Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

  But meanwhile at Jove’s prompting fiery Mezentius takes his place in the battle and assails the triumphant Teucrians. The Tyrrhene ranks gather round him, and all at once in unison shower their darts down on the hated foe. As a cliff that juts into the waste of waves, meeting the raging winds and breasting the deep, endures all the threatening force of sky and sea, itself fixed immovable, so he dashes to earth Hebrus son of Dolichaon, and with him Latagus, and Palmus as he fled; catching Latagus full front in the face with a vast fragment of mountain rock, while Palmus he hamstrings, and leaves him rolling helpless; his armour he gives Lausus to wear on his shoulders, and the plumes to fix on his crest. With them fall Evanthes the Phrygian, and Mimas, fellow and birthmate of Paris; for on one night Theano bore him to his father Amycus, and the queen, Cisseus’ daughter, was delivered of Paris the firebrand; he sleeps in his fathers’ city; Mimas lies a stranger on the Laurentian coast. And as the boar driven by snapping hounds from the mountain heights, [708-744] many a year hidden by Vesulus in his pines, many an one fed in the Laurentian marsh among the reedy forest, once come among the nets, halts and snorts savagely, with shoulders bristling up, and none of them dare be wrathful or draw closer, but they shower from a safe distance their darts and cries; even thus none of those whose anger is righteous against Mezentius have courage to meet him with drawn weapon: far off they provoke him with missiles and huge clamour, and he turns slow and fearless round about, grinding his teeth as he shakes the spears off his shield. From the bounds of ancient Corythus Acron the Greek had come, leaving for exile a bride half won. Seeing him afar dealing confusion amid the ranks, in crimson plumes and his plighted wife’s purple, — as an unpastured lion often ranging the deep coverts, for madness of hunger urges him, if he haply catches sight of a timorous roe or high-antlered stag, he gapes hugely for joy, and, with mane on end, clings crouching over its flesh, his cruel mouth bathed in reeking gore. . . . so Mezentius darts lightly among the thick of the enemy. Hapless Acron goes down, and, spurning the dark ground, gasps out his life, and covers the broken javelin with his blood. But the victor deigned not to bring down Orodes with the blind wound of his flying lance as he fled; full face to face he meets him, and engages man with man, conqueror not by stealth but armed valour. Then, as with planted foot, he thrust him off the spear: ‘O men,’ he cries, ‘Orodes lies low, no slight arm of the war.’ His comrades shout after him the glad battle chant. And the dying man: ‘Not unavenged nor long, whoso thou art, shalt thou be glad in victory: thee too an equal fate marks down, and in these fields thou shalt soon lie.’ And smiling on him half wrathfully, Mezentius: ‘Now die thou. But of me let the father of gods and king of men take counsel.’ So saying, he drew the weapon out of his body. [745-780]Grim rest and iron slumber seal his eyes; his lids close on everlasting night. Caedicus slays Alcathoüs, Sacrator Hydaspes, Rapo Parthenius and the grim strength of Orses, Messapus Clonius and Erichaetes son of Lycaon, the one when his reinless horse stumbling had flung him to the ground, the other as they met on foot. And Agis the Lycian advanced only to be struck from horseback by Valerus, brave as his ancestry; and Thronius by Salius, and Salius by Nealces with treacherous arrow-shot that stole from far.

  Now the heavy hand of war dealt equal woe and counterchange of death; in even balance conquerors and conquered slew and fell; nor one nor other knows of retreat. The gods in Jove’s house pity the vain rage of either and all the agonising of mortals. From one side Venus, from one opposite Juno, daughter of Saturn, looks on; pale Tisiphone rages among the many thousand men. But now, brandishing his huge spear, Mezentius strides glooming over the plain, vast as Orion when, with planted foot, he cleaves his way through the vast pools of mid-ocean and his shoulder overtops the waves, or carrying an ancient mountain-ash from the hilltops, paces the ground and hides his head among the clouds: so moves Mezentius, huge in arms. Aeneas, espying him in the deep columns, makes on to meet him. He remains, unterrified, awaiting his noble foe, steady in his own bulk, and measures with his eye the fair range for a spear. ‘This right hand’s divinity, and the weapon I poise and hurl, now be favourable! thee, Lausus, I vow for the live trophy of Aeneas, dressed in the spoils stripped from the pirate’s body.’ He ends, and throws the spear whistling from far; it flies on, glancing from the shield, and pierces illustrious Antores hard by him sidelong in the flank; Antores, companion of Hercules, who, sent thither from Argos, had stayed by Evander, and [781-814] settled in an Italian town. Hapless he goes down with a wound not his own, and in death gazes on the sky, and Argos is sweet in his remembrance. Then good Aeneas throws his spear; through the sheltering circle of threefold brass, through the canvas lining and fabric of triple-sewn bull-hide it went, and sank deep in his groin; yet carried not its strength home. Quickly Aeneas, joyful at the sight of the Tyrrhenian’s blood, snatches his sword from his thigh and presses hotly on his struggling enemy. Lausus saw, and groaned deeply for love of his dear father, and tears rolled over his face. Here will I not keep silence of thy hard death-doom and thine excellent deeds (if in any wise things wrought in the old time may win belief), nor of thyself, O fitly remembered! He, helpless and trammelled, withdrew backward, the deadly spear-shaft trailing from his shield. The youth broke forward and plunged into the fight; and even as Aeneas’ hand rose to bring down the blow, he caught up his point and held him in delay. His comrades follow up with loud cries, so the father may withdraw in shelter of his son’s shield, while they shower their darts and bear back the enemy with missiles from a distance. Aeneas wrathfully keeps covered. And as when storm-clouds pour down in streaming hail, all the ploughmen and country-folk scatter off the fields, and the wayfarer cowers safe in his fortress, a stream’s bank or deep arch of rock, while the rain falls, that they may do their day’s labour when sunlight reappears; thus under the circling storm of weapons Aeneas sustains the cloud of war till it thunders itself all away, and calls on Lausus, on Lausus, with chiding and menace: ‘Whither runnest thou on thy death, with daring beyond thy strength? thine affection betrays thee into rashness.’ But none the less he leaps madly on; and now wrath rises higher and fiercer in the Dardanian captain, and the Fates pass Lausus’ last [815-849] threads through their hand; for Aeneas drives the sword strongly right through him up all its length: the point pierced the light shield that armed his assailant, and the tunic sewn by his mother with flexible gold: blood filled his breast, and the life left the body and passed mourning through the air to the under world. But when Anchises’ son saw the look on the dying face, the face pale in wonderful wise, he sighed deeply in pity, and reached forth his hand, as the likeness of his own filial affection flashed across his soul. ‘What now shall good Aeneas give thee, what, O poor boy, for this thy praise, for guerdon of a nature so noble? Keep for thine own the armour thou didst delight in; and I restore thee, if that matters aught at all, to the ghosts and ashes of thy parents. Yet thou shalt have this sad comfort in thy piteous death, thou fallest by great Aeneas’ hand.’ Then, chiding his hesitating comrades, he lifts him from the ground, dabbling the comely-ranged tresses with blood.

  Meanwhile his father, by the wave of the Tiber river, stanched his wound with water, and rested his body against a tree-trunk. Hard by his brazen helmet hangs from the boughs, and the heavy armour lies quietly on the meadow. Chosen men stand round; he, sick and panting, leans his neck and lets his beard spread down over his chest. Many a time he asks for Lausus, and sends many an one to call him back and carry a parent’s sad commands. But Lausus his weeping comrades were bearing lifeless on his armour, mighty and mightily wounded to death. Afar the soul prophetic of ill knew their lamentation: he soils his gray hairs plenteously with dust, and stretches both hands on high, and clings on the dead. ‘Was life’s hold on me so sweet, O my son, that I let him I bore receive the hostile stroke in my room? Am I, thy father, saved by these wounds of thine, and living by thy death? Alas and woe! [850-885] now at last exile is bitter! now the wound is driven deep! And I, even I, O my son, stained thy name with crime,
driven in hatred from the throne and sceptre of my fathers. I owed vengeance to my country and my people’s resentment; might mine own guilty life but have paid it by every form of death! Now I live, and leave not yet man and day; but I will.’ As he speaks thus he raises himself painfully on his thigh, and though the violence of the deep wound cripples him, yet unbroken he bids his horse be brought, his beauty, his comfort, that ever had carried him victorious out of war, and says these words to the grieving beast: ‘Rhoebus, we have lived long, if aught at all lasts long with mortals. This day wilt thou either bring back in triumph the gory head and spoils of Aeneas, and we will avenge Lausus’ agonies; or if no force opens a way, thou wilt die with me: for I deem not, bravest, thou wilt deign to bear an alien rule and a Teucrian lord.’ He spoke, and took his welcome seat on the back he knew, loading both hands with keen javelins, his head sheathed in glittering brass and shaggy horse-hair plumes. Thus he galloped in. Through his heart sweep together the vast tides of shame and mingling madness and grief. And with that he thrice loudly calls Aeneas. Aeneas knew the call, and makes glad invocation: ‘So the father of gods speed me, so Apollo on high: do thou essay to close hand to hand. . . .’ Thus much he utters, and moves up to meet him with levelled spear. And he: ‘Why seek to frighten me, fierce man, now my son is gone? this was thy one road to my ruin. We shrink not from death, nor relent before any of thy gods. Cease; for I come to my death, first carrying these gifts for thee.’ He spoke, and hurled a weapon at his enemy; then plants another and yet another as he darts round in a wide circle; but they are stayed on the boss of gold. Thrice he rode wheeling close round him by the [886-908] left, and sent his weapons strongly in; thrice the Trojan hero turns round, taking the grim forest on his brazen guard. Then, weary of lingering in delay on delay, and plucking out spear-head after spear-head, and hard pressed in the uneven match of battle, with much counselling of spirit now at last he bursts forth, and sends his spear at the war-horse between the hollows of the temples. The creature raises itself erect, beating the air with its feet, throws its rider, and coming down after him in an entangled mass, slips its shoulder as it tumbles forward. The cries of Trojans and Latins kindle the sky. Aeneas rushes up, drawing his sword from the scabbard, and thus above him: ‘Where now is gallant Mezentius and all his fierce spirit?’ Thereto the Tyrrhenian, as he came to himself and gazing up drank the air of heaven: ‘Bitter foe, why these taunts and menaces of death? Naught forbids my slaughter; neither on such terms came I to battle, nor did my Lausus make treaty for this between me and thee. This one thing I beseech thee, by whatsoever grace a vanquished enemy may claim: allow my body sepulture. I know I am girt by the bitter hatred of my people. Stay, I implore, their fury, and grant me and my son union in the tomb.’ So speaks he, and takes the sword in his throat unfalteringly, and the lifeblood spreads in a wave over his armour.

  BOOK ELEVENTH

  THE COUNCIL OF THE LATINS, AND THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CAMILLA

  Meanwhile Dawn arose forth of Ocean. Aeneas, though the charge presses to give a space for burial of his comrades, and his mind is in the tumult of death, began to pay the gods his vows of victory with the breaking of the East. He plants on a mound a mighty oak with boughs lopped away on every hand, and arrays it in the gleaming arms stripped from Mezentius the captain, a trophy to thee, mighty Lord of War; he fixes on it the plumes dripping with blood, the broken spears, and the corslet struck and pierced in twelve places; he ties the shield of brass on his left hand, and hangs from his neck the ivory sword. Then among his joyous comrades (for all the throng of his captains girt him close about) he begins in these words of cheer:

  ‘The greatest deed is done, O men; be all fear gone for what remains. These are the spoils of a haughty king, the first-fruits won from him; my hands have set Mezentius here. Now our way lies to the walls of the Latin king. Prepare your arms in courage, and let your hopes anticipate the war; let no ignorant delay hinder or tardy thoughts of fear keep us back, so soon as heaven grant us to pluck up the standards and lead our army from the camp. Meanwhile let us commit to earth the unburied bodies of our comrades, since deep in Acheron this honour is left alone. Go,’ says he, ‘grace with the last gifts those noble souls whose blood won us this land for ours; and first let Pallas be sent to Evander’s mourning city, he whose valour failed not when the day of darkness took him, and the bitter wave of death.’

  So speaks he weeping, and retraces his steps to the door, where aged Acoetes watched Pallas’ lifeless body laid out for burial; once armour-bearer to Evander in Parrhasia, but now gone forth with darker omens, appointed attendant to his darling foster-child. Around is the whole train of servants, with a crowd of Trojans, and the Ilian women with hair unbound in mourning after their fashion. When Aeneas entered at the high doorway they beat their breasts and raise a loud wail aloft, and the palace moans to their grievous lamentation. Himself, when he saw the pillowed head and fair face of Pallas, and on his smooth breast the gaping wound of the Ausonian spear-head, speaks thus with welling tears:

  ‘Did Fortune in her joyous coming,’ he cries, ‘O luckless boy, grudge thee the sight of our realm, and a triumphal entry to thy father’s dwelling? Not this promise of thee had I given to Evander thy sire at my departure, when he embraced me as I went and bade me speed to a wide empire, and yet warned me in fear that the men were valiant, the people obstinate in battle. And now he, fast ensnared by empty hope, perchance offers vows and heaps gifts on his altars; we, a mourning train, go in hollow honour by his corpse, who now owes no more to aught in heaven. Unhappy! thou wilt see thy son cruelly slain; is this our triumphal return awaited? is this my strong assurance? Ah me, what a shield is lost, mine Iülus, to Ausonia and to thee!’

  This lament done, he bids raise the piteous body, and sends a thousand men chosen from all his army for the last honour of escort, to mingle in the father’s tears; a small comfort in a great sorrow, yet the unhappy parent’s due. Others quickly plait a soft wicker bier of arbutus rods and oak shoots, and shadow the heaped pillows with a leafy covering. Here they lay him, high on their rustic strewing; even as some tender violet or drooping hyacinth-blossom plucked by a maiden’s finger, whose sheen and whose grace is not yet departed, but no more does Earth the mother feed it or lend it strength. Then Aeneas bore forth two purple garments stiff with gold, that Sidonian Dido’s own hands, happy over their work, had once wrought for him, and shot the warp with delicate gold. One of these he sadly folds round him, a last honour, and veils in its covering the tresses destined to the fire; and heaps up besides many a Laurentine battle-prize, and bids his spoils pass forth in long train; with them the horses and arms whereof he had stripped the enemy, and those, with hands tied behind their back, whom he would send as nether offering to his ghost, and sprinkle the blood of their slaying on the flame. Also he bids his captains carry stems dressed in the armour of the foe, and fix on them the hostile names. Unhappy Acoetes is led along, outworn with age, he smites his breast and rends his face, and flings himself forward all along the ground. Likewise they lead forth the chariot bathed in Rutulian blood; behind goes weeping Aethon the war-horse, his trappings laid away, and big drops wet his face. Others bear his spear and helmet, for all else is Turnus’ prize. Then follow in mourning array the Teucrians and all the Tyrrhenians, and the Arcadians with arms reversed. When the whole long escorting file had taken its way, Aeneas stopped, and sighing deep, pursued thus: ‘Once again war’s dreadful destiny calls us hence to other tears: hail thou for evermore, O princely Pallas, and for evermore farewell.’ And without more words he bent his way to the high walls and advanced towards his camp.

  And now envoys were there from the Latin city with wreathed boughs of olive, praying him of his grace to restore the dead that lay strewn by the sword over the plain, and let them go to their earthy grave: no war lasts with men conquered and bereft of breath; let this indulgence be given to men once called friends and fathers of their brides. To them Aeneas grants leave in kind and courteous wise, spurn
ing not their prayer, and goes on in these words: ‘What spite of fortune, O Latins, hath entangled you in the toils of war, and made you fly our friendship? Plead you for peace to the lifeless bodies that the battle-lot hath slain? I would fain grant it even to the living. Neither have I come but because destiny had given me this place to dwell in; nor wage I war with your people; your king it is who hath broken our covenant and preferred to trust himself to Turnus’ arms. Fitter it were Turnus had faced death to-day. If he will fight out the war and expel the Teucrians, it had been well to meet me here in arms; so had he lived to whom life were granted of heaven or his own right hand. Now go, and kindle the fire beneath your hapless countrymen.’ Aeneas ended: they stood dumb in silence, with faces bent steadfastly in mutual gaze. Then aged Drances, ever young Turnus’ assailant in hatred and accusation, with the words of his mouth thus answers him again: