by Virgil
Or lamb, whose mother seeketh him with most abundant bleat,
Some wolf of Mars from fold hath caught.
Goes up great cry around:
They set on, and the ditches filled with o’erturned garth and mound,
While others cast the blazing brands on roof and battlement.
Ilioneus with mighty stone, a shard from hillside rent,
Lucetius felled, as fire in hand unto the gate he drew.
Then Liger felled Emathion, for craft of spear he knew;
Asylas Corynæus, by dint of skill in bowshaft’s ways,
Cæneus Ortygius fells, and him, victorious, Turnus slays,
And Itys, Clonius, Promolus, Dioxippus withal,
And Sagaris, and Idas set on topmost turret-wall.
Then Capys slays Privernus; him Themilla’s light-winged spear
Had grazed, whereon he dropped his shield, and his left hand did bear
Upon the hurt; when lo, thereto the wingèd shaft did win,
And nailed the hand unto the side, and, buried deep within,
Burst all the breathing-ways of life with deadly fatal sore.
But lo, where standeth Arcens’ child in goodly weed of war,
Fair with his needle-painted cloak, with Spanish scarlet bright,
Noble of face: Arcens, his sire, had sent him to the fight
From nursing of his mother’s grove about Symæthia’s flood,
Whereby Palicus’ altar stands, the wealthy and the good.
Mezentius now laid by his spear, and took his whistling sling,
And whirled it thrice about his head at length of tugging string,
And with the flight of molten lead his midmost forehead clave,
And to the deep abundant sand his outstretched body gave.
Then first they say Ascanius aimed his speedy shafts in war,
Wherewith but fleeing beasts afield he used to fright before:
But now at last his own right hand the stark Numanus slays,
Who had to surname Remulus, and in these latter days
King Turnus’ sister, young of years, had taken to his bed:
He in the forefront of the fight kept crying out, and said
Things worthy and unworthy tale: puffed up with pride of place
New-won he went, still clamouring out his greatness and his grace.
“O twice-caught Phrygians, shames you nought thus twice amid the wars
To lie in bonds, and stretch out walls before the march of Mars?
Lo, these are they who woke the war the wives of us to wed!
What God sent you to Italy? what madness hither sped?
Here are no Atreus’ sons, and no Ulysses word-weaver.
A people hard from earliest spring our new-born sons we bear
Unto the stream, and harden us with bitter frost and flood.
Our lads, they wake the dawning-chase and wear the tangled wood;
Our sport is taming of the horse and drawing shafted bow;
Our carles, who bear a world of toil, and hunger-pinching know,
Tame earth with spade, or shake with war the cities of the folk.
Yea, all our life with steel is worn; afield we drive the yoke
With spear-shaft turned about: nor doth a halting eld of sloth
Weaken our mightiness of soul, or change our glory’s growth.
We do the helm on hoary hairs, and ever deem it good
To drive the foray day by day, and make the spoil our food.
But ye — the raiment saffron-stained, with purple glow tricked out —
These are your heart-joys: ye are glad to lead the dance about.
Sleeve-coated folk, O ribbon-coifed, not even Phrygian men,
But Phrygian wives, to Dindymus the high go get ye then!
To hear the flute’s twi-mouthèd song as ye are wont to do!
The Berecynthian Mother’s box and cymbals call to you
From Ida: let men deal with war, and drop adown your swords.”
That singer of such wicked speech, that caster forth of words,
Ascanius brooked not: breasting now his horse-hair full at strain,
He aimed the shaft, and therewithal drew either arm atwain,
And stood so; but to Jupiter first suppliant fell to pray:
“O Jove Almighty, to my deeds, thus new-begun, nod yea,
And I myself unto thy fane the yearly gifts will bear,
And bring before thine altar-stead a snow-white gilt-horned steer,
Whose head unto his mother’s head is evenly upborne,
Of age to spurn the sand with hoof and battle with the horn.”
The Father heard, and out of heaven, wherein no cloud-fleck hung,
His leftward thunder fell, wherewith the fateful bow outrung,
The back-drawn shaft went whistling forth with dreadful sound, and sped
To pierce the skull of Remulus and hollow of his head:
“Go to, then, and thy mocking words upon men’s valour call,
The twice-caught Phrygians answer back Rutulians herewithal.”
This only word Ascanius spake: the Teucrians raise their cry
And shout for joy, and lift their heart aloft unto the sky.
Long-haired Apollo then by hap high-set in airy place,
Looked down upon Ausonian host and leaguered city’s case,
And thus the victor he bespeaks from lofty seat of cloud:
“Speed on in new-born valour, child! this is the starward road,
O son of Gods and sire of Gods! Well have the Fates ordained
That ‘neath Assaracus one day all war shall be refrained.
No Troy shall hold thee.”
With that word he stoops from heaven aloft
And puts away on either side the wind that meets him soft,
And seeks Ascanius: changed is he withal, and putteth on
The shape of Butes old of days, shield-bearer time agone
Unto Anchises, Dardan king, and door-ward true and tried;
But with Ascanius now his sire had bidden him abide.
Like this old man in every wise, voice, hue, and hoary hair,
And arms that cried on cruel war, now did Apollo fare,
And to Iulus hot of heart in such wise went his speech:
“Enough, O child of Æneas, that thou with shaft didst reach
Numanus’ life unharmed thyself, great Phoebus grants thee this,
Thy first-born praise, nor grudgeth thee like weapons unto his.
But now refrain thy youth from war.”
So spake Apollo then,
And in the midmost of his speech fled sight of mortal men,
And faded from their eyes away afar amid the air.
The Dardan dukes, they knew the God and holy shooting-gear,
And as he fled away from them they heard his quiver shrill.
Therefore Ascanius, fain of fight, by Phoebus’ word and will
They hold aback: but they themselves fare to the fight again,
And cast their souls amidst of all the perils bare and plain.
Then goes the shout adown the wall, along the battlement;
The javelin-thongs are whirled about, the sharp-springed bows are bent,
And all the earth is strewn with shot: the shield, the helmet’s cup,
Ring out again with weapon-dint, and fierce the fight springs up.
As great as, when the watery kids are setting, beats the rain
Upon the earth; as plentiful as when upon the main
The hail-clouds fall, when Jupiter, fierce with the southern blasts,
Breaks up the hollow clouds of heaven and watery whirl downcasts.
Now Pandarus and Bitias stark, Idan Alcanor’s seed.
They whom Iæra of the woods in Jove’s brake nursed with heed,
Youths tall as firs or mountain-cliffs that in their country are,
The gate their lord hath bid them keep, these freely now unbar,
And freely bid the foema
n in, trusting to stroke of hand;
But they themselves to right and left before the gate-towers stand,
Steel-clad, and with their lofty heads crested with glittering gleams;
E’en as amid the air of heaven, beside the flowing streams
On rim of Padus, or anigh soft Athesis and sweet,
Twin oak-trees spring, and tops unshorn uprear the skies to meet,
And with their heads high over earth nod ever in the wind.
So now the Rutuli fall on when clear the way they find,
But Quercens, and Æquicolus the lovely war-clad one,
And Tmarus of the headlong soul, and Hæmon, Mavors’ son,
Must either turn their backs in flight, with all their men of war,
Or lay adown their lovèd lives on threshold of the door.
Then bitterer waxeth battle-rage in hate-fulfillèd hearts,
And there the Trojans draw to head and gather from all parts,
Eager to deal in handy strokes, full fierce afield to fare.
But as duke Turnus through the fight was raging otherwhere,
Confounding folk, there came a man with tidings that the foe,
Hot with new death, the door-leaves wide to all incomers throw.
Therewith he leaves the work in hand, and, stirred by anger’s goad,
Against the Dardan gate goes forth, against the brethren proud:
There first Antiphates he slew, who fought amid the first,
The bastard of Sarpedon tall, by Theban mother nursed.
With javelin-cast he laid him low: the Italian cornel flies
Through the thin air, pierceth his maw, and ‘neath his breast-bone lies
Deep down; the hollow wound-cave pours a flood of gore and foam,
And warm amid him lies the steel, amid his lung gone home.
Then Meropes’, and Erymas’, Aphidnus’ lives he spilled;
Then Bitias of the flaming eyes and heart with ire fulfilled; —
Not with the dart, for to no dart his life-breath had he given; —
But whirled and whizzing mightily came on the sling-spear, driven
Like lightning-flash; against whose dint two bull-hides nought availed,
Nor yet the golden faithful fence of war-coat double-scaled:
His fainting limbs fell down afield, and earth gave out a groan,
And rang the thunder of his shield huge on his body thrown:
E’en as upon Euboean shore of Baiæ falleth whiles
A stony pillar, which built up of mighty bonded piles
They set amid the sea: suchwise it draggeth mighty wrack
Headlong adown, and deep in sea it lieth dashed aback:
The seas are blent, black whirl of sand goes up confusedly;
And with the noise quakes Prochytas, and quakes Inarimè,
The unsoft bed by Jove’s command upon Typhoeus laid.
Then Mars, the mighty in the war, brings force and strength to aid
The Latin men, and in their hearts he stirs his bitter goads,
The while with fleeing and black fear the Teucrian heart he loads:
From everywhither run the folk, since here is battle rich,
And in all hearts the war-god wakes.
But Pandarus, beholding now his brother laid to earth,
And whitherward wends Fortune now, and what Time brings to birth,
Back-swinging on the hinge again with might the door-leaf sends,
By struggle of his shoulders huge; and many of his friends
Shut outward of the walls he leaves, amid the fierce debate;
While others, with himself shut in, poured backward through the gate.
Madman! who saw not how the king Rutulian mid the band
Came rushing, but amidst the town now shut him with his hand,
E’en as a tiger pent amidst a helpless flock of sheep.
Then dreadfully his armour rings, light from his eyes doth leap, —
A strange new light: the blood-red crest upon his helm-top quakes,
And from the circle of his shield a glittering lightning breaks.
Sudden Æneas’ frighted folk behold his hated face
And mighty limbs: but Pandarus breaks forth amid the place
Huge, and his heart afire with rage for his lost brother’s death.
“Nay, this is not Amata’s home, the dowry house,” he saith,
“Nor yet doth Ardea’s midmost wall hold kindred Turnus in:
The foeman’s camp thou seest, wherefrom thou hast no might to win.”
But from his all untroubled breast laughed Turnus, as he said:
“Begin, if thou hast heart thereto, let hand to hand be laid!
Thou shalt tell Priam how thou found’st a new Achilles here.”
He spake: the other put all strength to hurling of his spear,
A shaft all rough with knots, and still in its own tree-bark bound.
Straightway the thin air caught it up, but that swift-speeding wound
Saturnian Juno turned aside and set it in the door.
— “But now thou ‘scapest not this steel mine own hand maketh sure,
Nought such as thine the weapon-smith, the wound-smith — —”
With the word
He riseth up unto the high uprising of the sword,
Wherewith betwixt the temples twain he clave his midmost head,
And with a fearful wound apart the cheeks unbearded shred.
Then came a sound, and shook the earth ‘neath the huge weight of him:
With armour wet with blood and brain, with fainting, slackened limb,
He strewed the ground in death; his head, sheared clean and evenly,
From either shoulder hanging down, this side and that did lie.
Then turn and flee the Trojan folk, by quaking terror caught;
And if the conquering man as then one moment had had thought
To burst the bolts and let his folk in through the opened door,
That day had been the last of days for Trojans and their war.
But utter wrath of heart and soul, and wildering lust of death
Drave him afire amidst the foe.
Then Phaleris he catcheth up, and ham-strung Gyges then,
Whose spears, snatched up, he hurleth on against the backs of men;
For Juno finds him might enough and heart wherewith to do,
Halys he sendeth down with these, Phegeus with targe smit through;
Then, as they roused the war on wall, nor wotted aught of this,
Alcander stark, and Halius stout, Noëmon, Prytanis.
Then Lynceus, as he ran to aid and cheered his folk withal,
He reacheth at with sweeping sword from right hand of the wall
And smiteth; and his helm and head, struck off with that one blow,
Lie far away: Amycus then, the wood-deer’s wasting foe,
He slayeth: happier hand had none in smearing of the shaft
And arming of the iron head the poison-wound to waft.
Then Clytius, son of Æolus, and Cretheus Muse-beloved, —
Cretheus the Muses’ fellow-friend, whose heart was ever moved
By song and harp, and measured sound along the strainèd string;
Who still of steeds, and arms, and men, and battle-tide would sing.
At last the Trojan dukes of men, Mnestheus, Serestus fierce,
Draw to a head when all this death is borne unto their ears,
And see their folk all scattering wide, the foe amidst them see.
Then Mnestheus cries: “And whither now, and whither will ye flee?
What other walls, what other town have ye a hope to find?
Hath one man, O my town-fellows, whom your own ramparts bind,
Wrought such a death and unavenged amid your very town,
And sent so many lords of war by Orcus’ road adown?
O dastards, your unhappy land, your Gods of ancient days,
Your great Æneas — what! no shame, no pity
do they raise?”
Fired by such words, they gather heart and stand in close array,
Till step by step ‘gins Turnus now to yield him from the play,
And seek the river and the side the wet wave girds about.
Then fiercer fall the Teucrians on, and raise a mighty shout,
And lock their ranks: as when a crowd of men-folk and of spears
Falls on a lion hard of heart, and he, beset by fears,
But fierce and grim-eyed, yieldeth way, though anger and his worth
Forbid him turn his back about: no less to fare right forth
Through spears and men avails him not, though ne’er so fain he be.
Not otherwise unhasty feet drew Turnus doubtfully
Abackward, all his heart a-boil with anger’s overflow.
Yea, twice, indeed, he falls again amidmost of the foe,
And twice more turns to huddled flight their folk along the walls;
But, gathered from the camp about, the whole host on him falls,
Nor durst Saturnian Juno now his might against them stay;
For Jupiter from heaven hath sent Iris of airy way,
No soft commands of his high doom bearing his sister down,
If Turnus get him not away from Troy’s high-builded town.
So now the warrior’s shielded left the play endureth not,
Nought skills his right hand; wrapped around in drift of weapon shot
About his temples’ hollow rings his helm with ceaseless clink;
The starkly-fashioned brazen plates amid the stone-cast chink;
The crest is battered from his head; nor may the shield-boss hold
Against the strokes: the Trojans speed the spear-storm manifold,
And lightening Mnestheus thickeneth it: then over all his limbs
The sweat bursts out, and all adown a pitchy river swims:
Hard grows his breath, and panting sharp shaketh his body spent.
Until at last, all clad in arms, he leapt adown, and sent
His body to the river fair, who in his yellow flood
Caught him, and bore him forth away on ripple soft and good,
And gave him merry to his men, washed from the battle’s blood.
BOOK X.
ARGUMENT.
THE GODS TAKE COUNSEL: ÆNEAS COMETH TO HIS FOLK AGAIN, AND DOETH MANY GREAT DEEDS IN BATTLE.
Meanwhile is opened wide the door of dread Olympus’ walls,
And there the Sire of Gods and Men unto the council calls,
Amid the starry place, wherefrom, high-throned, he looks adown
Upon the folk of Latin land and that beleaguered town.
There in the open house they sit, and he himself begins:
