Aeneid

Virgil

Vergil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Williams, Theodore, C, translator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.

Apollo heard and granted half the prayer,
but half upon the passing breeze he threw:
granting his votary he should confound
Camilla by swift death; but 't was denied
the mountain-fatherland once more to see,
or safe return,—that prayer th' impetuous winds
swept stormfully away. Soon as the spear
whizzed from his hand, straight-speeding on the air,
the Volscians all turned eager thought and eyes
toward their Queen. She only did not heed
that windy roar, nor weapon dropped from heaven,
till in her bare, protruded breast the spear
drank, deeply driven, of her virgin blood.
Her terror-struck companians swiftly throng
around her, and uplift their sinking Queen.
But Arruns, panic-stricken more than all,
makes off, half terror and half joy, nor dares
hazard his lance again, nor dares oppose
a virgin's arms. As creeps back to the hills
in pathless covert ere his foes pursue,
from shepherd slain or mighty bull laid low,
some wolf, who, now of his bold trespass ware,
curls close against his paunch a quivering tail
and to the forest tries: so Arruns speeds
from sight of men in terror, glad to fly,
and hides him in the crowd. But his keen spear
dying Camilla from her bosom drew,
though the fixed barb of deeply-wounding steel
clung to the rib. She sank to earth undone,
her cold eyes closed in death, and from her cheeks
the roses fled. With failing breath she called
on Acca—who of all her maiden peers
was chiefly dear and shared her heart's whole pain—
and thus she spoke: “O Acca, sister mine,
I have been strong till now. The cruel wound
consumes me, and my world is growing dark.
Haste thee to Turnus! Tell my dying words!
'T is he must bear the battle and hold back
the Trojan from our city wall. Farewell!”
So saying, her fingers from the bridle-rein
unclasped, and helpless to the earth she fell;
then, colder grown, she loosed her more and more
out of the body's coil; she gave to death
her neck, her drooping head, and ceased to heed
her war-array. So fled her spirit forth
with wrath and moaning to the world below.
Then clamor infinite uprose and smote
the golden stars, as round Camilla slain
the battle newly raged. To swifter charge
the gathered Trojans ran, with Tuscan lords
and King Evander's troops of Arcady.

Fair Opis, keeping guard for Trivia
in patient sentry on a lofty hill, beheld
unterrified the conflict's rage. Yet when,
amid the frenzied shouts of soldiery,
she saw from far Camilla pay the doom
of piteous death, with deep-drawn voice of sight
she thus complained: “O virgin, woe is me!
Too much, too much, this agony of thine,
to expiate that thou didst lift thy spear
for wounding Troy. It was no shield in war,
nor any vantage to have kept thy vow
to chaste Diana in the thorny wild.
Our maiden arrows at thy shoulder slung
availed thee not! Yet will our Queen divine
not leave unhonored this thy dying day,
nor shall thy people let thy death remain
a thing forgot, nor thy bright name appear
a glory unavenged. Whoe'er he be
that marred thy body with the mortal wound
shall die as he deserves.” Beneath that hill
an earth-built mound uprose, the tomb
of King Dercennus, a Laurentine old,
by sombre ilex shaded: thither hied
the fair nymph at full speed, and from the mound
looked round for Arruns. When his shape she saw
in glittering armor vainly insolent,
“Whither so fast?” she cried. “This way, thy path!
This fatal way approach, and here receive
thy reward for Camilla! Thou shalt fall,
vile though thou art, by Dian's shaft divine.”
She said; and one swift-coursing arrow took
from golden quiver, like a maid of Thrace,
and stretched it on her bow with hostile aim,
withdrawing far, till both the tips of horn
together bent, and, both hands poising well,
the left outreached to touch the barb of steel,
the right to her soft breast the bowstring drew:
the hissing of the shaft, the sounding air,
Arruns one moment heard, as to his flesh
the iron point clung fast. But his last groan
his comrades heeded not, and let him lie,
scorned and forgotten, on the dusty field,
while Opis soared to bright Olympian air.

Camilla's light-armed troop, its virgin chief
now fallen, were the first to fly; in flight
the panic-stricken Rutule host is seen
and Acer bold; his captains in dismay
with shattered legions from the peril fly,
and goad their horses to the city wall.
Not one sustains the Trojan charge, or stands
in arms against the swift approach of death.
Their bows unstrung from drooping shoulder fall,
and clatter of hoof-beats shakes the crumbling ground.
On to the city in a blinding cloud
the dust uprolls. From watch-towers Iooking forth,
the women smite their breasts and raise to heaven
shrill shouts of fear. Those fliers who first passed
the open gates were followed by the foe,
routed and overwhelmed. They could not fly
a miserable death, but were struck down
in their own ancient city, or expired
before the peaceful shrines of hearth and home.
Then some one barred the gates. They dared not now
give their own people entrance, and were deaf
to all entreaty. Woeful deaths ensued,
both of the armed defenders of the gate,
and of the foe in arms. The desperate band,
barred from the city in the face and eyes
of their own weeping parents, either dropped
with headlong and inevitable plunge
into the moat below; or, frantic, blind,
battered with beams against the stubborn door
and columns strong. Above in conflict wild
even the women (who for faithful love
of home and country schooled them to be brave
Camilla's way) rained weapons from the walls,
and used oak-staves and truncheons shaped in flame,
as if, well-armed in steel, each bosom bold
would fain in such defence be first to die.

Meanwhile th' unpitying messenger had flown
to Turnus in the wood; the warrior heard
from Acca of the wide confusion spread,
the Volscian troop destroyed, Camilla slain,
the furious foe increasing, and, with Mars
to help him, grasping all, till in that hour
far as the city-gates the panic reigned.
Then he in desperate rage (Jove's cruel power
decreed it) from the ambushed hills withdrew
and pathless wild. He scarce had passed beyond
to the bare plain, when forth Aeneas marched
along the wide ravine, climbed up the ridge,
and from the dark, deceiving grove stood clear.
Then swiftly each with following ranks of war
moved to the city-wall, nor wide the space
that measured 'twixt the twain. Aeneas saw
the plain with dust o'erclouded, and the lines
of the Laurentian host extending far;
Turnus, as clearly, saw the war array
of dread Aeneas, and his ear perceived
loud tramp of mail-clad men and snorting steeds.
Soon had they sped to dreadful shock of arms,
hazard of war to try; but Phoebus now,
glowing rose-red, had dipped his wearied wheel
deep in Iberian seas, and brought back night
above the fading day. So near the town
both pitch their camps and make their ramparts strong.

When Turnus marks how much the Latins quail
in adverse war, how on himself they call
to keep his pledge, and with indignant eyes
gaze all his way, fierce rage implacable
swells his high heart. As when on Libyan plain
a lion, gashed along his tawny breast
by the huntsman's grievous thrust, awakens him
unto his last grim fight, and gloriously
shaking the great thews of his maned neck,
shrinks not, but crushes the despoiler's spear
with blood-sprent, roaring mouth,—not less than so
burns the wild soul of Turnus and his ire.
Thus to the King he spoke with stormful brow:
“The war lags not for Turnus' sake. No cause
constrains the Teucrian cowards and their King
to eat their words and what they pledged refuse.
On his own terms I come. Bring forward, sire,
the sacrifice, and seal the pact I swear:
either to deepest hell this hand shall fling
yon Trojan runaway—the Latins all
may sit at ease and see!—and my sole sword
efface the general shame; or let him claim
the conquest, and Lavinia be his bride.”

To him Latinus with unruffled mind
thus made reply: “O youth surpassing brave!
The more thy sanguinary valor burns
beyond its wont, the more with toilsome care
I ponder with just fear what chance may fall,
weighing it well. Thy father Daunus' throne,
and many a city by thy sword subdued,
are still thy own. Latinus also boasts
much golden treasure and a liberal hand.
Other unwedded maids of noble stem
in Latium and Laurentine land are found.
Permit me, then, to tell thee without guile
things hard to utter; let them deeply fill
thy listening soul. My sacred duty 'twas
to plight my daughter's hand to nonesoe'er
of all her earlier wooers—so declared
the gods and oracles; but overcome
by love of thee, by thy dear, kindred blood,
and by the sad eyes of my mournful Queen,
I shattered every bond; I snatched away
the plighted maiden from her destined lord,
and took up impious arms. What evil case
upon that deed ensued, what hapless wars,
thou knowest, since thyself dost chiefly bear
the cruel burden. In wide-ranging fight
twice-conquered, our own city scarce upholds
the hope of Italy. Yon Tiber's wave
still runs warm with my people's blood; the plains
far round us glisten with their bleaching bones.
Why tell it o'er and o'er? What maddening dream
perverts my mind? If after Turnus slain
I must for friendship of the Trojan sue,
were it not better to suspend the fray
while Turnus lives? For what will be the word
of thy Rutulian kindred—yea, of all
Italia, if to death I give thee o'er—
(Which Heaven avert!) because thou fain wouldst win
my daughter and be sworn my friend and son?
Bethink thee what a dubious work is war;
have pity on thy father's reverend years,
who even now thy absence daily mourns
in Ardea, his native land and thine.”
But to this pleading Turnus' frenzied soul
yields not at all, but rather blazes forth
more wildly, and his fever fiercer burns
beneath the healer's hand. In answer he,
soon as his passion gathered voice, began:
“This keen solicitude for love of me,
I pray, good sire, for love of me put by!
And let me traffic in the just exchange
of death for glory. This right hand, O King,
can scatter shafts not few, nor do I wield
untempered steel. Whene'er I make a wound
blood follows. For my foeman when we meet
will find no goddess-mother near, with hand
to hide him in her woman's skirt of cloud,
herself in dim, deluding shade concealed.”

But now the Queen, whose whole heart shrank in fear
from these new terms of duel, wept aloud,
and like one dying clasped her fiery son:
“O Turnus, by these tears-if in thy heart
thou honorest Amata still—O thou
who art of our distressful, dark old age
the only hope and peace, the kingly name
and glory of Latinus rests in thee;
thou art the mighty prop whereon is stayed
our falling house. One favor I implore:
give o'er this fight with Trojans. In such strife
thy destined doom is destined to be mine
by the same fatal stroke. For in that hour
this hated life shall cease, nor will I look
with slave's eyes on Aeneas as my son.”
Lavinia heard her mother's voice, and tears
o'erflowed her scarlet cheek, where blushes spread
like flame along her warm, young face and brow:
as when the Indian ivory must wear
ensanguined crimson stain, or lilies pale
mingled with roses seem to blush, such hues
her virgin features bore; and love's desire
disturbed his breast, as, gazing on the maid,
his martial passion fiercer flamed; whereon
in brief speech he addressed the Queen: “No tears!
No evil omen, mother, I implore!
Make me no sad farewells, as I depart
to the grim war-god's game! Can Turnus' hand
delay death's necessary coming? Go,
Idmon, my herald, to the Phrygian King,
and tell him this—a word not framed to please:
soon as Aurora from her crimson car
flushes to-morrow's sky, let him no more
against the Rutule lead the Teucrian line;
let Teucrian swords and Rutule take repose,
while with our own spilt blood we twain will make
an end of war; on yonder mortal field
let each man woo Lavinia for his bride.”