of Minio, in ancient Pyrgi, and Gravisca’s tainted air.

I would not leave thee unsung, bravest chief of the Ligurians, Cinyras, or Cupavo with scanty retinue, whose helmet is surmounted by plumage of the swan: love was your 30 joint crime; for love you wear the cognizance of your father’s form. For legend tells that Cycnus, all for grief over his darling Phaethon, while in the poplar shade and the leafage of the brotherless sisters he keeps singing and consoling his sad passion by the Muses’ aid, drew over his 35 form the soft plumage of downy eld, mounting up from earth and sending his voice before him to the stars. His son, with a band of martial peers sailing at his side, propels with his oars the enormous Centaur: the monster stands lowering over the water, and threatens the billows with a huge rock from his towering eminence, as he ploughs the deep sea with the length of his keel.

Great Ocnus too is leading an army from the coasts of his 5 fathers, Ocnus, son of Manto the prophetess and the Etruscan river, who bestowed on thee, Mantua, thy city walls and the name of his mother, Mantua rich in ancestral glories: but not all her sons of the same blood; three races are there, and under each race range four nations: 10 herself the queen of the nations, her strength from Etruscan blood. Hence, too, Mezentius draws against his life five hundred unfriendly swords—Mincius, child of Benacus, with his gray covering of reeds, ushers into the deep their hostile bark. 15

On moves strong Aulestes, lashing the water as he rises with the stroke of a hundred oars: the sea spouts foam from its upturned surface. His bearer is a huge Triton, whose shell strikes terror into the green billows; his shaggy front, breasting the water, down to the side bespeaks 20 the man: the belly ends in a sea monster: under the half bestial bosom the wave froths and roars.

So many chosen chiefs were journeying in thirty vessels to the succour of Troy, and ploughing with brazen beak the expanse of brine. 25

And now the day had withdrawn from the sky, and gracious Dian was trampling over the cope of heaven with her night-flying steeds: Æneas the while, for care refuses slumber to his frame, is seated at his post, himself guiding the rudder and trimming the sail—when lo! in the middle 30 of his voyage he is met by a fair bevy of comrades of his own: the Nymphs whom gracious Cybele had invested with the deity of the sea, and changed from ships to goddesses, were swimming abreast and cleaving the billow, a Nymph for each of the brazen prows that erst had 35 lined the shore. Far off they recognize their king, and come dancing round him in state: Cymodoce, their skilfullest in speech, swimming up behind, lays her right hand on the stern, herself lifted breast high above the water, while with her left she paddles in the noiseless wave. Then thus she breaks on his wondering ear: “Wake you, Æneas, seed of the gods? be wakeful still, and let the sail-ropes go. We it is you see, pines of Ida from the sacred 5 summit, Sea-nymphs now, your sometime fleet. When the false Rutulian was hot at our backs with fire and sword, reluctantly we burst your bonds, and are now in full quest of you over the sea. This new shape the great mother gave us in her pity, and granted us the state of goddesses and 10 lives to lead beneath the water. Meantime young Ascanius is hemmed in by rampart and trench, with serried weapons all around him, and Latians bristling with battle. Already the Arcadian horse mixed with the brave Etruscan has gained the appointed spot: to bar their way with an 15 intervening host and cut them off from the camp is Turnus’ fixed intent. Rise, and with the earliest approach of dawn bid your allies be summoned to arms, and take in hand that shield which the Fire-god himself made to be invincible and bordered with a marge of gold. The 20 morrow’s sun, if you will but give credence to my words, shall survey mighty heaps of Rutulian carnage.” Her speech was done: and as she parted she gave with her hand an impulse to the lofty stern, well knowing the due measure of force: on it speeds over the wave, fleeter than 25 dart and wind-swift arrow both. The rest in order mend their speed. Wondering he pauses, the great Trojan of Anchises’ line, yet cheers his soul with the omen. Then, looking to the vault above, he prays in brief: “Gracious mother of the gods, lady of Ida, whose joy is in Dindymus, 30 and in turreted cities and harnessed lions at thy bridle-rein, be thou now to me the controller of the fight, do thou bring the presage nigh, and walk beside the Phrygians, mighty goddess, with favouring step.” Thus much he said: and meanwhile day was returning at speed, 35 with its light grown to full strength, and night had vanished before it.

First he gives orders to his comrades to obey the heavenly token, and nerve their souls for combat, and make ready for the fight. And now at last from his station on the tall stern he has the Teucrians and his camp in view, when on the instant his blazing shield is raised high on his left arm. Up goes a shout to heaven 5 from the Dardans on their ramparts; the gleam of hope quickens wrath to fury; they hurl a shower of javelins: even as amid dark clouds cranes from Strymon give token, sweeping sonorously over the sky, and flying from the southern gale with sequacious clamour. But the Rutulian 10 king and the Ausonian generals wonder at the sight, till, looking back, they behold the stems bearing to the shore, and the whole water floating on with vessels. There is a blaze on that helmet’s summit, and from the crest on high streams the flame, and the shield’s golden boss disgorges 15 mighty fires, even as when on a clear night blood-hued comets glare with gloomy red, or as the Sirian blaze, that harbinger of drought and sickness to weak mortality, breaks into birth and saddens heaven with its ill-boding rays. 20

Yet pause was none in bold Turnus’ confidence to forestall the landing-place, and beat off the comers from the shore. His words are ready at the moment to encourage and upbraid: “See here the occasion you longed for, to break through them at the sword’s point. A brave man’s 25 hand is the War-god’s chosen seat. Now let each remember wife and home, recall the mighty deeds that made your fathers great. Let us meet them at once at the water’s edge, while they are in the hurry of landing, and the foot falters in its first tread on shore. Valour has 30 Fortune for its friend:” So saying, he ponders with himself whom to lead to the attack, and to whom he may trust the leaguer of the walls.

Meanwhile Æneas is landing his comrades from the tall ship-sides by help of bridges. Many of them watch for 35 the ebb of the failing sea and venture a leap among the shallows; others resort to the oars. Tarchon, spying out a place on the beach where the waters seethe not nor the broken billows roar, but ocean without let glides gently up the shore as the tide advances, suddenly turns his prows thither, and exhorts his crew: “Now, ye chosen band, ply your stout oars, lift the vessels and carry them home: cleave with your beaks this land that hates you; 5 let the keel plough its own furrow. Even from shipwreck in a roadstead like this I would not shrink, could I once get hold of the soil.” Tarchon having thus said, his crew rise on their oars and bear down on the Latian plains with vessels all foam, till the beaks have gained the dry land, 10 and every keel has come scatheless to its rest. Not so thy ship, Tarchon: for while dashed on a sandbank it totters on the unequal ridge, poised in suspense awhile, and buffeting the waves, its sides give way, and its men are set down in the midst of the water: broken oars and 15 floating benches entangle them, and their feet are carried back by the ebb of the wave.

No sluggish delay holds Turnus from his work: with fiery speed he sweeps his whole army against the Teucrians, and plants them in the foe’s face on the shore. The 20 clarions sound: first dashed Æneas on the rustic ranks, a presage of the fight’s fortune, and disarrayed the Latians, slaying Theron, who in his giant strength is assailing Æneas: piercing through quilted brass and tunic stiff with gold the sword devours his unguarded side. Next 25 he strikes Lycus, who was cut from the womb of his dead mother and consecrated to thee, Apollo, because his baby life had been suffered to scape the peril of the steel. Hard by, as iron Cisseus and gigantic Gyas were laying low his host with their clubs, he casts them down in 30 death: nought availed them; the weapons of Hercules or strong hands to wield them, or Melampus their sire, Alicides’ constant follower, long as earth found for him those grievous tasks. See there, as Pharus is hurling forth words without deeds, he flings at him his javelin 35 and plants it in the bawler’s mouth. Thou, too, Cydon, while following with ill-starred quest the blooming Clytius, thy latest joy, hadst lain stretched on the ground by the Dardan hand, a piteous spectacle, at rest from the passions that were ever in thy heart; but thy brethren met the foe in close band, the progeny of Phorcus: seven their number, seven the darts they throw; some rebound idly from shield and helm, some as they grazed the frame were 5 turned aside by Venus’ gentle power. Quick spoke Æneas to true Achates: “Give me store of weapons; not one shall my hand hurl in vain against the Rutulians, of all that have quivered in Grecian flesh on the plains of Troy.” With that he seizes his mighty spear and launches 10 it: flying on it crashes through the brass of Mæon’s shield and rends breastplate and breast at once. Swift comes his brother Alcanor and props with his hand the falling man: piercing the arm the spear flies onward and holds its bloody course, and the dying hand dangles by the 15 sinews from the shoulder-blade. Then Numitor, snatching the javelin from his brother’s body, assails Æneas; yet it might not lodge in the enemy’s front, but just grazed the thigh of mighty Achates.

Now comes Clausus of Cures in the pride of his youthful 20 frame, and strikes Dryops from a distance under the chin with the strong impact of his stark spear, and piercing his throat, robs him even as he speaks of life and breath alike: the wounded man strikes the earth with his forehead and vomits from his lips clotted blood. 25 Three, too, from Thrace, of Boreas’ noblest lineage, and three sent to battle by Idas their sire and Ismarus their country, he lays low by this chance or that. To his side runs Halesus and the Auruncan bands; comes to his aid, too, the seed of Neptune, steed-famed Messapus. Now 30 these, now those, strain to win the ground: the struggle is on Ausonia’s very threshold. As in the spacious heaven jarring winds meet in battle, alike in spirit and in strength, winds, storm-clouds, and ocean, neither yields to the other: long doubtful hangs the fight; all stand in death 35 grips, front to front: even such the meeting of the army of Troy and the army of Latium: foot is set close to foot, and man massed with man.

But in another part of the field, where a torrent had scattered wide whirling stones and trees uprooted from its banks, soon as Pallas saw his Arcadians, unused to wage war on foot, flying before the chase of Latium, in that the cragginess of the soil had driven them to discard their 5 steeds, he tries the one remedy in sore distress, and now with prayers, now with bitter speeches, inflames their valour: “Whither fly ye, mates? By your gallant deeds I conjure you—by your chief Evander’s name and victories won at his bidding—by my own promise, now 10 shooting up in rivalry with my father’s glory—trust not to your feet. It is the sword that must hew us a way through the foe. Where yonder host of men presses in thickest mass is the path by which our noble country is calling you and your general Pallas back to her arms. 15 No deities sit heavy on us: by a mortal foe we are pressed, mortals ourselves: we have as many lives, as many hands as they. Lo there! the sea hems us in with mighty ocean-barrier; earth is closed to our flight: shall the sea or Troy be our goal?” This said, he dashes at the midst 20 of the hostile throng. The first that meets him is Lagus, brought to the spot by fates unkind; him, while tugging a stone of enormous weight, he pierces with his whirled javelin, just where the spine running down the back was parting the ribs, and recovers the weapon from its lodgment 25 among the bones. Nor can Hisbo surprise him in the fact, spite of his hopes; for Pallas catches him rushing on in blind fury for the pain of his comrade’s death, and buries the sword in his distended lungs. Next his blow lights on Sthenelus, and Anchemolus of Rhœtus’ 30 ancient line, who dared pollute his stepdame’s couch. You, too, twin brethren, fell on those Rutulian plains, Larides and Thymber, Daucus’ resemblant offspring, undistinguished even by your kin, a sweet perplexity to those who bore you: but now Pallas has marked you with 35 a cruel difference; for you, poor Thymber, have your head shorn off by the Evandrian sword; your hand, Larides, severed from the arm, is looking in vain for you its master; the fingers, half alive, are quivering yet and closing again on the steel.

Arcadia’s sons, stung by their chief’s rebuke and gazing on his glorious deeds, rush on the foe, strong in the armour of mingled rage and shame. Then Pallas strikes 5 through Rhœtus as he flies past him on his car. So much space and respite from his end did Ilus gain; for ’twas at Ilus he had launched from the distance his stalwart spear: Rhœtus comes between and catches it, flying from thee, noble Teuthras, and Tyres thy brother; and 10 tumbled from his car he beats with his dying heel the Rutulian plains. Even as when the winds have risen at his wish on a summer’s day, a shepherd lets loose his scattered flames among the woods, in a moment catching all that comes between, the Fire-god’s army in one bristling 15 line stretches over the broad plains: he from his seat beholds the triumphant blaze with a conqueror’s pride: even so the valour of thy friends musters from all sides on one point to aid thee, Pallas. But Halesus, that fiery warrior, moves against their opposing ranks, gathering 20 himself up into his arms. Ladon he massacres, and Pheres, and Demodocus: Strymonius’ right hand, raised against his throat, he lops away with his gleaming sword; with a stone he strikes the front of Thoas, and has crushed the bones mixed with gory brain. Halesus had been 25 hidden in the woods by his prophetic sire; when the old man closed his whitening eyes in death, the Fates claimed their victim, and devoted him to Evander’s darts. And now Pallas aims at him, after these words of prayer: “Grant, Father Tiber, to the flying steel poised in my 30 hand a prosperous passage through Halesus’ hardy breast; thine oak shall have his arms and his warrior spoils.” The god gave ear: while Halesus shielded Imaon, he gives his own breast in evil hour unarmed to the Arcadian lance. 35

But Lausus, himself a mighty portion of the war, suffers not his troops to be dismayed by the hero’s dreadful carnage: first he slays Abas, who had met him front to front, the breakwater and barrier of fight. Down go the sons of Arcadia, down go the Etruscans, and ye, too Teucrians, whose frames Greece could not destroy. The armies clash, their leaders and their powers the same. The rear ranks close up the battle; nor weapon nor hand 5 can be moved for the crowd. Here is Pallas pushing and pressing, there Lausus over against him: their years scarcely differ; each has a comely form; but Fortune had already written that neither should return to his home. Yet were they not suffered to meet man to man by great 10 Olympus’ lord: each has his fate assigned him ere long at the hand of a mightier enemy.

Turnus meanwhile is warned by his gracious sister to come to Lausus’ aid; and with his flying car he cleaves the intervening ranks. Soon as he met his comrades’ 15 eye: “You may rest from battle now; I alone am coming against Pallas. Pallas is my due, and mine alone; would that his sire were here to see us fight.” He said; and his friends retired from the interdicted space. But as the Rutulians withdraw, the young warrior, marvelling 20 at the haughty command, gazes astonished on Turnus, rolls his eyes over that giant frame, and sweeps the whole man from afar with fiery glance, and with words like these meets the words of the monarch: “I shall soon be famous either for kingly trophies won or for an illustrious 25 death; my sire is equal to either event; a truce to menace.” This said, he marches into the middle space; while the Arcadians’ blood chills and curdles about their hearts. Down from his car leaps Turnus, and addresses himself to fight on foot. And as when a lion has seen from a high 30 watch-tower a bull standing at distance in the field and meditating fight, he flies to the spot, even thus looks Turnus as he bounds along.

Soon as he judged his foe would be within reach of his spear-throw, Pallas begins the combat, in hope that Fortune 35 may help the venture of unequal powers, and utters these words to the mighty heaven: “By my sire’s hospitality and the board where thou satest as a stranger, I pray thee, Alcides, stand by me in my great endeavour. Let Turnus see me strip the bloody arms from his dying frame, and may his glazing eyes endure the sight of a conqueror.” Alcides heard the youth, and stifled a heavy groan deep down in his breast, and shed forth unavailing 5 tears. Then the Almighty Father bespeaks his son with kindly words: “Each has his fixed day: short and irretrievable is the span of all men; but to propagate glory by great deeds, this is what worth can do. Think of those many sons of gods who fell beneath Troy’s 10 lofty walls: among whom died even Sarpedon, my own offspring. For Turnus, too, the call of his destiny has gone forth, and he has reached the term of his allotted days.” So he speaks, and turns away his eyes from the Rutulian plain. 15

But Pallas with a mighty effort sends forth his spear, and plucks from the hollow scabbard his flashing sword. On flies the weapon, strikes where the margin of the harness rises toward the shoulder, and forcing its way through the buckler’s edge, at last even grazed the mighty 20 frame of Turnus. Then Turnus, long poising his beam with its point of sharp steel, hurls it at Pallas, with these words: “See whether our weapon be not the keener.” So he: while cleaving those many plates of iron and brass, spite of the bull-hides wound oft and oft about, 25 the point strikes through the shield’s midst with quivering impact, and pierces the corselet’s barrier and the mighty breast beyond. In vain the youth tears the reeking dart from the wound: as it parts, blood and life follow on its track. He falls forward on his wound: his 30 arms resound upon him, and with his bloody jaws in death he bites the hostile earth. Standing over him, Turnus began: “Men of Arcady, take heed and carry my words to Evander: I send back Pallas handled as his sire deserves. If there be any honour in a tomb, any solace in 35 burial, let him take it freely; his welcome of Æneas will be costly notwithstanding.” Then with his left foot as he spoke, he trod on the dead, tearing away the belt’s huge weight and the crime thereon engraved[o]: that band of youths slain foully all on one wedding night, and the chambers dabbled with blood: Clonus Eurytides had chased it on the broad field of gold: and now Turnus triumphs in the prize, and exults in his winning. Blind 5 are the eyes of man’s soul to destiny and doom to be, nor knows it to respect the limit, when upborne by prosperous fortune! Turnus shall see the day when he will fain have paid a high price for Pallas unharmed, when he will hate the spoils and the hour he won them! But Pallas’ 10 followers, with many a groan and tear, are bearing off their chief on his shield in long procession. Oh, vision of sorrow and great glory, soon to meet thy father’s eye! this day first gave thee to battle, this day withdraws the gift, yet vast are the heaps thou leavest of Rutulian 15 carnage!

And now not the mere rumour of a blow so dreadful, but surer intelligence flies to Æneas, that his army is but a hand-breadth’s remove from death—that it is high time to succour the routed Teucrians. With his sword he 20 mows down all that crosses him, and all on fire hews a broad pathway through the ranks with the steel, seeking thee, Turnus, fresh flushed with slaughter. Pallas, Evander, the whole scene stands before his eyes—the board where he had first sate as a stranger, the outstretched 25 hands of fellowship. At once he takes alive four youths born of Sulmo, and other four reared by Ufens, that he may offer them as victims to the dead, and sprinkle the funeral flame with their captive gore. Next he had levelled his spear from afar at Magus. Magus deftly runs 30 beneath, while the quivering spear flies over his head, and clasping the enemy’s knees, utters these words of suppliance: “By your dead father’s soul, and the dawning promise of Iulus, I pray you spare my poor life for my son and my sire. I have a lofty palace: deep in its 35 vaults lie talents of chased silver; masses of gold are mine, wrought and unwrought both. The victory of Troy hangs not on my fortunes, nor can a single life make difference so great.” He spoke, and Æneas thus makes reply: “Those many talents you name of silver and gold, keep them for your sons. Turnus was the first to put an end to such trading usages of war at the moment when he slew Pallas. My sire Anchises’ ghost, and my son Iulus, 5 speak their thoughts through me.” This said, with his left hand he grasps the helmet and drives his sword hilt-deep through the suppliant’s back-drawn neck. Hard by was Hæmonides, priest of Phœbus and Trivia, his temples wreathed with the fillet’s sacred band, glittering all over 10 with gay raiment and goodly armour. Him he meets, drives over the plain, stands over him fallen, sacrifices the victim, and whelms him in a mighty shade; the arms are stripped and carried off on Serestus’ shoulders, a trophy to thee, royal Gradivus. The ranks are rallied by Cæculus, 15 scion of Vulcan’s stock, and Umbro, who comes from the Volscian hills. The Dardan chief puts forth his rage against them. Already had he mowed down with his sword Anxur’s left hand and the whole orb of the shield he bore—that foe, I ween, had uttered a haughty boast, 20 and deemed that his hand would second his tongue, and was swelling in spirit to the stars, with an assured hope of gray hairs and length of days—when Tarquitus, in the pride of gleaming armour, borne by the nymph Dryope to woodland Faunus, crossed his fiery path. Drawing 25 back his spear, he hampers the corselet and the buckler’s weighty mass; then he sweeps to the ground the head, as the lips were vainly praying and essaying to say a thousand things, and dashing before him the reeking trunk, utters thus the fierceness of his heart: “Lie there, doughty 30 warrior! never shall your tender mother give you burial, or pile your father’s tomb above your limbs; no, you will be left to savage birds, or the river will carry you whelmed by its eddies, and hungry fish will lick your wounds.” Next he hunts down Antæus and Lucas, of 35 Turnus’ first rank, and gallant Numa, and yellow Camers, son of noble Volscens, who was wealthiest in land of Ausonia’s children, and reigned over voiceless Amyclæ. Even as Ægæon, who, fable tells, had a hundred arms and a hundred hands, and flashed fire through fifty mouths from the depths of fifty bosoms, what time against Jove’s lightning he thundered on fifty strong shields, and drew forth fifty sharp swords, so Æneas slakes his victorious 5 fury the whole field over, when once his blade had grown warm with blood. See! he is advancing against Niphæus’ four harnessed steeds, and setting his breast against theirs. At once they, soon as they saw his lofty stride and his fierce gestures, turn round affrighted, and, 10 rushing backward, unseat their master and hurry the car to the beach. Meanwhile Lucagus forces his way into the midst, drawn by two white horses, with Liger his brother; but the brother guides the steeds with the rein, while Lucagus sweeps fiercely round his naked sword. 15 Æneas brooked not the fury of their fiery onset, but rushed against them, and stood fronting them in his giant bulk with threatening spear. To him cried Liger: “These are not Diomede’s steeds you see, nor this Achilles’ chariot, nor are these the Phrygian plains; your warfare and 20 your life shall end here on Italian ground.” So fly abroad the random words of frantic Liger. The chief of Troy seeks not to meet him with words, but hurls his javelin at the foe. Even as Lucagus, bending forward over the stroke, pricked on his horses with the steel, and advancing 25 his left foot prepares himself for fight, the spear pierces the last margin of the radiant shield and enters the groin at the left: down he falls from the car and wallows in death on the plain; while good Æneas bespeaks him with words of gall: “So, Lucagus, it is no 30 craven flight of your steeds that has played your car false; no empty shadow cast by the foe has turned them; no, it is you that spring down from the wheels, and leave the horses to their fate.” With these words he laid hold of the bridles, while the wretched brother, gliding down 35 from the car, was stretching his recreant hands: “Oh, by yourself, by the parents that gave such greatness birth, spare this poor life, brave hero of Troy, and let prayer find compassion.” Æneas cut short his entreaties; “Not such were your words a moment ago; die, and forsake not your brother, as brother should:” and cleaving the bosom with his sword, he laid bare the seat of breath. Such were the deaths that the Dardan leader dealt about 5 the plains, storming along like torrent wave or murky tempest. At length the prisoners burst forth and leave their camp, the young Ascanius and the soldiery beleaguered in vain.

Jupiter meanwhile first addresses Juno: “Sister mine 10 and sweetest wife in one, Venus it is, even as thou didst suppose—for thy judgment is never at fault—that upholds the powers of the Trojans, not the warriors’ own keen right hand and the courageous soul that braves every peril.” Juno returned, meekly: “Why, my fairest 15 lord, dost thou vex a sick spirit that quails before thy cruel speeches? Had my love the force it once had, and which should still be its own, this at least thou wouldst not deny me, almighty as thou art, the power to withdraw Turnus from the fight and preserve him in safety 20 for Daunus his father. As it is, let him perish, and glut the Teucrian vengeance with his righteous blood. Yet he draws his name from our lineage, and Pilumnus is his grandsire’s grandsire: and often has thy temple been loaded with store of offerings from his bounteous hand.” 25 To whom, in brief reply, the lord of skyey Olympus: “If thy prayer for the doomed youth is respite and breathing space from present death, and so thou readest my will, bear thou Turnus away in flight, and snatch him from the destiny that presses on his heels. Thus far is room 30 for compliance. But if any deeper favour be hidden under these prayers of thine, and thou deemest that the war’s whole course can be moved or changed, thou art nursing an empty hope.” Juno answered with tears: “What if thy heart were to grant what thy tongue grudges, 35 and Turnus’ life were pledged to continue? As it is, a heavy doom hangs over his guiltless head, or I am void of truth and wandering in delusion. But oh, that I might rather be the sport of lying terrors, and thou, who canst, lead back thy counsels by a better road!”

This said, from the lofty sky she shot forthwith, driving storm before her through the air and girt with the rain-cloud, and sought the army of Ilium and the camp of 5 Laurentum. Then, as goddesses may, she fashions a thin, strengthless shadow of hollow cloud in the likeness of Æneas, a marvel to the eyes, accoutres it with Dardan weapons, and counterfeits the shield and the crest of the god-like head, gives it empty words and tones without 10 soul, and renders to the life the step and the gait: even as the shapes that are said to flit when death is past, or the dreams that mock the sense of slumber. So the phantom strides triumphant in the van, goading the enemy with brandished weapons and defiant speech. Turnus 15 comes on, and hurls from far his hurtling spear; it turns its back and retires. Then, when Turnus thought Æneas flying in retreat, and snatched in the vehemence of his soul at the empty hope: “Whither so fast, Æneas?” cries he: “nay, leave not your promised bridal; this 20 hand shall give you the soil you have sought for the ocean over.” So with loud shouts he follows, waving his drawn sword, nor sees that the winds are bearing off his triumph. It chanced that a ship was standing moored to the edge of a lofty rock, its ladder let down, its bridge 25 ready to cross—the ship which had carried king Osinius from the borders of Clusium. Hither, as in haste, the semblance of the flying Æneas plunged for shelter. Turnus follows as fast, bounds over all obstacles, and springs across the high-raised bridge. Scarce had he touched the 30 prow when Saturn’s daughter breaks the mooring and sweeps the sundered ship along the receding flood. Æneas meanwhile is claiming the combat with his absent foe, and sending down to death many a warrior frame that crosses his way. Then the airy phantom seeks shelter no 35 longer, but soaring aloft blends with the murky atmosphere, while Turnus is borne by the wind down the middle of the tide. Ignorant of the event, and unthankful for escape, he looks back, his hands and his voice addressed to the sky: “Almighty sire! hast thou judged me worthy of an infliction like this, and sentenced me to this depth of suffering? Whither am I bound? whence have I come? what is this flight that is bearing me home, and 5 what does it make of me? Shall I look again on Laurentum’s camp and city? what of that warrior troop who followed me and my standard? Are they not those whom I left—horror to tell—all of them in the jaws of a cruel death—whom I now see scattered in rout, and 10 hear their groans as they fall? What can I do? what lowest depth of earth will yawn for me? Nay, do you, ye winds, have compassion—on reef, on rock—see, it is I, Turnus, who am fain to plead—dash me this vessel, and lodge it on the sandbank’s ruthless shoal, where none 15 that know my shame, Rutuli or rumour, may find me out!” So speaking, he sways in spirit to this side and to that: should he for disgrace so foul impale his frenzied breast on the sword’s point, and drive the stark blade through his ribs, or fling himself into the midst of the 20 waves, and make by swimming for the winding shore, and place himself again among the Teucrian swords? Thrice he essayed either way: thrice mighty Juno kept him back, and of her great pity withheld the youth from action. On he flies, ploughing the deep with wave and 25 tide to speed him, and is borne safely to the ancient town of Daunus his sire.

Prompted meanwhile by Jove, Mezentius, all on fire, takes up the war, and charges the triumphant Teucrians. The Tyrrhene host flocks to the spot, bending all their 30 fury, all their showering darts on one, one only man. Even as a rock which juts into the mighty deep, exposed to the rage of the wind and braving the sea, bears all the violence and menace of heaven and ocean, itself unshaken, he stands unmoved; now he lays low Hebrus, Dolichaon’s 35 child, and with him Latagus and craven Palmus: Latagus he strikes on the face and front with a stone, a hill’s enormous fragment, Palmus he suffers to roll ham-strung in his cowardice; their harness he gives to Lausus to wear on his shoulders, their crests to adorn his head. Euanthes, too, the Phrygian, and Mimas, Paris’ playmate, borne by Theano to Amycus his sire, the self-same night when Cisseus’ royal daughter, teeming with a firebrand, 5 gave birth to Paris; he sleeps beneath his father’s walls, while Mimas has his rest on Laurentum’s unknown shore. Like as the mighty boar driven by fangs of hounds from mountain heights, the boar whom pine-crowned Vesulus or Laurentum’s pool shelters these many years, pastured 10 on the reedy jungle, soon as he finds himself among the nets, stands at bay, snorting with fury and bristling his back; none has the courage to flame forth and come near him; at safe distance they press him with their darts and their cries; even so of them who hate Mezentius with 15 a righteous hate, none has the heart to face him with drawn steel; with missiles and deafening shouts they assail him from afar; while he, undaunted, is pausing now here, now there, gnashing his teeth, and shakes off the javelins from his buckler’s hide. There was one 20 Acron from Corythus’ ancient borders, a Grecian wight, who had fled forth leaving his nuptials yet to celebrate; him, when Mezentius saw at distance scattering the intervening ranks, in pride of crimson plumage and the purple of his plighted bride, even as oft a famished lion ranging 25 through high-built stalls—for frantic hunger is his prompter—if he chance to mark a flying goat or towering-antlered deer, grins with huge delight, sets up his mane, and hangs over the rent flesh, while loathly blood laves his insatiate jaws—so joyfully springs Mezentius 30 on the foe’s clustering mass. Down goes ill-starred Acron, spurns the blackened ground in the pangs of death, and dyes with blood the broken spear. Nor did the chief deign to strike down Orodes as he fled, or deal from a spear-throw a wound unseen; full in front he meets him, 35 and engages him as man should man, prevailing not by guile but by sheer force of steel. Then with foot and lance planted on the back-flung body: “See, gallants, a bulwark of the war has fallen in tall Orodes,” and his comrades shout in unison, taking up the triumphal pæan. The dying man returns: “Whoever thou art, thy victorious boasting shall not be long or unavenged; for thee, too, a like fate is watching, and thou shalt soon lie on 5 these self-same fields.” Mezentius answers, with hate mantling in his smile: “Die now. The sire of gods and king of men shall make his account with me.” So saying, he drew forth the spear from the body: the heavy rest of iron slumber settles down on its eyes, and their beams 10 are curtained in everlasting night.

Cædicus slaughters Alcathous, Sacrator Hydaspes, Rapo kills Parthenius and Orses of iron frame, Messapus slays Clonius and Ericetes, Lycaon’s son, that grovelling on the ground by a fall from his unbridled steed, this encountered 15 foot to foot. Prancing forward came Agis of Lycia; but Valerus, no unworthy heir of his grandsire’s prowess, hurls him down; Thronius falls by Salius, and Salius by Nealces, hero of the javelin and the shaft that surprises from far. 20

And now the War-god’s heavy hand was dealing out to each equal measures of agony and carnage; alike they were slaying, alike falling dead, victors and vanquished by turns, flight unthought of both by these and by those. The gods in Jove’s palace look pityingly on the idle rage 25 of the warring hosts—alas, that death-doomed men should suffer so terribly! Here Venus sits spectator, there over against her Saturnian Juno. Tisiphone, ashy pale, is raving among thousands down below. But see! Mezentius, shaking his giant spear, is striding into the 30 field, an angry presence. Think of the stature of Orion, as he overtops the billows with his shoulders, when he stalks on foot through the very heart of Nereus’ mighty depths that part before him, or as carrying an aged ash in triumph from the hill-top he plants his tread on the 35 ground, and hides his head among the clouds above: thus it is that Mezentius in enormous bulk shoulders his way. Æneas spies him along the length of the battle, and makes haste to march against him. He abides undismayed, waiting for his gallant foe, and stands like column on its base; then, measuring with his eye the distance that may suffice for his spear, “Now let my right hand, the god of my worship, and the missile dart I am 5 poising, vouchsafe their aid! I vow that you, my Lausus, clad in spoils torn from yonder robber’s carcase, shall stand in your own person the trophy of Æneas.” He said, and threw from far his hurtling lance: flying onward, it glances aside from the shield, and strikes in the 10 distance noble Antores twixt side and flank, Antores, comrade of Hercules, who, sent from Argos, had cloven to Evander’s fortunes and sat him down in an Italian home. Now he falls, ill-fated, by a wound meant for other, and gazes on the sky, and dreams in death of his darling Argos. 15 Then good Æneas hurls his spear; through the hollow disk with its triple plating of brass, through the folds of linen and the texture wherein three bulls joined, it won its way and lodged low down in the groin, but its force held not on. In a moment Æneas, gladdened by the sight 20 of the Tuscan’s blood, plucks his sword from his thigh and presses hotly on his unnerved foe.

Soon as Lausus saw, he gave a heavy groan of tenderness for the sire he loved, and tears trickled down his face. And here, gallant youth, neither the cruel chance 25 of thy death, nor thy glorious deeds, if antiquity may gain credence for so great a sacrifice, nor thine own most worthy memory shall be unsung through fault of mine. The father, dragging back his foot, disabled and entangled, was quitting the field, his enemy’s spearshaft trailing 30 from his buckler. Forth dashed the youth and mingled in the duel, and even as Æneas was rising with hand and body and bringing down a blow from above, met the shock of the sword, and gave the swordsman pause; his comrades second him with a mighty shout, covering the 35 father’s retreat as sheltered by his son’s shield he withdraws from the fray, hurl a rain of darts, and strive with distant missiles to dislodge the foe. Æneas glows with anger, and keeps within the covert of his arms. Even as on a time when storm-clouds sweep down in a burst of hail, every ploughman, every husbandman has fled scattering from the field, and the traveller lies hid in a stronghold of safety, either some river bank or vault of lofty 5 rock, while the rain is pelting on the lands, in the hope that with the returning sun they may task the day once more; even so, stormed on by javelins from all sides, Æneas endures the thunder-cloud of war till all its artillery be spent, and keeps chiding Lausus and threatening 10 Lausus: “Whither are you rushing on your death, with aims beyond your strength? Your duteous heart blinds your reckless valour.” Yet he bates not a jot in his frantic onslaught: and now the Dardan leader’s wrath surges into fury, and the fatal sisters are gathering up 15 Lausus’ last thread, for Æneas drives his forceful blade sheer through the youth’s body, and buries it wholly within him. Pierced is the shield by the edge, the light armour he carried so threateningly, and the tunic embroidered by his mother with delicate golden thread, and 20 his bosom is deluged with blood; and anon the life flits through the air regretfully to the shades and the body is left tenantless. But when the son of Anchises saw the look and countenance of the dying—the countenance with its strange and varying hues of pallor—heavily he 25 groaned for pity and stretched forth his hand, and the portraiture of filial love stood before his soul. “What now, hapless boy, what shall the good Æneas give you worthy of your merit and of a heart like yours? Let the arms wherein you took pride be your own still; yourself 30 I restore to the company of your ancestors, their shades and their ashes, if that be aught to you now. This at least, ill-starred as you are, shall solace the sadness of your death: it is great Æneas’ hand that brings you low.” Then without more ado he chides the slackness of his 35 comrades, and lifts their young chief from the earth, as he lay dabbling his trim locks with gore.

Meanwhile the father at the wave of Tiber’s flood was stanching his wounds with water, and giving ease to his frame, leaning on a tree’s trunk. His brazen helmet is hanging from a distant bough, and his heavy arms are resting on the mead. Round him stand his bravest warriors: he, sick and panting, is relieving his neck, while his flowing 5 beard scatters over his bosom: many a question asks he about Lausus, many a messenger he sends to call him off and convey to him the charge of his grieving sire. But Lausus the while was being carried breathless on his shield by a train of weeping comrades, a mighty spirit quelled by 10 a mighty wound. The distant groan told its tale to that ill-boding heart. He defiles his gray hairs with a shower of dust, stretches his two palms to heaven, and clings to the body. “My son! and was I enthralled by so strong a love of life as to suffer you, mine own offspring, to meet the 15 foeman’s hand in my stead? Are these your wounds preserving your sire? is he living through your death? Alas! now at length I know the misery of banishment! now the iron is driven home! Aye, it was I, my son, that stained your name with guilt, driven by the hate I gendered 20 from the throne and realm of my father! Retribution was due to my country and to my subjects’ wrath: would that I had let out my forfeit life through all the death-wounds they aimed! And now I live on, nor as yet leave daylight and humankind—but leave them I will.” So 25 saying, he raises himself on his halting thigh, and though the deep wound makes his strength flag, calls for his war-horse with no downcast mien. This was ever his glory and his solace: this still carried him victorious from every battle-field. He addresses the grieving creature and bespeaks 30 it thus: “Long, Rhæbus, have we twain lived, if aught be long to those who must die. To-day you shall either bear in victory the bloody spoils and head of Æneas yonder, and join with me to avenge my Lausus’ sufferings, or if our force suffice not to clear the way, we will lie down 35 together in death: for never, I ween, my gallant one, will you stoop to a stranger’s bidding and endure a Teucrian lord.” He said, and mounting on its back settled his limbs as he was wont, and charged his two hands with pointed javelins, his head shining with brass and shaggy with horse-hair crest. So he bounded into the midst—his heart glowing at once with mighty shame, madness and agony commingled. Then with a loud voice he thrice 5 called on Æneas: aye, and Æneas knew it, and prays in ecstasy: “May the great father of the gods, may royal Apollo grant that you come to the encounter!” So much said, he marches to meet him with brandished spear. The other replies: “Why terrify me, fellest of foes, now 10 you have robbed me of my son? this was the only way by which you could work my ruin. I fear not death, nor give quarter to any deity. Enough: I am coming to die, and send you this my present first.” He said, and flung a javelin at his enemy: then he sends another and another 15 to its mark, wheeling round in a vast ring: but the golden shield bides the blow. Three times, wheeling from right to left, he rode round the foe that faced him, flinging darts from his hand: three times the hero of Troy moves round, carrying with him a vast grove planted on his 20 brazen plate. Then, when he begins to tire of the long delay and the incessant plucking out of darts, and feels the unequal combat press him hard, meditating many things, at last he springs from his covert, and hurls his spear full between the hollow temples of the warrior-steed. The 25 gallant beast rears itself upright, lashes the air with its heels, and, flinging the rider, falls on and encumbers him, and itself bowed to earth presses with its shoulder the prostrate chief. Up flies Æneas, plucks forth his sword from its scabbard, and bespeaks the fallen: “Where now is 30 fierce Mezentius and that his savage vehemence of spirit?” To whom the Tuscan, soon as opening his eyes on the light he drank in the heaven and regained his sense: “Insulting foe, why reproach me and menace me with death? You may kill me without crime: I came not to battle to be 35 spared, nor was that the league which my Lausus ratified with you for his father. One boon I ask, in the name of that grace, if any there be, which is due to a vanquished enemy: suffer my corpse to be interred. The hot hatred of my subjects, well I know, is blazing all round me: screen me, I pray, from their fury, and vouchsafe me a share in the tomb of my son.” So saying, with full resolve he welcomes the sword to his throat, and spreads his life over his 5 armour in broad streams of blood.