No More Learning

And the dying man: 'Not unavenged nor long, whoso thou art, shalt
thou be glad in victory: thee too an equal fate marks down, and in these
fields thou shalt soon lie. ' And smiling on him half wrathfully,
Mezentius: 'Now die thou. But of me let the father of gods and king of
men take counsel. ' So saying, he drew the weapon out of his body.
[745-780]Grim rest and iron slumber seal his eyes; his lids close on
everlasting night. Caedicus slays Alcathous, Sacrator Hydaspes, Rapo
Parthenius and the grim strength of Orses, Messapus Clonius and
Erichaetes son of Lycaon, the one when his reinless horse stumbling had
flung him to the ground, the other as they met on foot. And Agis the
Lycian advanced only to be struck from horseback by Valerus, brave as
his ancestry; and Thronius by Salius, and Salius by Nealces with
treacherous arrow-shot that stole from far.

Now the heavy hand of war dealt equal woe and counterchange of death; in
even balance conquerors and conquered slew and fell; nor one nor other
knows of retreat. The gods in Jove's house pity the vain rage of either
and all the agonising of mortals. From one side Venus, from one opposite
Juno, daughter of Saturn, looks on; pale Tisiphone rages among the many
thousand men. But now, brandishing his huge spear, Mezentius strides
glooming over the plain, vast as Orion when, with planted foot, he
cleaves his way through the vast pools of mid-ocean and his shoulder
overtops the waves, or carrying an ancient mountain-ash from the
hilltops, paces the ground and hides his head among the clouds: so moves
Mezentius, huge in arms. Aeneas, espying him in the deep columns, makes
on to meet him. He remains, unterrified, awaiting his noble foe, steady
in his own bulk, and measures with his eye the fair range for a spear.
'This right hand's divinity, and the weapon I poise and hurl, now be
favourable! thee, Lausus, I vow for the live trophy of Aeneas, dressed
in the spoils stripped from the pirate's body. ' He ends, and throws the
spear whistling from far; it flies on, glancing from the shield, and
pierces illustrious Antores hard by him sidelong in the flank; Antores,
companion of Hercules, who, sent thither from Argos, had stayed by
Evander, and [781-814]settled in an Italian town. Hapless he goes down
with a wound not his own, and in death gazes on the sky, and Argos is
sweet in his remembrance. Then good Aeneas throws his spear; through the
sheltering circle of threefold brass, through the canvas lining and
fabric of triple-sewn bull-hide it went, and sank deep in his groin; yet
carried not its strength home. Quickly Aeneas, joyful at the sight of
the Tyrrhenian's blood, snatches his sword from his thigh and presses
hotly on his struggling enemy. Lausus saw, and groaned deeply for love
of his dear father, and tears rolled over his face. Here will I not keep
silence of thy hard death-doom and thine excellent deeds (if in any wise
things wrought in the old time may win belief), nor of thyself, O fitly
remembered! He, helpless and trammelled, withdrew backward, the deadly
spear-shaft trailing from his shield. The youth broke forward and
plunged into the fight; and even as Aeneas' hand rose to bring down the
blow, he caught up his point and held him in delay. His comrades follow
up with loud cries, so the father may withdraw in shelter of his son's
shield, while they shower their darts and bear back the enemy with
missiles from a distance. Aeneas wrathfully keeps covered. And as when
storm-clouds pour down in streaming hail, all the ploughmen and
country-folk scatter off the fields, and the wayfarer cowers safe in his
fortress, a stream's bank or deep arch of rock, while the rain falls,
that they may do their day's labour when sunlight reappears; thus under
the circling storm of weapons Aeneas sustains the cloud of war till it
thunders itself all away, and calls on Lausus, on Lausus, with chiding
and menace: 'Whither runnest thou on thy death, with daring beyond thy
strength? thine affection betrays thee into rashness. ' But none the less
he leaps madly on; and now wrath rises higher and fiercer in the
Dardanian captain, and the Fates pass Lausus' last [815-849]threads
through their hand; for Aeneas drives the sword strongly right through
him up all its length: the point pierced the light shield that armed his
assailant, and the tunic sewn by his mother with flexible gold: blood
filled his breast, and the life left the body and passed mourning
through the air to the under world. But when Anchises' son saw the look
on the dying face, the face pale in wonderful wise, he sighed deeply in
pity, and reached forth his hand, as the likeness of his own filial
affection flashed across his soul. 'What now shall good Aeneas give
thee, what, O poor boy, for this thy praise, for guerdon of a nature so
noble? Keep for thine own the armour thou didst delight in; and I
restore thee, if that matters aught at all, to the ghosts and ashes of
thy parents. Yet thou shalt have this sad comfort in thy piteous death,
thou fallest by great Aeneas' hand. ' Then, chiding his hesitating
comrades, he lifts him from the ground, dabbling the comely-ranged
tresses with blood.

Meanwhile his father, by the wave of the Tiber river, stanched his wound
with water, and rested his body against a tree-trunk. Hard by his brazen
helmet hangs from the boughs, and the heavy armour lies quietly on the
meadow. Chosen men stand round; he, sick and panting, leans his neck and
lets his beard spread down over his chest. Many a time he asks for
Lausus, and sends many an one to call him back and carry a parent's sad
commands. But Lausus his weeping comrades were bearing lifeless on his
armour, mighty and mightily wounded to death. Afar the soul prophetic of
ill knew their lamentation: he soils his gray hairs plenteously with
dust, and stretches both hands on high, and clings on the dead. 'Was
life's hold on me so sweet, O my son, that I let him I bore receive the
hostile stroke in my room? Am I, thy father, saved by these wounds of
thine, and living by thy death? Alas and woe! [850-885]now at last
exile is bitter! now the wound is driven deep! And I, even I, O my son,
stained thy name with crime, driven in hatred from the throne and
sceptre of my fathers. I owed vengeance to my country and my people's
resentment; might mine own guilty life but have paid it by every form of
death! Now I live, and leave not yet man and day; but I will. ' As he
speaks thus he raises himself painfully on his thigh, and though the
violence of the deep wound cripples him, yet unbroken he bids his horse
be brought, his beauty, his comfort, that ever had carried him
victorious out of war, and says these words to the grieving beast:
'Rhoebus, we have lived long, if aught at all lasts long with mortals.
This day wilt thou either bring back in triumph the gory head and spoils
of Aeneas, and we will avenge Lausus' agonies; or if no force opens a
way, thou wilt die with me: for I deem not, bravest, thou wilt deign to
bear an alien rule and a Teucrian lord. ' He spoke, and took his welcome
seat on the back he knew, loading both hands with keen javelins, his
head sheathed in glittering brass and shaggy horse-hair plumes. Thus he
galloped in. Through his heart sweep together the vast tides of shame
and mingling madness and grief. And with that he thrice loudly calls
Aeneas. Aeneas knew the call, and makes glad invocation: 'So the father
of gods speed me, so Apollo on high: do thou essay to close hand to
hand. . . . ' Thus much he utters, and moves up to meet him with levelled
spear. And he: 'Why seek to frighten me, fierce man, now my son is gone?
this was thy one road to my ruin. We shrink not from death, nor relent
before any of thy gods. Cease; for I come to my death, first carrying
these gifts for thee. ' He spoke, and hurled a weapon at his enemy; then
plants another and yet another as he darts round in a wide circle; but
they are stayed on the boss of gold. Thrice he rode wheeling close round
him by the [886-908]left, and sent his weapons strongly in; thrice the
Trojan hero turns round, taking the grim forest on his brazen guard.
Then, weary of lingering in delay on delay, and plucking out spear-head
after spear-head, and hard pressed in the uneven match of battle, with
much counselling of spirit now at last he bursts forth, and sends his
spear at the war-horse between the hollows of the temples. The creature
raises itself erect, beating the air with its feet, throws its rider,
and coming down after him in an entangled mass, slips its shoulder as it
tumbles forward. The cries of Trojans and Latins kindle the sky. Aeneas
rushes up, drawing his sword from the scabbard, and thus above him:
'Where now is gallant Mezentius and all his fierce spirit? ' Thereto the
Tyrrhenian, as he came to himself and gazing up drank the air of heaven:
'Bitter foe, why these taunts and menaces of death? Naught forbids my
slaughter; neither on such terms came I to battle, nor did my Lausus
make treaty for this between me and thee. This one thing I beseech thee,
by whatsoever grace a vanquished enemy may claim: allow my body
sepulture. I know I am girt by the bitter hatred of my people. Stay, I
implore, their fury, and grant me and my son union in the tomb. ' So
speaks he, and takes the sword in his throat unfalteringly, and the
lifeblood spreads in a wave over his armour.




BOOK ELEVENTH

THE COUNCIL OF THE LATINS, AND THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CAMILLA


Meanwhile Dawn arose forth of Ocean. Aeneas, though the charge presses
to give a space for burial of his comrades, and his mind is in the
tumult of death, began to pay the gods his vows of victory with the
breaking of the East. He plants on a mound a mighty oak with boughs
lopped away on every hand, and arrays it in the gleaming arms stripped
from Mezentius the captain, a trophy to thee, mighty Lord of War; he
fixes on it the plumes dripping with blood, the broken spears, and the
corslet struck and pierced in twelve places; he ties the shield of brass
on his left hand, and hangs from his neck the ivory sword. Then among
his joyous comrades (for all the throng of his captains girt him close
about) he begins in these words of cheer:

'The greatest deed is done, O men; be all fear gone for what remains.
These are the spoils of a haughty king, the first-fruits won from him;
my hands have set Mezentius here. Now our way lies to the walls of the
Latin king. Prepare your arms in courage, and let your hopes anticipate
the war; let no ignorant delay hinder or tardy thoughts of fear keep us
back, so soon as heaven grant us to pluck up the standards and lead our
army from the camp. [22-58]Meanwhile let us commit to earth the
unburied bodies of our comrades, since deep in Acheron this honour is
left alone. Go,' says he, 'grace with the last gifts those noble souls
whose blood won us this land for ours; and first let Pallas be sent to
Evander's mourning city, he whose valour failed not when the day of
darkness took him, and the bitter wave of death. '

So speaks he weeping, and retraces his steps to the door, where aged
Acoetes watched Pallas' lifeless body laid out for burial; once
armour-bearer to Evander in Parrhasia, but now gone forth with darker
omens, appointed attendant to his darling foster-child. Around is the
whole train of servants, with a crowd of Trojans, and the Ilian women
with hair unbound in mourning after their fashion. When Aeneas entered
at the high doorway they beat their breasts and raise a loud wail aloft,
and the palace moans to their grievous lamentation. Himself, when he saw
the pillowed head and fair face of Pallas, and on his smooth breast the
gaping wound of the Ausonian spear-head, speaks thus with welling tears:

'Did Fortune in her joyous coming,' he cries, 'O luckless boy, grudge
thee the sight of our realm, and a triumphal entry to thy father's
dwelling? Not this promise of thee had I given to Evander thy sire at my
departure, when he embraced me as I went and bade me speed to a wide
empire, and yet warned me in fear that the men were valiant, the people
obstinate in battle. And now he, fast ensnared by empty hope, perchance
offers vows and heaps gifts on his altars; we, a mourning train, go in
hollow honour by his corpse, who now owes no more to aught in heaven.
Unhappy! thou wilt see thy son cruelly slain; is this our triumphal
return awaited? is this my strong assurance? Ah me, what a shield is
lost, mine Iulus, to Ausonia and to thee! '

[59-96]This lament done, he bids raise the piteous body, and sends a
thousand men chosen from all his army for the last honour of escort, to
mingle in the father's tears; a small comfort in a great sorrow, yet the
unhappy parent's due. Others quickly plait a soft wicker bier of arbutus
rods and oak shoots, and shadow the heaped pillows with a leafy
covering. Here they lay him, high on their rustic strewing; even as some
tender violet or drooping hyacinth-blossom plucked by a maiden's finger,
whose sheen and whose grace is not yet departed, but no more does Earth
the mother feed it or lend it strength. Then Aeneas bore forth two
purple garments stiff with gold, that Sidonian Dido's own hands, happy
over their work, had once wrought for him, and shot the warp with
delicate gold. One of these he sadly folds round him, a last honour, and
veils in its covering the tresses destined to the fire; and heaps up
besides many a Laurentine battle-prize, and bids his spoils pass forth
in long train; with them the horses and arms whereof he had stripped the
enemy, and those, with hands tied behind their back, whom he would send
as nether offering to his ghost, and sprinkle the blood of their slaying
on the flame. Also he bids his captains carry stems dressed in the
armour of the foe, and fix on them the hostile names. Unhappy Acoetes is
led along, outworn with age, he smites his breast and rends his face,
and flings himself forward all along the ground. Likewise they lead
forth the chariot bathed in Rutulian blood; behind goes weeping Aethon
the war-horse, his trappings laid away, and big drops wet his face.
Others bear his spear and helmet, for all else is Turnus' prize. Then
follow in mourning array the Teucrians and all the Tyrrhenians, and the
Arcadians with arms reversed. When the whole long escorting file had
taken its way, Aeneas stopped, and sighing deep, pursued thus: 'Once
again war's dreadful destiny calls us hence to other tears:
[97-129]hail thou for evermore, O princely Pallas, and for evermore
farewell. ' And without more words he bent his way to the high walls and
advanced towards his camp.

And now envoys were there from the Latin city with wreathed boughs of
olive, praying him of his grace to restore the dead that lay strewn by
the sword over the plain, and let them go to their earthy grave: no war
lasts with men conquered and bereft of breath; let this indulgence be
given to men once called friends and fathers of their brides. To them
Aeneas grants leave in kind and courteous wise, spurning not their
prayer, and goes on in these words: 'What spite of fortune, O Latins,
hath entangled you in the toils of war, and made you fly our friendship?
Plead you for peace to the lifeless bodies that the battle-lot hath
slain? I would fain grant it even to the living. Neither have I come but
because destiny had given me this place to dwell in; nor wage I war with
your people; your king it is who hath broken our covenant and preferred
to trust himself to Turnus' arms. Fitter it were Turnus had faced death
to-day. If he will fight out the war and expel the Teucrians, it had
been well to meet me here in arms; so had he lived to whom life were
granted of heaven or his own right hand. Now go, and kindle the fire
beneath your hapless countrymen. ' Aeneas ended: they stood dumb in
silence, with faces bent steadfastly in mutual gaze. Then aged Drances,
ever young Turnus' assailant in hatred and accusation, with the words of
his mouth thus answers him again:

'O Trojan, great in renown, yet greater in arms, with what praises may I
extol thy divine goodness? Shall thy righteousness first wake my wonder,
or thy toils in war? We indeed will gratefully carry these words to our
fathers' city, and, if fortune grant a way, will make thee at one with
King Latinus. Let Turnus seek his own alliances. Nay, [130-163]it will
be our delight to rear the massy walls of destiny and stoop our
shoulders under the stones of Troy. '

He ended thus, and all with one voice murmured assent. Twelve days'
truce is struck, and in mediation of the peace Teucrians and Latins
stray mingling unharmed on the forest heights. The tall ash echoes to
the axe's strokes; they overturn pines that soar into the sky, and
busily cleave oaken logs and scented cedar with wedges, and drag
mountain-ashes on their groaning waggons.

And now flying Rumour, harbinger of the heavy woe, fills Evander and
Evander's house and city with the same voice that but now told of Pallas
victorious over Latium. The Arcadians stream to the gates, snatching
funeral torches after their ancient use; the road gleams with the long
line of flame, and parts the fields with a broad pathway of light; the
arriving crowd of Phrygians meets them and mingles in mourning array.
When the matrons saw all the train approach their dwellings they kindle
the town with loud wailing. But no force may withhold Evander; he comes
amid them; the bier is set down; he flings himself on Pallas, and clasps
him with tears and sighs, and scarcely at last does grief leave his
voice's utterance free. 'Other than this, O Pallas! was thy promise to
thy father, that thou wouldst not plunge recklessly into the fury of
battle. I knew well how strong was the fresh pride of arms and the
sweetness of honour in a first battle. Ah, unhappy first-fruits of his
youth and bitter prelude of the war upon our borders! ah, vows and
prayers of mine that no god heard! and thou, pure crown of wifehood,
happy that thou art dead and not spared for this sorrow! But I have
outgone my destiny in living, to stay here the survivor of my child.
Would I had followed the allied arms of Troy, to be overwhelmed by
Rutulian weapons! Would my life had been given, and I and not my Pallas
were borne home in this [164-198]procession! I would not blame you, O
Teucrians, nor our treaty and the friendly hands we clasped: our old age
had that appointed debt to pay. Yet if untimely death awaited my son, it
will be good to think he fell leading the Teucrians into Latium, and
slew his Volscian thousands before he fell. Nay, no other funeral than
this would I deem thy due, my Pallas, than good Aeneas does, than the
mighty Phrygians, than the Tyrrhene captains and all the army of
Tyrrhenia. Great are the trophies they bring on whom thine hand deals
death; thou also, Turnus, wert standing now a great trunk dressed in
arms, had his age and his strength of years equalled thine. But why,
unhappy, do I delay the Trojan arms? Go, and forget not to carry this
message to your king: Thine hand it is that keeps me lingering in a life
that is hateful since Pallas fell, and Turnus is the debt thou seest son
and father claim: for thy virtue and thy fortune this scope alone is
left. I ask not joy in life; I may not; but to carry this to my son deep
in the under world. '

Meanwhile Dawn had raised her gracious light on weary men, bringing back
task and toil: now lord Aeneas, how Tarchon, have built the pyres on the
winding shore. Hither in ancestral fashion hath each borne the bodies of
his kin; the dark fire is lit beneath, and the vapour hides high heaven
in gloom. Thrice, girt in glittering arms, they have marched about the
blazing piles, thrice compassed on horseback the sad fire of death, and
uttered their wail. Tears fall fast upon earth and armour; cries of men
and blare of trumpets roll skyward. Then some fling on the fire Latin
spoils stripped from the slain, helmets and shapely swords, bridles and
glowing chariot wheels; others familiar gifts, the very shields and
luckless weapons of the dead. Around are slain in sacrifice oxen many in
number, and bristly swine and cattle gathered out of all the country
[199-234]are slaughtered over the flames. Then, crowding the shore,
they gaze on their burning comrades, and guard the embers of the pyres,
and cannot tear themselves away till dewy Night wheels on the
star-spangled glittering sky.

Therewithal the unhappy Latins far apart build countless pyres and bury
many bodies of men in the ground; and many more they lift and bear away
to the neighbouring country, or send them back to the city; the rest, a
vast heap of undistinguishable slaughter, they burn uncounted and
unhonoured; on all sides the broad fields gleam with crowded rivalry of
fires. The third Dawn had rolled away the chill shadow from the sky;
mournfully they piled high the ashes and mingled bones from the embers,
and heaped a load of warm earth above them. Now in the dwellings of rich
Latinus' city the noise is loudest and most the long wail. Here mothers
and their sons' unhappy brides, here beloved sisters sad-hearted and
orphaned boys curse the disastrous war and Turnus' bridal, and bid him
his own self arm and decide the issue with the sword, since he claims
for himself the first rank and the lordship of Italy. Drances fiercely
embitters their cry, and vouches that Turnus alone is called, alone is
claimed for battle. Yet therewith many a diverse-worded counsel is for
Turnus, and the great name of the queen overshadows him, and he rises
high in renown of trophies fitly won.

Among their stir, and while confusion is fiercest, lo! to crown all, the
envoys from great Diomede's city bring their gloomy message: nothing is
come of all the toil and labour spent; gifts and gold and strong
entreaties have been of no avail; Latium must seek other arms, or sue
for peace to the Trojan king. For heavy grief King Latinus himself
swoons away. The wrath of heaven and the fresh graves before his eyes
warn him that Aeneas is borne on by fate's evident will. So he sends
imperial summons to [235-269]his high council, the foremost of his
people, and gathers them within his lofty courts. They assemble, and
stream up the crowded streets to the royal dwelling. Latinus, eldest in
years and first in royalty, sits amid them with cheerless brow, and bids
the envoys sent back from the Aetolian city tell the news they bring,
and demands a full and ordered reply. Then tongues are hushed; and
Venulus, obeying his word, thus begins to speak:

'We have seen, O citizens, Diomede in his Argive camp, and outsped our
way and passed all its dangers, and touched the hand whereunder the land
of Ilium fell. He was founding a town, named Argyripa after his
ancestral people, on the conquered fields of Iapygian Garganus. After we
entered in, and licence of open speech was given, we lay forth our
gifts, we instruct him of our name and country, who are its invaders,
and why we are drawn to Arpi. He heard us, and replied thus with face
unstirred:

'"O fortunate races, realm of Saturn, Ausonians of old, how doth fortune
vex your quiet and woo you to tempt wars you know not? We that have
drawn sword on the fields of Ilium--I forbear to tell the drains of war
beneath her high walls, the men sunken in yonder Simois--have all over
the world paid to the full our punishment and the reward of guilt, a
crew Priam's self might pity; as Minerva's baleful star knows, and the
Euboic reefs and Caphereus' revenge. From that warfaring driven to alien
shores, Menelaus son of Atreus is in exile far as Proteus' Pillars,
Ulysses hath seen the Cyclopes of Aetna. Shall I make mention of the
realm of Neoptolemus, and Idomeneus' household gods overthrown? or of
the Locrians who dwell on the Libyan beach? Even the lord of Mycenae,
the mighty Achaeans' general, sank on his own threshold edge under his
accursed wife's hand, where the adulterer crouched over conquered Asia.
Aye, or that the gods grudged it me to return to [270-301]my ancestral
altars, to see the bride of my desire, and lovely Calydon! Now likewise
sights of appalling presage pursue me; my comrades, lost to me, have
soared winging into the sky, and flit birds about the rivers--ah me,
dread punishment of my people! --and fill the cliffs with their
melancholy cries. This it was I had to look for even from the time when
I madly assailed celestial limbs with steel, and sullied the hand of
Venus with a wound. Do not, ah, do not urge me to such battles. Neither
have I any war with Troy since her towers are overthrown, nor do I
remember with delight the woes of old. Turn to Aeneas with the gifts you
bear to me from your ancestral borders. We have stood to face his grim
weapons, and met him hand to hand; believe one who hath proved it, how
mightily he rises over his shield, in what a whirlwind he hurls his
spear. Had the land of Ida borne two more like him, Dardanus had marched
to attack the towns of Inachus, and Greece were mourning fate's reverse.
In all our delay before that obstinate Trojan city, it was Hector and
Aeneas whose hand stayed the Grecian victory and bore back its advance
to the tenth year. Both were splendid in courage, both eminent in arms;
Aeneas was first in duty. Let your hands join in treaty as they may; but
beware that your weapons close not with his. "

'Thou hast heard, most gracious king, at once what is the king's answer,
and what his counsel for our great struggle. '

Scarcely thus the envoys, when a diverse murmur ran through the troubled
lips of the Ausonians; even as, when rocks delay some running river, it
plashes in the barred pool, and the banks murmur nigh to the babbling
wave. So soon as their minds were quieted, and their hurrying lips
hushed, the king, first calling on the gods, begins from his lofty
throne:

[302-336]'Ere now could I wish, O Latins, we had determined our course
of state, and it had been better thus; not to meet in council at such a
time as now, with the enemy seated before our walls. We wage an
ill-timed war, fellow-citizens, with a divine race, invincible, unbroken
in battle, who brook not even when conquered to drop the sword. If you
had hope in appeal to Aetolian arms, abandon it; though each man's hope
is his own, you discern how narrow a path it is. Beyond that you see
with your eyes and handle with your hands the total ruin of our
fortunes. I blame no one; what valour's utmost could do is done; we have
fought with our whole kingdom's strength. Now I will unfold what I
doubtfully advise and purpose, and with your attention instruct you of
it in brief. There is an ancient land of mine bordering the Tuscan
river, stretching far westward beyond the Sicanian borders. Auruncans
and Rutulians sow on it, work the stiff hills with the ploughshare, and
pasture them where they are roughest. Let all this tract, with a
pine-clad belt of mountain height, pass to the Teucrians in friendship;
let us name fair terms of treaty, and invite them as allies to our
realm; let them settle, if they desire it so, and found a city. But if
they have a mind to try other coasts and another people, and can abide
to leave our soil, let us build twice ten ships of Italian oak, or as
many more as they can man; timber lies at the water's edge for all; let
them assign the number and fashion of the vessels, and we will supply
brass, labour, dockyards. Further, it is our will that an hundred
ambassadors of the highest rank in Latium shall go to bear our words and
ratify the treaty, holding forth in their hands the boughs of peace, and
carrying for gifts weight of gold and ivory, and the chair and striped
robe, our royal array. Give counsel openly, and succour our exhausted
state. '

Then Drances again, he whose jealous ill-will was [337-370]wrought to
anger and stung with bitterness by Turnus' fame, lavish of wealth and
quick of tongue though his hand was cold in war, held no empty
counsellor and potent in faction--his mother's rank ennobled a lineage
whose paternal source was obscure--rises, and with these words heaps and
heightens their passion:

'Dark to no man and needing no voice of ours, O gracious king, is that
whereon thou takest counsel. All confess they know how our nation's
fortune sways; but their words are choked. Let him grant freedom of
speech and abate his breath, he by whose disastrous government and
perverse way (I will speak out, though he menace me with arms and death)
we see so many stars of battle gone down and all our city sunk in
mourning; while he, confident in flight, assails the Trojan camp and
makes heaven quail before his arms.
Add yet one to those gifts of thine,
to all the riches thou bidst us send or promise to the Dardanians, most
gracious of kings, but one; let no man's passion overbear thee from
giving thine own daughter to an illustrious son and a worthy marriage,
and binding this peace by perpetual treaty. Yet if we are thus
terror-stricken heart and soul, let us implore him in person, in person
plead him of his grace to give way, to restore king and country their
proper right. Why again and again hurlest thou these unhappy citizens on
peril so evident, O source and spring of Latium's woes? In war is no
safety; peace we all implore of thee, O Turnus, and the one pledge that
makes peace inviolable. I the first, I whom thou picturest thine enemy,
as I care not if I am, see, I bow at thy feet. Pity thine allies;
relent, and retire before thy conqueror. Enough have we seen of rout and
death, and desolation over our broad lands. Or if glory stir thee, if
such strength kindle in thy breast, and if a palace so delight thee for
thy dower, be bold, and advance stout-hearted upon the foe. We verily,
that Turnus [371-406]may have his royal bride, must lie scattered on
the plains, worthless lives, a crowd unburied and unwept. Do thou also,
if thou hast aught of might, if the War-god be in thee as in thy
fathers, look him in the face who challenges. . . . '

At these words Turnus' passion blazed out. He utters a groan, and breaks
forth thus in deep accents:

'Copious indeed, Drances, and fluent is ever thy speech at the moment
war calls for action; and when the fathers are summoned thou art there
the first. But we need no words to fill our senate-house, safely as thou
wingest them while the mounded walls keep off the enemy, and the
trenches swim not yet with blood. Thunder on in rhetoric, thy wonted
way: accuse thou me of fear, Drances, since thine hand hath heaped so
many Teucrians in slaughter, and thy glorious trophies dot the fields.
Trial is open of what live valour can do; nor indeed is our foe far to
seek; on all sides they surround our walls. Are we going to meet them?
Why linger? Will thy bravery ever be in that windy tongue and those
timorous feet of thine? . . . _My conqueror? _ Shall any justly flout me
as conquered, who sees Tiber swoln fuller with Ilian blood, and all the
house and people of Evander laid low, and the Arcadians stripped of
their armour? Not such did Bitias and huge Pandarus prove me, and the
thousand men whom on one day my conquering hand sent down to hell, shut
as I was in their walls and closed in the enemy's ramparts. _In war is
no safety. _ Fool! be thy boding on the Dardanian's head and thine own
fortunes. Go on; cease not to throw all into confusion with thy terrors,
to exalt the strength of a twice vanquished race, and abase the arms of
Latinus before it. Now the princes of the Myrmidons tremble before
Phrygian arms, now Tydeus' son and Achilles of Larissa, and Aufidus
river recoils from the Adriatic wave. Or when the scheming villain
[407-443]pretends to shrink at my abuse, and sharpens calumny by
terror! never shall this hand--keep quiet! --rob thee of such a soul;
with thee let it abide, and dwell in that breast of thine. Now I return
to thee, my lord, and thy weighty resolves. If thou dost repose no
further hope in our arms, if all hath indeed left us, and one repulse
been our utter ruin, and our fortune is beyond recovery, let us plead
for peace and stretch forth unarmed hands. Yet ah! had we aught of our
wonted manhood, his toil beyond all other is blessed and his spirit
eminent, who rather than see it thus, hath fallen prone in death and
once bitten the ground. But if we have yet resources and an army still
unbroken, and cities and peoples of Italy remain for our aid; but if
even the Trojans have won their glory at great cost of blood (they too
have their deaths, and the storm fell equally on all), why do we
shamefully faint even on the threshold? Why does a shudder seize our
limbs before the trumpet sound? Often do the Days and the varying change
of toiling Time restore prosperity; often Fortune in broken visits makes
man her sport and again establishes him. The Aetolian of Arpi will not
help us; but Messapus will, and Tolumnius the fortunate, and the
captains sent by many a nation; nor will fame be scant to follow the
flower of Latium and the Laurentine land. Camilla the Volscian too is
with us, leading her train of cavalry, squadrons splendid in brass. But
if I only am claimed by the Teucrians for combat, if that is your
pleasure, and I am the barrier to the public good, Victory does not so
hate and shun my hands that I should renounce any enterprise for so
great a hope. I shall meet him in courage, did he outmatch great
Achilles and wear arms like his forged by Vulcan's hands. To you and to
my father Latinus I Turnus, unexcelled in bravery by any of old,
consecrate my life. _Aeneas calls on him alone_: let him, I implore: let
not Drances rather appease with his [444-480]life this wrath of heaven,
if such it be, or win the renown of valour. '

Thus they one with another strove together in uncertainty; Aeneas moved
from his camp to battle. Lo, a messenger rushes spreading confusion
through the royal house, and fills the town with great alarms: the
Teucrians, ranged in battle-line with the Tyrrhene forces, are marching
down by the Tiber river and filling the plain. Immediately spirits are
stirred and hearts shaken and wrath roused in fierce excitement among
the crowd. Hurrying hands grasp at arms; for arms their young men
clamour; the fathers shed tears and mutter gloomily. With that a great
noise rises aloft in diverse contention, even as when flocks of birds
haply settle on a lofty grove, or swans utter their hoarse cry among the
vocal pools on the fish-filled river of Padusa. 'Yes, citizens! ' cries
Turnus, seizing his time: 'gather in council and sit praising peace,
while they rush on dominion in arms! ' Without more words he sprung up
and issued swiftly from the high halls. 'Thou, Volusus,' he cries, 'bid
the Volscian battalions arm, and lead out the Rutulians. Messapus, and
Coras with thy brother, spread your armed cavalry widely over the plain.
Let a division entrench the city gates and man the towers: the rest of
our array attack with me where I command. ' The whole town goes rushing
to the walls; lord Latinus himself, dismayed by the woeful emergency,
quits the council and puts off his high designs, and chides himself
sorely for not having given Aeneas unasked welcome, and made him son and
bulwark of the city. Some entrench the gates, or bring up supply of
stones and poles. The hoarse clarion utters the ensanguined note of war.
A motley ring of boys and matrons girdle the walls. Therewithal the
queen with a crowd of mothers ascends bearing gifts to Pallas' towered
temple, and by her side goes maiden Lavinia, source of all that woe,
[481-514]her beautiful eyes cast down. The mothers enter in, and while
the temple steams with their incense, pour from the high doorway their
mournful cry: 'Maiden armipotent, Tritonian, sovereign of war, break
with thine hand the spear of the Phrygian plunderer, hurl him prone to
earth and dash him down beneath our lofty gates. ' Turnus arrays himself
in hot haste for battle, and even now hath done on his sparkling
breastplate with its flickering scales of brass, and clasped his golden
greaves, his brows yet bare and his sword buckled to his side; he runs
down from the fortress height glittering in gold, and exultantly
anticipates the foe. Thus when a horse snaps his tether, and, free at
last, rushes from the stalls and gains the open plain, he either darts
towards the pastures of the herded mares, or bathing, as is his wont, in
the familiar river waters, dashes out and neighs with neck stretched
high, glorying, and his mane tosses over collar and shoulder. Camilla
with her Volscian array meets him face to face in the gateway; the
princess leaps from her horse, and all her squadron at her example slide
from horseback to the ground. Then she speaks thus:

'Turnus, if bravery hath any just self-confidence, I dare and promise to
engage Aeneas' cavalry, and advance to meet the Tyrrhene horse. Permit
my hand to try war's first perils: do thou on foot keep by the walls and
guard the city. '

To this Turnus, with eyes fixed on the terrible maiden: 'O maiden flower
of Italy, how may I essay to express, how to prove my gratitude? But
now, since that spirit of thine excels all praise, share thou the toil
with me. Aeneas, as the report of the scouts I sent assures, hath sent
on his light-armed horse to annoy us and scour the plains; himself he
marches on the city across the lonely ridge of the mountain steep. I am
arranging a stratagem of [515-550]war in his pathway on the wooded
slope, to block a gorge on the highroad with armed troops. Do thou
receive and join battle with the Tyrrhene cavalry; with thee shall be
gallant Messapus, the Latin squadrons, and Tiburtus' division: do thou
likewise assume a captain's charge. '

So speaks he, and with like words heartens Messapus and the allied
captains to battle, and advances towards the enemy. There is a sweeping
curve of glen, made for ambushes and devices of arms. Dark thick foliage
hems it in on either hand, and into it a bare footpath leads by a narrow
gorge and difficult entrance. Right above it on the watch-towers of the
hill-top lies an unexpected level, hidden away in shelter, whether one
would charge from right and left or stand on the ridge and roll down
heavy stones. Hither he passes by a line of way he knew, and, seizing
his ground, occupies the treacherous woods.

Meanwhile in the heavenly dwellings Latona's daughter addressed fleet
Opis, one of her maiden fellowship and sacred band, and sadly uttered
these accents: 'Camilla moves to fierce war, O maiden, and vainly girds
on our arms, dear as she is beyond others to me. For her love of Diana
is not newly born, nor her spirit stirred by sudden affection. Driven
from his kingdom through jealousy of his haughty power, Metabus left
ancient Privernum town, and bore his infant with him in his flight
through war and battle, the companion of his exile, and called her by
her mother Casmilla's name, with a little change, Camilla. Carrying her
before him on his breast, he sought a long ridge of lonely woodland; on
all sides angry weapons pressed on him, and Volscian soldiery spread
hurrying round about. Lo, in mid flight swoln Amasenus ran foaming with
banks abrim, so heavily had the clouds burst in rain. He would swim it;
but love of the infant holds him back in alarm for so dear a burden.
Inly revolving [551-586]all, he settled reluctantly on a sudden
resolve: the great spear that the warrior haply carried in his stout
hand, of hard-knotted and seasoned oak, to it he ties his daughter
swathed in cork-tree bark of the woodland, and binds her balanced round
the middle of the spear; poising it in his great right hand he thus
cries aloft: "Gracious one, haunter of the woodland, maiden daughter of
Latona, a father devotes this babe to thy service; thine is this weapon
she holds, thine infant suppliant, flying through the air from her
enemies. Accept her, I implore, O goddess, for thine own, whom now I
entrust to the chance of air. " He spoke, and drawing back his arm, darts
the spinning spear-shaft: the waters roar: over the racing river poor
Camilla shoots on the whistling weapon. But Metabus, as a strong band
now presses nigher, plunges into the river, and triumphantly pulls spear
and girl, his gift to Trivia, from the grassy turf. No cities ever
received him within house or rampart, nor had his savagery submitted to
it; he led his life on the lonely pastoral hills. Here he nursed his
daughter in the underwood among tangled coverts, on the milk of a wild
brood-mare's teats, squeezing the udder into her tender lips. And so
soon as the baby stood and went straight on her feet, he armed her hands
with a sharp javelin, and hung quiver and bow from her little shoulders.
Instead of gold to clasp her tresses, instead of the long skirted gown,
a tiger's spoils hang down her back. Even then her tender hand hurled
childish darts, and whirled about her head the twisted thong of her
sling, and struck down the crane from Strymon or the milk-white swan.
Many a mother among Tyrrhenian towns destined her for their sons in
vain; content with Diana alone, she keeps unsoiled for ever the love of
her darts and maidenhood. Would she had not plunged thus into warfare
and provoked the Trojans by attack! so were she now dear to me and one
of my [587-620]company. But since bitter doom is upon her, up, glide
from heaven, O Nymph, and seek the Latin borders, where under evil omen
they join in baleful battle. Take these, and draw from the quiver an
avenging shaft; by it shall he pay me forfeit of his blood, whoso,
Trojan or Italian alike, shall sully her sacred body with a wound.
Thereafter will I in a sheltering cloud bear body and armour of the
hapless girl unspoiled to the tomb, and lay them in her native land. '
She spoke; but the other sped lightly down the aery sky, girt about with
dark whirlwind on her echoing way.

But meanwhile the Trojan force nears the walls, with the Etruscan
captains and their whole cavalry arrayed in ordered squadrons. Their
horses' trampling hoofs thunder on all the field, as, swerving this way
and that, they chafe at the reins' pressure; the iron field bristles
wide with spears, and the plain is aflame with uplifted arms. Likewise
Messapus and the Latin horse, and Coras and his brother, and maiden
Camilla's squadron, come forth against them on the plain, and draw back
their hands and level the flickering points of their long lances, in a
fire of neighing horses and advancing men. And now each had drawn within
javelin-cast of each, and drew up; with a sudden shout they dart forth,
and urge on their furious horses; from all sides at once weapons shower
thick like snow, and veil the sky with their shadow. In a moment
Tyrrhenus and fiery Aconteus charge violently with crossing spears, and
are the first to fall; they go down with a heavy crash, and their beasts
break and shatter chest upon chest. Aconteus, hurled off like a
thunderbolt or some mass slung from an engine, is dashed away, and
scatters his life in air. Immediately the lines waver, and the Latins
wheeling about throw their shields behind them and turn their horses
towards the town. The Trojans pursue; Asilas heads and leads on
[621-653]their squadrons. And now they drew nigh the gates, and again
the Latins raise a shout and wheel their supple necks about; the
pursuers fly, and gallop right back with loosened rein: as when the sea,
running up in ebb and flow, now rushes shoreward and strikes over the
cliffs in a wave of foam, drenching the edge of the sand in its curving
sweep; now runs swirling back, and the surge sucks the rolling stones
away. Twice the Tuscans turn and drive the Rutulians towards the town;
twice they are repelled, and look back behind them from cover of their
shields. But when now meeting in a third encounter, the lines are locked
together all their length, and man singles out his man; then indeed,
amid groans of the dying, deep in blood roll armour and bodies, and
horses half slain mixed up with slaughtered men. The battle swells
fierce. Orsilochus hurled his spear at the horse of Remulus, whom
himself he shrank to meet, and left the steel in it under the ear; at
the stroke the charger rears madly, and, mastered by the wound, lifts
his chest and flings up his legs: the rider is thrown and rolls over on
the ground. Catillus strikes down Iollas, and Herminius mighty in
courage, mighty in limbs and arms, bareheaded, tawny-haired,
bare-shouldered; undismayed by wounds, he leaves his vast body open
against arms. Through his broad shoulders the quivering spear runs
piercing him through, and doubles him up with pain. Everywhere the dark
blood flows; they deal death with the sword in battle, and seek a noble
death by wounds.

But amid the slaughter Camilla rages, a quivered Amazon, with one side
stripped for battle, and now sends tough javelins showering from her
hand, now snatches the strong battle-axe in her unwearying grasp; the
golden bow, the armour of Diana, clashes on her shoulders; and even when
forced backward in retreat, she turns in flight and [654-691]aims darts
from her bow. But around her are her chosen comrades, maiden Larina,
Tulla, Tarpeia brandishing an axe inlaid with bronze, girls of Italy,
whom Camilla the bright chose for her own escort, good at service in
peace and war: even as Thracian Amazons when the streams of Thermodon
clash beneath them as they go to war in painted arms, whether around
Hippolyte, or while martial Penthesilea returns in her chariot, and the
crescent-shielded columns of women dance with loud confused cry. Whom
first, whom last, fierce maiden, does thy dart strike down? First
Euneus, son of Clytius; for as he meets her the long fir shaft crashes
through his open breast. He falls spouting streams of blood, and bites
the gory ground, and dying writhes himself upon his wound. Then Liris
and Pagasus above him; who fall headlong and together, the one thrown as
he reins up his horse stabbed under him, the other while he runs forward
and stretches his unarmed hand to stay his fall. To these she joins
Amastrus, son of Hippotas, and follows from far with her spear Tereus
and Harpalycus and Demophoon and Chromis: and as many darts as the
maiden sends whirling from her hand, so many Phrygians fall. Ornytus the
hunter rides near in strange arms on his Iapygian horse, his broad
warrior's shoulders swathed in the hide stripped from a bullock, his
head covered by a wolf's wide-grinning mouth and white-tusked jaws; a
rustic pike arms his hand; himself he moves amid the squadrons a full
head over all. Catching him up (for that was easy amid the rout), she
runs him through, and thus cries above her enemy: 'Thou wert hunting
wild beasts in the forest, thoughtest thou, Tyrrhenian? the day is come
for a woman's arms to refute thy words. Yet no light fame shalt thou
carry to thy fathers' ghosts, to have fallen under the weapon of
Camilla. ' Next Orsilochus and Butes, the two mightiest of mould among
the Teucrians; Butes she pierces in the [692-725]back with her
spear-point between corslet and helmet, where the neck shews as he sits,
and the shield hangs from his left shoulder; Orsilochus she flies, and
darting in a wide circle, slips into the inner ring and pursues her
pursuer; then rising her full height, she drives the strong axe deep
through armour and bone, as he pleads and makes much entreaty; warm
brain from the wound splashes his face. One met her thus and hung
startled by the sudden sight, the warrior son of Aunus haunter of the
Apennine, not the meanest in Liguria while fate allowed him to deceive.
And he, when he discerns that no fleetness of foot may now save him from
battle or turn the princess from pursuit, essays to wind a subtle device
of treachery, and thus begins: 'How hast thou glory, if a woman trust in
her horse's strength? Debar retreat; trust thyself to level ground at
close quarters with me, and prepare to fight on foot. Soon wilt thou
know how windy boasting brings one to harm. ' He spoke; but she, furious
and stung with fiery indignation, hands her horse to an attendant, and
takes her stand in equal arms on foot and undismayed, with naked sword
and shield unemblazoned. But he, thinking his craft had won the day,
himself flies off on the instant, and turning his rein, darts off in
flight, pricking his beast to speed with iron-armed heel. 'False
Ligurian, in vain elated in thy pride! for naught hast thou attempted
thy slippery native arts, nor will thy craft bring thee home unhurt to
treacherous Aunus. ' So speaks the maiden, and with running feet swift as
fire crosses his horse, and catching the bridle, meets him in front and
takes her vengeance in her enemy's blood: as lightly as the falcon, bird
of bale, swoops down from aloft on a pigeon high in a cloud, and pounces
on and holds her, and disembowels her with taloned feet, while blood and
torn feathers flutter down the sky.

But the creator of men and gods sits high on Olympus' [726-759]summit
watching this, not with eyes unseeing: he kindles Tyrrhenian Tarchon to
the fierce battle, and sharply goads him on to wrath. So Tarchon gallops
amid the slaughter where his squadrons retreat, and urges his troops in
changing tones, calling man on man by name, and rallies the fliers to
fight. 'What terror, what utter cowardice hath fallen on your spirits, O
never to be stung to shame, O slack alway? a woman drives you in
disorder and routs our ranks! Why wear we steel? for what are these idle
weapons in our hands? Yet not slack in Venus' service and wars by night,
or, when the curving flute proclaims Bacchus' revels, to look forward to
the feast and the cups on the loaded board (this your passion, this your
desire! ) till the soothsayer pronounce the offering favourable, and the
fatted victim invite you to the deep groves. ' So speaking, he spurs his
horse into the midmost, ready himself to die, and bears violently down
full on Venulus; and tearing him from horseback, grasps his enemy and
carries him away with him on the saddle-bow by main force. A cry rises
up, and all the Latins turn their eyes. Tarchon flies like fire over the
plain, carrying the armed man, and breaks off the steel head from his
own spear and searches the uncovered places, trying where he may deal
the mortal blow; the other struggling against him keeps his hand off his
throat, and strongly parries his attack. And, as when a golden eagle
snatches and soars with a serpent in his clutch, and his feet are fast
in it, and his talons cling; but the wounded snake writhes in coiling
spires, and its scales rise and roughen, and its mouth hisses as it
towers upward; the bird none the less attacks his struggling prize with
crooked beak, while his vans beat the air: even so Tarchon carries
Tiburtus out of the ranks, triumphant in his prize. Following their
captain's example and issue the men of Maeonia charge in. Then Arruns,
due to his [760-796]doom, circles in advance of fleet Camilla with
artful javelin, and tries how fortune may be easiest. Where the maiden
darts furious amid the ranks, there Arruns slips up and silently tracks
her footsteps; where she returns victorious and retires from amid the
enemy, there he stealthily bends his rapid reins. Here he approaches,
and here again he approaches, and strays all round and about, and
untiringly shakes his certain spear. Haply Chloreus, sacred to Cybele
and once her priest, glittered afar, splendid in Phrygian armour; a skin
feathered with brazen scales and clasped with gold clothed the horse
that foamed under his spur; himself he shone in foreign blue and
scarlet, with fleet Gortynian shafts and a Lycian horn; a golden bow was
on his shoulder, and the soothsayer's helmet was of gold; red gold
knotted up his yellow scarf with its rustling lawny folds; his tunics
and barbarian trousers were wrought in needlework. Him, whether that she
might nail armour of Troy on her temples, or herself move in captive
gold, the maiden pursued in blind chase alone of all the battle
conflict, and down the whole line, reckless and fired by a woman's
passion for spoils and plunder: when at last out of his ambush Arruns
chooses his time and darts his javelin, praying thus aloud to heaven:
'Apollo, most high of gods, holy Soracte's warder, to whom we beyond all
do worship, for whom the blaze of the pinewood heap is fed, where we thy
worshippers in pious faith print our steps amid the deep embers of the
fire, grant, O Lord omnipotent, that our arms wipe off this disgrace. I
seek not the dress the maiden wore, nor trophy or any spoil of victory;
other deeds shall bring me praise; let but this dread scourge fall
stricken beneath my wound, I will return inglorious to my native towns. '
Phoebus heard, and inly granted half his vow to prosper, half he shred
into the flying breezes. To surprise and strike down Camilla in sudden
death, this he [797-831]yielded to his prayer; that his high home might
see his return he gave not, and a gust swept off his accents on the
gale. So, when the spear sped from his hand hurtled through the air, all
the Volscians marked it well and turned their eyes on the queen; and she
alone knew not wind or sound of the weapon on its aery path, till the
spear passed home and sank where her breast met it, and, driven deep,
drank her maiden blood. Her companions run hastily up and catch their
sinking mistress. Arruns takes to flight more alarmed than all, in
mingled fear and exultation, and no longer dares to trust his spear or
face the maiden's weapons. And as the wolf, some shepherd or great
bullock slain, plunges at once among the trackless mountain heights ere
hostile darts are in pursuit, and knows how reckless he hath been, and
drooping his tail lays it quivering under his belly, and seeks the
woods; even so does Arruns withdraw from sight in dismay, and, satisfied
to escape, mingles in the throng of arms. The dying woman pulls at the
weapon with her hand; but the iron head is fixed deep in the wound up
between the rib-bones. She swoons away with loss of blood; chilling in
death her eyes swoon away; the once lustrous colour leaves her face.
Then gasping, she thus accosts Acca, one of her birthmates, who alone
before all was true to Camilla, with whom her cares were divided; and
even so she speaks: 'Thus far, Acca my sister, have I availed; now the
bitter wound overmasters me, and all about me darkens in haze. Haste
away, and carry to Turnus my last message; to take my place in battle,
and repel the Trojans from the town. And now goodbye. ' Even with the
words she dropped the reins and slid to ground unconscious. Then the
unnerving chill overspread her, her neck slackened, her head sank
overpowered by death, and her arms fell, and with a moan the life fled
indignant into the dark. Then indeed an [832-867]infinite cry rises and
smites the golden stars; the battle grows bloodier now Camilla is down;
at once in serried rants all the Teucrian forces pour in, with the
Tyrrhene captains and Evander's Arcadian squadrons.

But Opis, Trivia's sentinel, long ere now sits high on the hill-tops,
gazing on the battle undismayed. And when afar amid the din of angry men
she espied Camilla done woefully to death, she sighed and uttered forth
a deep cry: 'Ah too, too cruel, O maiden, the forfeit thou hast paid for
daring armed attack on the Teucrians! and nothing hath availed thee thy
lonely following of Diana in the woodlands, nor wearing our quiver on
thy shoulder. Yet thy Queen hath not left thee unhonoured now thy latter
end is come; nor will this thy death be unnamed among the nations, nor
shalt thou bear the fame of one unavenged; for whosoever hath sullied
thy body with a wound shall pay death for due. ' Under the mountain
height was a great earthen mound, tomb of Dercennus, a Laurentine king
of old, shrouded in shadowy ilex. Hither the goddess most beautiful
first swoops down, and marks Arruns from the mounded height. As she saw
him glittering in arms and idly exultant: 'Why,' she cries, 'wanderest
thou away? hitherward direct thy steps; come hither to thy doom, to
receive thy fit reward for Camilla. Shalt thou die, and by Diana's
weapons? ' The Thracian spoke, and slid out a fleet arrow from her gilded
quiver, and stretched it level on the bow, and drew it far, till the
curving tips met one another, and now her hands touched in counterpoise,
the left the steel edge, the string in the right her breast. At once and
in a moment Arruns heard the whistle of the dart and the resounding air,
as the steel sank in his body. His comrades leave him forgotten on the
unknown dust of the plain, moaning his last and gasping his life away;
Opis wings her flight to the skyey heaven.

[868-901]At once the light squadron of Camilla retreat now they have
lost their mistress; the Rutulians retreat in confusion, brave Atinas
retreats. Scattered captains and thinned companies make for safety, and
turn their horses backward to the town. Nor does any avail to make stand
against the swarming death-dealing Teucrians, or bear their shock in
arms; but their unstrung bows droop on their shoulders, and the
four-footed galloping horse-hoof shakes the crumbling plain. The eddying
dust rolls up thick and black towards the walls, and on the watch-towers
mothers beat their breasts and the cries of women rise up to heaven. On
such as first in the rout broke in at the open gates the mingling
hostile throng follows hard; nor do they escape death, alas! but in the
very gateway, within their native city and amid their sheltering homes,
they are pierced through and gasp out their life. Some shut the gates,
and dare not open to their pleading comrades nor receive them in the
town; and a most pitiful slaughter begins between armed men who guard
the entry and others who rush upon their arms. Barred out before their
weeping parents' eyes and faces, some, swept on by the rout, roll
headlong into the trenches; some, blindly rushing with loosened rein,
batter at the gates and stiffly-bolted doorway. The very mothers from
the walls in eager heat (true love of country points the way, when they
see Camilla) dart weapons with shaking hand, and eagerly make hard
stocks of wood and fire-hardened poles serve for steel, and burn to die
among the foremost for their city's sake.

Meanwhile among the forests the terrible news pours in on Turnus, and
Acca brings him news of the mighty invasion; the Volscian lines are
destroyed; Camilla is fallen; the enemy thicken and press on, and have
swept all before them down the tide of battle. Raging he leaves the
hills he had beset--Jove's stern will ordains it [902-915]so--and quits
the rough woodland. Scarcely had he marched out of sight and gained the
plain when lord Aeneas enters the open defiles, surmounts the ridge, and
issues from the dim forest. So both advance swiftly to the town with all
their columns, no long march apart, and at once Aeneas descried afar the
plains all smoking with dust, and saw the Laurentine columns, and Turnus
knew Aeneas terrible in arms, and heard the advancing feet and the
neighing of the horses. And straightway would they join battle and essay
the conflict, but that ruddy Phoebus even now dips his weary coursers in
the Iberian flood, and night draws on over the fading day. They encamp
before the city, and draw their trenches round the walls.




BOOK TWELFTH

THE SLAYING OF TURNUS


When Turnus sees the Latins broken and fainting in the thwart issue of
war, his promise claimed for fulfilment, and men's eyes pointed on him,
his own spirit rises in unappeasable flame. As the lion in Phoenician
fields, his breast heavily wounded by the huntsmen, at last starts into
arms, and shakes out the shaggy masses from his exultant neck, and
undismayed snaps the brigand's planted weapon, roaring with
blood-stained mouth; even so Turnus kindles and swells in passion.