Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

  And lay upon the Latin arms the weight of wordy yoke.

  Yea, sure the chiefs of Myrmidons quake at the Phrygian sword,

  Tydides and Achilles great, the Larissæan lord;

  And Aufidus the flood flees back unto the Hadriac sea.

  But now whereas this guile-smith fains to dread mine enmity,

  And whetteth with a fashioned fear the bitter point of strife —

  Nay, quake no more! for this mine hand shall spill no such a life;

  But it shall dwell within thy breast and have thee for a mate. —

  Now, Father, unto thee I turn, and all thy words of weight;

  If every hope of mending war thou verily lay’st down;

  If we are utterly laid waste, and, being once overthrown,

  Have fallen dead; if Fate no more may turn her feet about,

  Then pray we peace, and deedless hands, e’en as we may, stretch out.

  Yet if of all our ancient worth some little yet abide,

  I deem him excellent of men, craftsmaster of his tide,

  A noble heart, who, lest his eyes should see such things befall,

  Hath laid him down in death, and bit the earth’s face once for all.

  And if we still have store of force, and crop of youth unlaid,

  And many a town, and many a folk of Italy to aid;

  And if across a sea of blood the Trojan glory came,

  And they too died, and over all with one blast and the same

  The tempest swept; why shameless thus do our first footsteps fail?

  Why quake our limbs, yea e’en before they feel the trumpet’s gale?

  A many things the shifting time, the long laborious days,

  Have mended oft: a many men hath Fortune’s wavering ways

  Made sport of, and brought back again to set on moveless rock.

  The Ætolian and his Arpi host help not our battle-shock.

  Yet is Messapus ours, and ours Tolumnius fortunate,

  And many a duke and many a folk; nor yet shall tarry late

  The glory of our Latin lords and this Laurentian lea.

  Here too Camilla, nobly born of Volscian stock, shall be,

  Leading her companies of horse that blossom brass all o’er.

  But if the Teucrians me alone are calling to the war,

  And thus ’tis doomed, and I so much the common good withstand —

  Well, victory hath not heretofore so fled my hated hand

  That I should falter from the play with such a prize in sight:

  Fain shall I face him, yea, though he outgo Achilles’ might,

  And carry battle-gear as good of Vulcan’s fashioning,

  For you, and for Latinus here, my father and my king,

  I, Turnus, second unto none in valour of old years,

  Devote my life. Æneas calls me only of the peers?

  — O that he may! — not Drances here — the debt of death to pay

  If God be wroth, or if Fame win, to bear the prize away.”

  But while amid their doubtful fate the ball of speech they tossed,

  Contending sore, Æneas moved his camp and battle-host;

  And lo, amid the kingly house there runs a messenger

  Mid tumult huge, who all the town to mighty dread doth stir,

  With tidings how the Teucrian host and Tuscan men of war

  Were marching from the Tiber flood, the meadows covering o’er.

  Amazèd are the minds of men; their hearts with tremor shake,

  And anger stirred by bitter stings is presently awake:

  In haste and heat they crave for arms; the youth cries on the sword,

  The Fathers mutter sad and weep: with many a wrangling word

  A mighty tumult goeth up, and toward the sky doth sweep:

  Not otherwise than when the fowl amid the thicket deep

  Sit down in hosts; or when the swans send forth their shrilling song

  About Padusa’s fishy flood, the noisy pools among.

  “Come, fellow-folk,” cries Turnus then, for he the time doth seize,

  “Call ye to council even now, and sit and praise the peace,

  And let the armed foe wrack the realm!”

  Nor more he said withal,

  But turned about and went his ways from that high-builded hall.

  Said he: “Volusus, lead away the Volscian ranks to fight,

  And Rutuli! Messapus, thou, afield with horse and knight!

  Thou, Coras, with thy brother duke sweep down the level mead.

  Let some make breaches good, and some man the high towers with heed;

  And let the rest bear arms with me whereso my bidding sends.”

  Then straightway, running in all haste, to wall the city wends.

  Sore shaken in his very heart, by that ill tide undone,

  His council Sire Latinus leaves and those great redes begun:

  Blaming himself that he took not Æneas of free will,

  Nor gave the town that Dardan lord the place of son to fill.

  Now some dig dykes before the gate, or carry stones and stakes,

  And bloody token of the war the shattering trump awakes.

  Mothers and lads, a motley guard, they crown the threatened wall,

  For this last tide of grief and care hath voice to cry for all.

  Moreover to the temple-stead, to Pallas’ house on high,

  The Queen goes forth hedged all about by matron company,

  And bearing gifts: next unto whom, the cause of all this woe,

  With lovely eyes cast down to earth, doth maid Lavinia go.

  They enter and with frankincense becloud the temple o’er,

  And cast their woeful voices forth from out the high-built door:

  “O Weapon-great Tritonian Maid, O front of war-array,

  Break thou the Phrygian robber’s sword, and prone his body lay

  On this our earth; cast him adown beneath our gates high-reared!”

  Now eager Turnus for the war his body did begird:

  The ruddy-gleaming coat of mail upon his breast he did,

  And roughened him with brazen scales; with gold his legs he hid;

  With brow yet bare, unto his side he girt the sword of fight,

  And all a glittering golden man ran down the castle’s height.

  High leaps his heart, his hope runs forth the foeman’s host to face:

  As steed, when broken are the bonds, fleeth the stabling place,

  Set free at last, and, having won the unfenced open mead,

  Now runneth to the grassy grounds wherein the mare-kind feed;

  Or, wont to water, speedeth him in well-known stream to wash,

  And, wantoning, with uptossed head about the world doth dash,

  While wave his mane-locks o’er his neck, and o’er his shoulders play.

  But, leading on the Volscian host, there comes across his way

  Camilla now, who by the gate leapt from her steed adown,

  And in likewise her company, who left their horses lone,

  And earthward streamed: therewith the Queen such words as this gave forth:

  “Turnus, if any heart may trust in manly might and worth,

  I dare to promise I will meet Æneas’ war array,

  And face the Tyrrhene knights alone, and deal them battle-play.

  Let my hand be the first to try the perils of the fight,

  The while the foot-men townward bide, and hold the walls aright.”

  Then Turnus answered, with his eyes fixed on the awful maid:

  “O glory of Italian land, how shall the thanks be paid

  Worthy thy part? but since all this thy great soul overflies,

  To portion out our work today with me indeed it lies.

  Æneas, as our spies sent out and rumour saith for sure,

  The guileful one, his light-armed horse hath now sent on before

  To sweep the lea-land, while himself, high on the hilly ground,

  Across the desert mountain-necks on f
or our walls is bound.

  But I a snare now dight for him in woodland hollow way

  Besetting so the straitened pass with weaponed war-array.

  But bear thy banners forth afield to meet the Tyrrhene horse,

  With fierce Messapus joined to thee, the Latin battle-force,

  Yea, and Tiburtus: thou thyself the leader’s care shalt take.”

  So saith he, and with such-like words unto the war doth wake

  Messapus and his brother-lords; then ‘gainst the foeman fares.

  There was a dale of winding ways, most meet for warlike snares

  And lurking swords: with press of leaves the mountain bent is black

  That shutteth it on either side: thence leads a scanty track;

  By strait-jawed pass men come thereto, a very evil road:

  But thereabove, upon the height, lieth a plain abode,

  A mountain-heath scarce known of men, a most safe lurking-place,

  Whether to right hand or to left the battle ye will face,

  Or hold the heights, and roll a storm of mighty rocks adown.

  Thither the war-lord wends his way by country road well known,

  And takes the place, and bideth there within the wood accursed.

  Meanwhile within the heavenly house Diana speaketh first

  To Opis of the holy band, the maiden fellowship,

  And words of grief most sorrowful Latonia’s mouth let slip:

  “Unto the bitter-cruel war the maid Camilla wends,

  O maid: and all for nought indeed that dearest of my friends

  Is girding her with arms of mine.”

  Nought new-born was the love

  Diana owned, nor sudden-sweet the soul in her did move:

  When Metabus, by hatred driven, and his o’erweening pride,

  Fled from Privernum’s ancient town, his fathers’ country-side,

  Companion of his exile there, amid the weapon-game,

  A babe he had with him, whom he called from her mother’s name

  Casmilla, but a little changed, and now Camilla grown.

  He, bearing her upon his breast, the woody ridges lone

  Went seeking, while on every side the sword-edge was about,

  And all around were scouring wide the weaponed Volscian rout.

  But big lay Amasenus now athwart his very road,

  Foaming bank-high, such mighty rain from out of heaven had flowed.

  There, as he dight him to swim o’er, love of his babe, and fear

  For burden borne so well-beloved, his footsteps back did bear.

  At last, as all things o’er he turned, this sudden rede he took:

  The huge spear that in mighty hand by hap the warrior shook,

  A close-knit shaft of seasoned oak with many a knot therein,

  Thereto did he his daughter bind, wrapped in the cork-tree’s skin,

  And to the middle of the beam he tied her craftily;

  Then, shaking it in mighty hand, thus spoke unto the sky:

  “O kind, O dweller in the woods, Latonian Virgin fair,

  A father giveth thee a maid, who holds thine arms in air

  As from the foe she flees to thee: O Goddess, take thine own,

  That now upon the doubtful winds by this mine arm is thrown!”

  He spake, and from his drawn-back arm cast forth the brandished wood;

  Sounded the waves; Camilla flew across the hurrying flood,

  A lorn thing bound to whistling shaft, and o’er the river won.

  But Metabus, with all the band of chasers pressing on,

  Unto the river gives himself, and reaches maid and spear,

  And, conquering, from the grassy bank Diana’s gift doth tear.

  To roof and wall there took him thence no city of the land,

  Nay, he himself, a wild-wood thing, to none had given the hand;

  Upon the shepherd’s lonely hills his life thenceforth he led;

  His daughter mid the forest-brake, and wild deers’ thicket-stead,

  He nourished on the milk that flowed from herd-mare’s untamed breast,

  And to the maiden’s tender lips the wild thing’s udder pressed;

  Then from the first of days when she might go upon her feet,

  The heft of heavy sharpened dart her hand must learn to meet,

  And from the little maiden’s back he hung the shaft and bow;

  While for the golden hair-clasp fine and long-drawn mantle’s flow

  Down from her head, along her back, a tiger’s fell there hung.

  E’en then too from her tender hand a childish shot she flung,

  The sling with slender smoothened thong she drave about her head

  To bring the crane of Strymon down, or lay the white swan dead.

  Then many a mother all about the Tyrrhene towns in vain

  Would wed her to their sons; but she, a maid without a stain,

  Alone in Dian’s happiness the spear for ever loved,

  For ever loved the maiden life.

  — “O had she ne’er been moved

  By such a war, nor dared to cross the Teucrian folk in fight!

  Then had she been a maid of mine, my fellow and delight.

  But since the bitterness of fate lies round her life and me,

  Glide down, O maiden, from the pole, and find the Latin lea,

  Where now, with evil tokens toward, sad battle they awake;

  Take these, and that avenging shaft from out the quiver take,

  Wherewith whoso shall wrong with wound my holy-bodied may,

  Be he of Troy or Italy, see thou his blood doth pay:

  And then will I her limbs bewept, unspoiled of any gear,

  Wrap in a hollow cloud, and lay in kindred sepulchre.”

  She spoke; the other slipped adown the lightsome air of heaven,

  With wrapping cloak of mirky cloud about her body driven.

  But in meanwhile the Trojan folk the city draw anigh,

  The Tuscan dukes and all their horse in many a company

  Well ordered: over all the plain neighing the steed doth fare,

  Prancing, and champing on the bit that turns him here and there,

  And far and wide the lea is rough with iron harvest now.

  And with the weapons tossed aloft the level meadows glow.

  Messapus and the Latins swift, lo, on the other hand;

  And Coras with his brother-lord, and maid Camilla’s band,

  Against them in the field; and lo, far back their arms they fling

  In couching of the level spears, and shot spears’ brandishing.

  All is afire with neigh of steeds and onfall of the men.

  And now, within a spear-shot come, short up they rein, and then

  They break out with a mighty cry, and spur the maddened steeds;

  And all at once from every side the storm of spear-shot speeds,

  As thick as very snowing is, and darkens down the sun.

  And thereon with their levelled spears each against each they run,

  Tyrrhenus and Aconteus fierce: in forefront of the fight

  They meet and crash with thundering sound; wracked are the steeds outright,

  Breast beating in each breast of them: far is Aconteus flung

  In manner of the lightning bolt, or stone from engine slung;

  Far off he falls, and on the air pours all his life-breath out.

  Then wildered is the war array; the Latins wheel about

  And sling their targets all aback, and townward turn their steeds.

  The Trojans follow; first of whom the ranks Asylas leads.

  But when they draw anigh the gates once more the Latin men

  Raise up the cry, and turn about the limber necks again;

  Then flee their foes, and far afield with loosened reins they ride;

  As when the sea-flood setting on with flowing, ebbing tide,

  Now earthward rolling, overlays the rocks with foaming sea,

  And with its bosom overwhelms the s
and’s extremity,

  Now swiftly fleeing back again, sucks back into its deep

  The rolling stones, and leaves the shore with softly-gliding sweep.

  Twice did the Tuscans townward drive the host of Rutuli;

  Twice, looking o’er their shielded backs, afield they needs must fly;

  But when they joined the battle thrice knit up was all array

  In one great knot, and man sought man wherewith to play the play.

  Then verily the dying groans up to the heavens went;

  Bodies and arms lie deep in blood, and with the men-folk blent,

  The dying horses wallow there, and fearful fight arose.

  Orsilochus with Remulus had scant the heart to close,

  But hurled his shaft against the horse, and smote him ‘neath the ear;

  The smitten beast bears not the wound, but, maddened, high doth rear

  The legs of him and breast aloft: his master flung away,

  Rolls on the earth: Catillus there doth swift Iolas slay;

  Yea, and Herminius, big of soul, and big of limbs and gear,

  Who went with head by nothing helmed save locks of yellow hair,

  Who went with shoulders all unarmed, as one without a dread,

  So open unto fight was he; but through his shoulders sped

  The quivering spear, and knit him up twi-folded in his pain.

  So black blood floweth everywhere; men deal out iron bane,

  And, struggling, seek out lovely death amid the wounds and woe.

  But through the middle of the wrack doth glad Camilla go,

  The quivered war-maid, all one side stripped naked for the play;

  And now a cloud of limber shafts she scattereth wide away,

  And now with all unwearied hand catcheth the twi-bill strong.

  The golden bow is at her back, and Dian’s arrow-song.

  Yea, e’en and if she yielded whiles, and showed her back in flight,

  From back-turned bow the hurrying shaft she yet would aim aright.

  About her were her chosen maids, daughters of Italy,

  Larina, Tulla, and Tarpeia, with brazen axe on high,

  Whom that divine Camilla chose for joy and fame’s increase,

  Full sweet and goodly hand-maidens in battle and in peace:

  E’en as the Thracian Amazons thresh through Thermodon’s flood,

  When they in painted war-gear wend to battle and to blood:

  Or those about Hippolyta, or round the wain of Mars

  Wherein Panthesilea wends, when hubbub of the wars

  The maiden-folk exulting raise, and moony shields uprear.

  Whom first, whom last, O bitter Maid, didst thou overthrow with spear?