Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

  How many bodies of the slain laidst thou upon the field?

  Eunæus, Clytius’ son, was first, whose breast for lack of shield

  The fir-tree long smit through and through, as there he stood in face;

  He poureth forth a sea of blood, and, falling in his place,

  Bites the red earth, and dying writhes about the bitter bane.

  Liris and Pagasus she slays; one, catching at the rein

  Of his embowelled steed rolls o’er, the other as he ran

  To aid, and stretched his swordless hand unto the fallen man,

  Fell headlong too, and there they lie: with these Amastus wends,

  The son of Hippotas; her spear in chase of men she sends,

  Harpalycus, Demophoön, Tereus, and Chromis stout

  As many as her maiden hand the whirling darts send out

  So many Phrygian falls there are. Far off, in uncouth gear,

  The hunter Ornytus upon Apulian steed doth fare,

  Whose warring shoulders bigly wrought with stripped-off bullock’s hide

  Are covered; but his head is helmed with wood-wolf’s gaping wide,

  A monstrous mouth, wherein are left the teeth all gleaming white:

  A wood-spear arms the hand of him, he wheels amid the fight,

  And by the head he overtops all other men about.

  Him she o’ertakes, no troublous deed amid the fleeing rout,

  And, slaying him, from bitter heart this word withal she spake:

  “Tuscan, thou deem’dst thee hunting still the deer amid the brake;

  The day has come when women’s arms have cast thy boasting back:

  Yet going to thy fathers’ ghosts a word thou shalt not lack

  To praise thy life; for thou mayst say, Camilla was my bane.”

  Orsilochus and Butes next, two huge-wrought Trojans, gain

  Death at her hands: Butes aback she smit through with the spear

  Betwixt the mail-coat and the helm, wherethrough the neck doth peer

  As there he sits, and on his left hangs down the target round;

  But from Orsilochus she flees, wide circling o’er the ground,

  Then, slipping inward of the ring, chaseth the chaser there,

  And, rising high, her mighty axe driveth through bones and gear.

  With blow on blow, mid all his prayers and crying out for grace,

  Until his hot and bloody brain is flooding all his face.

  A man haps on her now, and stands afeard such sight to see;

  Of Aunus of the Apennines the warring son was he,

  Great of Ligurians, while the Fates his guile would yet allow:

  But he, since fleeing out of fight, would nought avail him now,

  Nor knew he how in any wise to turn the Queen away,

  With rede of guile and cunning words began to play the play:

  “What deed of fame, for woman’s heart to trust a horse’s might?

  Wilt thou not set thy speed aside, and ‘gainst me dare the fight

  On equal ground, and gird thyself for foot-fight face to face?

  See then to whom the windy fame shall bring the victory’s grace!”

  He spake; but she, in bitter rage, and stung to her heart’s root,

  Unto her fellow gave her steed and faced him there afoot,

  Most unafeard, with naked glaive and target bare and white.

  Thereat the youth deemed guile had won, and turned at once to flight;

  Nought tarrying but to turn the reins, he fleeth on his road,

  And ever with his iron heel the four-foot thing doth goad.

  “Empty Ligurian, all in vain thine high heart dost thou raise,

  And all in vain thou triest today thy father’s crafty ways.

  Nor shall thy lying bring thee safe to lying Aunus’ head.”

  So spake the maid, and all afire on flying feet she sped,

  Outwent the horse and crossed his road, and catching at the rein,

  There made her foeman pay for all with bloody steel-wrought bane,

  As easily the holy hawk from craggy place on high

  In winged chase follows on the dove aloft along the sky,

  And taketh her in hookèd hold with bitter feet to tear,

  While blood and riven feathers fall from out the upper air.

  Nathless the Sower of manfolk and all the Godly Kind,

  Upon Olympus set aloft, to this was nothing blind,

  And Tarchon of the Tyrrhene folk he stirreth up to war,

  And stingeth all the heart of him with anger bitter-sore;

  Who, borne on horse ‘twixt death of men and faltering war-array,

  Goads on his bands unto the fight, and many a word doth say,

  And calleth each man by his name, and bids the beaten stand:

  “What fear, O hearts that nought may shame, O folk of deedless hand,

  What dastardy, O Tyrrhene folk, hath now so caught your souls?

  A woman drives us scattering wide, and back our war-wall rolls.

  Why bear our hands these useless spears, this steel not made for fight?

  Ye are not slack in Venus’ play or battle of the night,

  Or when the crookèd fife gives sign that Bacchus’ dance is toward

  Well wait ye onset of the feast and cups of plenteous board:

  Your love, your hearts, are there, whereas the lucky priest doth bid

  The holy words, and victims fat call to the thickets hid.”

  He spake, and, fain of death himself, against the foemen spurs,

  And full in face of Venulus his eager body bears,

  And catcheth him by arm about, and tears him from his horse,

  And bears him off on saddle-bow in grip of mighty force:

  Then goes the clamour up to heaven, and all the Latin eyes

  Turn thitherward: but fiery-swift across the field he flies,

  Bearing the weapons and the man; then from his foeman’s spear

  Breaks off the head, and searches close for opening here and there

  Whereby to give the deadly wound: the foe doth ever fight,

  Thrusting the hand from threatened throat, and puts back might with might.

  As when a yellow erne aloft skyward a dragon draws,

  And knits him up within her feet and gripping of her claws:

  But still the wounded serpent turns in many a winding fold,

  And bristles all his spiky scales, and hissing mouth doth hold

  Aloft against her; she no less through all his struggles vain

  Drives hookèd beak, and still with wings beats through the airy plain;

  E’en so from those Tiburtine ranks glad Tarchon bears the prey:

  And, following on their captain’s deed, fall on amid the fray

  Mæonia’s sons.

  But Arruns now, the foredoomed man of fate,

  Encompassing Camilla’s ways with spear and guile, doth wait

  On all her goings; spying out what hap is easiest.

  Now, wheresoe’er the hot-heart maid amid the battle pressed,

  There Arruns winds, and silently holds watch on all her ways:

  And when from forth the foe she comes, bearing the victory’s praise,

  Still speedily in privy wise the rein he turns about:

  This way he tries, that way he tries, still wandering in and out

  On all sides; shaking spear of doom with evil heart of guile.

  Now Chloreus, bond of Cybele and priest upon a while,

  Afar as happed in Phrygian gear gleamed out upon his steed,

  Foaming and goodly: clad was he in skin-wrought battle-weed,

  With brazen scales done feather-wise, and riveted with gold,

  And grand was he in outland red and many a purple fold;

  Gortynian arrows from afar with Lycian horn he sped;

  Gold rang the bow upon his back; gold-mitred was his head

  In priestly wise; his saffron scarf, the crackling folds of it

  Of linen fine, in kn
ot about a red-gold buckle knit;

  His kirtle was embroidered fair, his hosen outland-wrought.

  The maiden, whether Trojan gear for temple-gate she sought,

  Or whether she herself would wend, glorious in war-got gold,

  Amidst of all the press of arms this man in chase must hold

  Blind as a hunter; all unware amidst the war-array

  She burned with all a woman’s lust for spoil of men and prey:

  When now, the time at last being seized, from out its lurking-place

  Arruns drew forth his spear, and prayed the Gods above for grace:

  “Highest of Gods, Apollo, ward of dear Soracte’s stead,

  Whom we first honour, unto whom the piny blaze is fed;

  Whom worshipping, we, waxen strong in might of godliness,

  The very midmost of the fire with eager foot-soles press —

  Almighty Father, give me grace to do away our shame!

  No battle-gear, no trophies won from vanquished maid I claim,

  No spoils I seek; my other deeds shall bring me praise of folk;

  Let but this dreadful pest of men but fall beneath my stroke,

  And me wend back without renown unto my father’s place!”

  Apollo heard, and half the prayer he turned his heart to grace,

  The other half he flung away adown the wind to go.

  That he by sudden stroke of death should lay Camilla low, —

  He granted this: that his high house should see his safe return,

  He granted not: the hurrying gusts that word to breezes turn.

  So when the shaft hurled from his hand gave sound upon the air,

  All Volscians turn their hardy hearts, and all men’s eyen bear

  Upon the Queen: but she no whit had any breeze in mind,

  Or whistle of the spear that sped from out the house of wind,

  Until the hurrying shaft beneath her naked bosom stood,

  And clung there, deeply driven home, drinking her virgin blood.

  Her frighted damsels run to her and catch the falling maid,

  But Arruns fleeth fast, forsooth more than all they afraid —

  Afraid and glad — nor durst he more to trust him to the spear,

  Or ‘neath the hail of maiden darts his body forth to bear.

  And as the murder-wolf, ere yet the avenging spear-points bite,

  Straight hideth him in pathless place amid the mountain-height,

  When he hath slain some shepherd-lad or bullock of the fold;

  Down goes his tail, when once he knows his deed so overbold,

  Along his belly close it clings as he the woodland seeks.

  Not otherwise from sight of men the wildered Arruns sneaks,

  And mingles in the middle fight, glad to be clear away.

  Death-smitten, at the spear she plucks; amidst her bones it lay,

  About the ribs, that iron point in baneful wound and deep:

  She droopeth bloodless, droop her eyes acold in deadly sleep;

  From out her cheeks the colour flees that once therewith were clear.

  Then, passing, Acca she bespeaks, her very maiden peer,

  Her who alone of all the rest might share Camilla’s rede,

  A trusted friend: such words to her the dying mouth doth speed:

  “Sister, thus far my might hath gone; but now this bitter wound

  Maketh an end, and misty dark are grown all things around:

  Fly forth, and unto Turnus bear my very latest words;

  Let him to fight, and from the town thrust off the Trojan swords —

  Farewell, farewell!” —

  And with the word the bridle failed her hold,

  And unto earth unwilling now she flowed, and waxen cold

  Slowly she slipped her body’s bonds; her languid neck she bent,

  Laid down the head that death had seized, and left her armament;

  And with a groan her life flew forth disdainful into night.

  Then rose the cry and smote aloft the starry golden height,

  And with the Queen so felled to field the fight grew young again,

  And thronged and serried falleth on the Teucrian might and main,

  The Tuscan Dukes, Evander’s host, the wings of Arcady.

  But Opis, Dian’s watch of war, set on the mountain high,

  A long while now all unafeard had eyed the battle o’er,

  And when far off, amid the cries of maddened men of war,

  She saw Camilla win the death by bitter ill award,

  She groaned, and from her inmost heart such words as these she poured:

  “Alas, O maid, thou payest it o’ermuch and bitterly,

  That thou unto the Teucrian folk the challenge needs must cry.

  Ah, nothing it availed thee, maid, through deserts of the deer

  To worship Dian, or our shafts upon thy back to bear.

  And yet the Queen hath left thee not alone amidst of shame

  In grip of death; nor shalt thou die a death without a name

  In people’s ears; nor yet as one all unavenged be told:

  For whosoever wronged thy flesh with wounding overbold

  Shall pay the penalty well earned.”

  Now ‘neath the mountains high,

  All clad with shady holm-oaks o’er, a mighty mound doth lie,

  The tomb of King Dercennus called, Laurentum’s lord of yore;

  And thitherward her speedy feet that loveliest Goddess bore,

  And there abiding, Arruns spied from off the high-heaped mound

  But when the wretch in gleaming arms puffed up with pride she found,

  “Why,” quoth she, “dost thou turn away? Here, hither wend thy feet;

  Come here and perish; take reward for slain Camilla meet!

  But ah, for death of such an one is Dian’s arrow due?”

  Then from the Thracian quiver gilt a wingèd shaft she drew,

  And bent the horn-wrought bow withal with heart on slaying set:

  Far drew she, till the curving horns each with the other met:

  Alike she strained her hands to shoot; the left hand felt the steel,

  The right that drew the string aback her very breast did feel.

  Then straightway Arruns heard in one the bow-string how it rung,

  And whistle of the wind; and there the shaft within him clung:

  His fellows leave him dying there and groaning out his last,

  Forgotten in an unknown field, amid the sand downcast;

  While to Olympus on the wing straightway is Opis borne.

  But now first flees Camilla’s band, their Queen and mistress lorn,

  And flee the beaten Rutuli, and fierce Atinas flees;

  The Dukes of men in disarray, the broken companies

  Now turn their faces to the town, and seek a sheltering place,

  Nor yet may any turn with spear upon the Teucrian chase,

  That beareth death of men in hand, or bar the homeward road:

  Cast back on fainting shoulders now the loose bow hangs a load;

  The horny hoofs of four-foot things shake down the dusty mead,

  The mirky cloud of rolling dust doth ever townward speed;

  And mothers beating of their breasts stand on the watch-towers high,

  And cast abroad their woman’s wail up to the starry sky.

  But they who in their fleeing first break through the open doors,

  In mingled tumult on their backs a crowd of foemen pours;

  Nor do they ‘scape a wretched death: there, on the threshold-stead,

  Within their fathers’ walls, amidst the peace of home, they shed

  The lives from out their bodies pierced: then some men shut the gate,

  Nor durst they open to their friends, or take in them that wait

  Praying without; and there indeed is woeful slaughter towards

  Of them that fence the wall with swords, and rushers on the swords.

  Those shut out ‘neath the very eyes of w
eeping kith and kin,

  Some headlong down the ditches roll, by fleeing rout thrust in;

  Some blindly and with loosened rein spur on their steeds to meet

  As battering-rams the very gates, the ruthless door-leaves beat

  And now, in agony of fight, the mothers on the walls,

  E’en as they saw Camilla do, (so love of country calls),

  With hurrying hands the javelins cast, and in the iron’s stead

  Make shift of hardened pale of oak and stake with half-burned head.

  Hot-heart they are, afire to die the first their town to save.

  Meanwhile to Turnus in the woods sweeps in that cruel wave

  Of tidings: trouble measureless doth Acca to him bring, —

  The wasting of the Volscian host, Camilla’s murdering,

  The onset of the baneful foe with favouring Mars to aid;

  The ruin of all things; present fear e’en on the city laid,

  He, madly wroth, (for even so Jove’s dreadful might deemed good),

  Leaveth the hills’ beleaguerment and mirky rugged wood.

  Scarce was he out of sight thereof, and nigh his camp to win,

  When mid the opened pass and bare Æneas entereth in,

  Climbeth the ridge, and slippeth through the thicket’s shadowy night.

  So either toward the city fares with all their battle-might,

  And no long space of way indeed there was betwixt the twain,

  For e’en so soon as far away Æneas saw the plain

  Through dusty reek, and saw withal Laurentum’s host afar,

  Turnus the fierce Æneas knew in all array of war,

  And heard the marching footmen tramp, and coming horses neigh.

  Then had they fallen to fight forthwith and tried the battle-play,

  But rosy Phoebus sank adown amidst Iberian flood

  His weary steeds, and brought back Night upon the failing day.

  So there they pitch before the town and make their ramparts good.

  BOOK XII.

  ARGUMENT.

  HEREIN ARE ÆNEAS AND TURNUS PLEDGED TO FIGHT THE MATTER OUT IN SINGLE COMBAT; BUT THE LATINS BREAK THE PEACE AND ÆNEAS IS WOUNDED: IN THE END ÆNEAS MEETETH TURNUS INDEED, AND SLAYETH HIM.

  When Turnus sees the Latin men all failing from the sword,

  Broken by Mars, and that all folk bethink them of his word.

  And fall to mark him with their eyes, then fell he burns indeed,

  And raises up his heart aloft; e’en as in Punic mead

  The smitten lion, hurt in breast by steel from hunters’ ring,

  Setteth the battle in array, and joyfully doth fling