Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

  At last, hearing of the slaughter of their men, the Teucrian captains, Mnestheus and gallant Serestus, come up, and see their comrades in disordered flight and the foe [781-814] let in. And Mnestheus: ‘Whither next, whither press you in flight? what other walls, what farther city have you yet? Shall one man, and he girt in on all sides, fellow-citizens, by your entrenchments, thus unchecked deal devastation throughout our city, and send all our best warriors to the under world? Have you no pity, no shame, cowards, for your unhappy country, for your ancient gods, for great Aeneas?’

  Kindled by such words, they take heart and rally in dense array. Little by little Turnus drew away from the fight towards the river, and the side encircled by the stream: the more bravely the Teucrians press on him with loud shouts and thickening masses, even as a band that fall on a wrathful lion with levelled weapons, but he, frightened back, retires surly and grim-glaring; and neither does wrath nor courage let him turn his back, nor can he make head, for all that he desires it, against the surrounding arms and men. Even thus Turnus draws lingeringly backward, with unhastened steps, and soul boiling in anger. Nay, twice even then did he charge amid the enemy, twice drove them in flying rout along the walls. But all the force of the camp gathers hastily up; nor does Juno, daughter of Saturn, dare to supply him strength to countervail; for Jupiter sent Iris down through the aery sky, bearing stern orders to his sister that Turnus shall withdraw from the high Trojan town. Therefore neither with shield nor hand can he keep his ground, so overpoweringly from all sides comes upon him the storm of weapons. About the hollows of his temples the helmet rings with incessant clash, and the solid brass is riven beneath the stones; the horsehair crest is rent away; the shield-boss avails not under the blows; Mnestheus thunders on with his Trojans, and pours in a storm of spears. All over him the sweat trickles and pours in swart stream, and no breathing space is given; sick gasps shake [815-818] his exhausted limbs. Then at last, with a headlong bound, he leapt fully armed into the river; the river’s yellow eddies opened for him as he came, and the buoyant water brought him up, and, washing away the slaughter, returned him triumphant to his comrades.

  BOOK TENTH

  THE BATTLE ON THE BEACH

  Meanwhile the heavenly house omnipotent unfolds her doors, and the father of gods and king of men calls a council in the starry dwelling; whence he looks sheer down on the whole earth, the Dardanian camp, and the peoples of Latium. They sit down within from doorway to doorway: their lord begins:

  ‘Lords of heaven, wherefore is your decree turned back, and your minds thus jealously at strife? I forbade Italy to join battle with the Teucrians; why this quarrel in face of my injunction? What terror hath bidden one or another run after arms and tempt the sword? The due time of battle will arrive, call it not forth, when furious Carthage shall one day sunder the Alps to hurl ruin full on the towers of Rome. Then hatred may grapple with hatred, then hostilities be opened; now let them be, and cheerfully join in the treaty we ordain.’

  Thus Jupiter in brief; but not briefly golden Venus returns in answer: . . .

  ‘O Lord, O everlasting Governor of men and things — for what else may we yet supplicate? — beholdest thou how the Rutulians brave it, and Turnus, borne charioted through the ranks, proudly sweeps down the tide of battle? Bar and bulwark no longer shelter the Trojans; nay, within the gates and even on the mounded walls they clash in battle and make the trenches swim with blood. Aeneas is away and ignorant. Wilt thou never then let our leaguer be raised? Again a foe overhangs the walls of infant Troy; and another army, and a second son of Tydeus rises from Aetolian Arpi against the Trojans. Truly I think my wounds are yet to come, and I thy child am keeping some mortal weapons idle. If the Trojans steered for Italy without thy leave and defiant of thy deity, let them expiate their sin; aid not such with thy succour. But if so many oracles guided them, given by god and ghost, why may aught now reverse thine ordinance or write destiny anew? Why should I recall the fleets burned on the coast of Eryx? why the king of storms, and the raging winds roused from Aeolia, or Iris driven down the clouds? Now hell too is stirred (this share of the world was yet untried) and Allecto suddenly let loose above to riot through the Italian towns. In no wise am I moved for empire; that was our hope while Fortune stood; let those conquer whom thou wilt. If thy cruel wife leave no region free to Teucrians, by the smoking ruins of desolated Troy, O father, I beseech thee, grant Ascanius unhurt retreat from arms, grant me my child’s life. Aeneas may well be tossed over unknown seas and follow what path soever fortune open to him; him let me avail to shelter and withdraw from the turmoil of battle. Amathus is mine, high Paphos and Cythera, and my house of Idalia; here, far from arms, let him spend an inglorious life. Bid Carthage in high lordship rule Ausonia; there will be nothing there to check the Tyrian cities. What help was it for the Trojans to escape war’s doom and thread their flight through Argive fires, to have exhausted all those perils of sea and desolate lands, while they seek Latium and the towers of a Troy rebuilt? Were it not better to have clung to the last ashes of their country, and the ground where once was Troy? Give back, I pray, Xanthus and Simoïs to a wretched people, and let the Teucrians again, O Lord, circle through the fates of Ilium.’

  Then Queen Juno, swift and passionate:

  ‘Why forcest thou me to break long silence and proclaim my hidden pain? Hath any man or god constrained Aeneas to court war or make armed attack on King Latinus? In oracular guidance he steered for Italy: be it so: he whom raving Cassandra sent on his way! Did we urge him to quit the camp or entrust his life to the winds? to give the issue of war and the charge of his ramparts to a child? to stir the loyalty of Tyrrhenia or throw peaceful nations into tumult? What god, what potent cruelty of ours, hath driven him on his hurt? Where is Juno in this, or Iris sped down the clouds? It shocks thee that Italians should enring an infant Troy with flame, and Turnus set foot on his own ancestral soil — he, grandchild of Pilumnus, son of Venilia the goddess: how, that the dark brands of Troy assail the Latins? that Trojans subjugate and plunder fields not their own? how, that they choose their brides and tear plighted bosom from bosom? that their gestures plead for peace, and their ships are lined with arms? Thou canst steal thine Aeneas from Grecian hands, and spread before them a human semblance of mist and empty air; thou canst turn his fleet into nymphs of like number: is it dreadful if we retaliate with any aid to the Rutulians? Aeneas is away and ignorant; away and ignorant let him be. Paphos is thine and Idalium, thine high Cythera; why meddlest thou with fierce spirits and a city big with war? Is it we who would overthrow the tottering state of Phrygia? we? or he who brought the Achaeans down on the hapless Trojans? who made Europe and Asia bristle up in arms, and whose theft shattered the alliance? Was it in my guidance the adulterous Dardanian broke into Sparta? or did I send the shafts of passion that kindled war? Then terror for thy children had graced thee; too late now dost thou rise with unjust complaints, and reproaches leave thy lips in vain.’

  Thus Juno pleaded; and all the heavenly people murmured in diverse consent; even as rising gusts murmur when caught in the forests, and eddy in blind moanings, betraying to sailors the gale’s approach. Then the Lord omnipotent and primal power of the world begins; as he speaks the high house of the gods and trembling floor of earth sink to silence; silent is the deep sky, and the breezes are stilled; ocean hushes his waters into calm.

  ‘Take then to heart and lay deep these words of mine. Since it may not be that Ausonians and Teucrians join alliance, and your quarrel finds no term, to-day, what fortune each wins, what hope each follows, be he Trojan or Rutulian, I will hold in even poise; whether it be Italy’s fate or Trojan blundering and ill advice that holds the camp in leaguer. Nor do I acquit the Rutulians. Each as he hath begun shall work out his destiny. Jupiter is one and king over all; the fates will find their way.’ By his brother’s infernal streams, by the banks of the pitchy black-boiling chasm he signed assent, and made all Olympus quiver at his nod. Here speaking ended: thereon Jupiter rises
from his golden throne, and the heavenly people surround and escort him to the doorway.

  Meanwhile the Rutulians press round all the gates, dealing grim slaughter and girdling the walls with flame. But the army of the Aeneadae are held leaguered within their trenches, with no hope of retreat. They stand helpless and disconsolate on their high towers, and their thin ring girdles the walls, — Asius, son of Imbrasus, and Thymoetes, son of Hicetaon, and the two Assaraci, and Castor, and old Thymbris together in the front rank: by them Clarus and [126-160]Themon, both full brothers to Sarpedon, out of high Lycia. Acmon of Lyrnesus, great as his father Clytius, or his brother Mnestheus, carries a stone, straining all his vast frame to the huge mountain fragment. Emulously they keep their guard, these with javelins, those with stones, and wield fire and fit arrows on the string. Amid them he, Venus’ fittest care, lo! the Dardanian boy, his graceful head uncovered, shines even as a gem set in red gold on ornament of throat or head, or even as gleaming ivory cunningly inlaid in boxwood or Orician terebinth; his tresses lie spread over his milk-white neck, bound by a flexible circlet of gold. Thee, too, Ismarus, proud nations saw aiming wounds and arming thy shafts with poison, — thee, of house illustrious in Maeonia, where the rich tilth is wrought by men’s hands, and Pactolus waters it with gold. There too was Mnestheus, exalted in fame as he who erewhile had driven Turnus from the ramparts; and Capys, from whom is drawn the name of the Campanian city.

  They had closed in grim war’s mutual conflict; Aeneas, while night was yet deep, clove the seas. For when, leaving Evander for the Etruscan camp, he hath audience of the king, and tells the king of his name and race, and what he asks or offers, instructs him of the arms Mezentius is winning to his side, and of Turnus’ overbearing spirit, reminds him what is all the certainty of human things, and mingles all with entreaties; delaying not, Tarchon joins forces and strikes alliance. Then, freed from the oracle, the Lydian people man their fleet, laid by divine ordinance in the foreign captain’s hand. Aeneas’ galley keeps in front, with the lions of Phrygia fastened on her prow, above them overhanging Ida, sight most welcome to the Trojan exiles. Here great Aeneas sits revolving the changing issues of war; and Pallas, clinging on his left side, asks now [161-195] of the stars and their pathway through the dark night, now of his fortunes by land and sea.

  Open now the gates of Helicon, goddesses, and stir the song of the band that come the while with Aeneas from the Tuscan borders, and sail in armed ships overseas.

  First in the brazen-plated Tiger Massicus cuts the flood; beneath him are ranked a thousand men who have left Clusium town and the city of Cosae; their weapons are arrows, and light quivers on the shoulder, and their deadly bow. With him goes grim Abas, all his train in shining armour, and a gilded Apollo glittering astern. To him Populonia had given six hundred of her children, tried in war, but Ilva three hundred, the island rich in unexhausted mines of steel. Third Asilas, interpreter between men and gods, master of the entrails of beasts and the stars in heaven, of speech of birds and ominous lightning flashes, draws a thousand men after him in serried lines bristling with spears, bidden to his command from Pisa city, of Alphaean birth on Etruscan soil. Astyr follows, excellent in beauty, Astyr, confident in his horse and glancing arms. Three hundred more — all have one heart to follow — come from the householders of Caere and the fields of Minio, and ancient Pyrgi, and fever-stricken Graviscae.

  Let me not pass thee by, O Cinyras, bravest in war of Ligurian captains, and thee, Cupavo, with thy scant company, from whose crest rise the swan plumes, fault, O Love, of thee and thine, and blazonment of his father’s form. For they tell that Cycnus, in grief for his beloved Phaëthon, while he sings and soothes his woeful love with music amid the shady sisterhood of poplar boughs, drew over him the soft plumage of white old age, and left earth and passed crying through the sky. His son, followed on shipboard with a band of like age, sweeps the huge Centaur forward with his oars; he leans over the water, and [196-227] threatens the waves with a vast rock he holds on high, and furrows the deep seas with his length of keel.

  He too calls a train from his native coasts, Ocnus, son of prophetic Manto and the river of Tuscany, who gave thee, O Mantua, ramparts and his mother’s name; Mantua, rich in ancestry, yet not all of one blood, a threefold race, and under each race four cantons; herself she is the cantons’ head, and her strength is of Tuscan blood. From her likewise hath Mezentius five hundred in arms against him, whom Mincius, child of Benacus, draped in gray reeds, led to battle in his advancing pine. Aulestes moves on heavily, smiting the waves with the swinging forest of an hundred oars; the channels foam as they sweep the sea-floor. He sails in the vast Triton, who amazes the blue waterways with his shell, and swims on with shaggy front, in human show from the flank upward; his belly ends in a dragon; beneath the monster’s breast the wave gurgles into foam. So many were the chosen princes who went in thirty ships to aid Troy, and cut the salt plains with brazen prow.

  And now day had faded from the sky, and gracious Phoebe trod mid-heaven in the chariot of her nightly wandering: Aeneas, for his charge allows not rest to his limbs, himself sits guiding the tiller and managing the sails. And lo, in middle course a band of his own fellow-voyagers meets him, the nymphs whom bountiful Cybele had bidden be gods of the sea, and turn to nymphs from ships; they swam on in even order, and cleft the flood, as many as erewhile, brazen-plated prows, had anchored on the beach. From far they know their king, and wheel their bands about him, and Cymodocea, their readiest in speech, comes up behind, catching the stern with her right hand: her back rises out, and her left hand oars her passage through the silent water. Then she thus [228-261] accosts her amazed lord: ‘Wakest thou, seed of gods, Aeneas? wake, and loosen the sheets of thy sails. We are thy fleet, Idaean pines from the holy hill, now nymphs of the sea. When the treacherous Rutulian urged us headlong with sword and fire, unwillingly we broke thy bonds, and we search for thee over ocean. This new guise our Lady made for us in pity, and granted us to be goddesses and spend our life under the waves. But thy boy Ascanius is held within wall and trench among the Latin weapons and the rough edge of war. Already the Arcadian cavalry and the brave Etruscan together hold the appointed ground. Turnus’ plan is fixed to bar their way with his squadrons, that they may not reach the camp. Up and arise, and ere the coming of the Dawn bid thy crews be called to arms; and take thou the shield which the Lord of Fire forged for victory and rimmed about with gold. To-morrow’s daylight, if thou deem not my words vain, shall see Rutulians heaped high in slaughter.’ She ended, and, as she went, pushed the tall ship on with her hand wisely and well; the ship shoots through the water fleeter than javelin or windswift arrow. Thereat the rest quicken their speed. The son of Anchises of Troy is himself deep in bewilderment; yet the omen cheers his courage. Then looking on the heavenly vault, he briefly prays: ‘O gracious upon Ida, mother of gods, whose delight is in Dindymus and turreted cities and lions coupled to thy rein, do thou lead me in battle, do thou meetly prosper thine augury, and draw nigh thy Phrygians, goddess, with favourable feet.’ Thus much he spoke; and meanwhile the broad light of returning day now began to pour in, and chased away the night. First he commands his comrades to follow his signals, brace their courage to arms and prepare for battle. And now his Trojans and his camp are in his sight as he stands high astern, when next he lifts the [262-296] blazing shield on his left arm. The Dardanians on the walls raise a shout to the sky. Hope comes to kindle wrath; they hurl their missiles strongly; even as under black clouds cranes from the Strymon utter their signal notes and sail clamouring across the sky, and noisily stream down the gale. But this seemed marvellous to the Rutulian king and the captains of Ausonia, till looking back they see the ships steering for the beach, and all the sea as a single fleet sailing in. His helmet-spike blazes, flame pours from the cresting plumes, and the golden shield-boss spouts floods of fire; even as when in transparent night comets glow blood-red and drear, or the splendour of Sirius, that brings drought and sicknesses on wretched men,
rises and saddens the sky with malignant beams.

  Yet gallant Turnus in unfailing confidence will prevent them on the shore and repel their approach to land. ‘What your prayers have sought is given, the sweep of the sword-arm. The god of battles is in the hands of men. Now remember each his wife and home: now recall the high deeds of our fathers’ honour. Let us challenge meeting at the water’s edge, while they waver and their feet yet slip as they disembark. Fortune aids daring. . . .’ So speaks he, and counsels inly whom he shall lead to meet them, whom leave in charge of the leaguered walls.

  Meanwhile Aeneas lands his allies by gangways from the high ships. Many watch the retreat and slack of the sea, and leap boldly into the shoal water; others slide down the oars. Tarchon, marking the shore where the shallows do not seethe and plash with broken water, but the sea glides up and spreads its tide unbroken, suddenly turns his bows to land and implores his comrades: ‘Now, O chosen crew, bend strongly to your oars; lift your ships, make them go; let the prows cleave this hostile land and the keel plough [297-330] herself a furrow. I will let my vessel break up on such harbourage if once she takes the land.’ When Tarchon had spoken in such wise, his comrades rise on their oar-blades and carry their ships in foam towards the Latin fields, till the prows are fast on dry land and all the keels are aground unhurt. But not thy galley, Tarchon; for she dashes on a shoal, and swings long swaying on the cruel bank, pitching and slapping the flood, then breaks up, and lands her crew among the waves. Broken oars and floating thwarts entangle them, and the ebbing wave sucks their feet away.