The Aeneid of Virgil

Meanwhile charge is given to Messapus to blockade the gates with pickets of sentries, and encircle the works with watchfires. Twice seven are chosen to guard the walls with Rutulian soldiery; but each leads an hundred men, crimson-plumed and sparkling in gold. They spread themselves about and keep alternate watch, and, lying along the grass, drink deep and set brazen bowls atilt. The fires glow, and the sentinels spend the night awake in games. . . .

Down on this the Trojans look forth from the rampart, as they hold the height in arms; withal in fearful haste they try the gates and lay gangways from bastion to bastion, and bring up missiles. Mnestheus and valiant Serestus speed the work, whom lord Aeneas appointed, should misfortune call, to be rulers of the people and governors of the state. All their battalions, sharing the lot of peril, keep watch along the walls, and take alternate charge of all that requires defence.

On guard at the gate was Nisus son of Hyrtacus, most valiant in arms, whom Ida the huntress had sent in Aeneas' company with fleet javelin and light arrows; and by his side Euryalus, fairest of all the Aeneadae and the wearers of Trojan arms, showing on his unshaven boy's face the first bloom of youth. These two were one in affection, and charged in battle together; now likewise their common guard kept the gate. Nisus cries: 'Lend the gods this fervour to the soul, Euryalus? or does fatal passion become a proper god to each? Long ere now my soul is restless to begin some great deed of arms, and quiet peace delights it not. Thou seest how confident in fortune the Rutulians stand. Their lights glimmer far apart; buried in drunken sleep they have sunk to rest; silence stretches all about. Learn then what doubt, what purpose, now rises in my spirit. People and senate, they all cry that Aeneas be summoned, and men be sent to carry him tidings. If they promise what I ask in thy name—for to me the glory of the deed is enough—methinks I can find beneath yonder hillock a path to the walls of Pallanteum town.'

Euryalus stood fixed, struck through with high ambition, and therewith speaks thus to his fervid friend: 'Dost thou shun me then, Nisus, to share thy company in highest deeds? shall I send thee alone into so great perils? Not thus did my warrior father Opheltes rear and nurture me amid the Argive terror and the agony of Troy, nor thus have I borne myself by thy side while following noble Aeneas to his utmost fate. Here is a spirit, yes here, that scorns the light of day, that deems lightly bought at a life's price that honour to which thou dost aspire.'

To this Nisus: 'Assuredly I had no such fear of thee; no, nor could I; so may great Jupiter, or whoso looks on earth with equal eyes, restore me to thee triumphant. But if haply—as thou seest often and often in so forlorn a hope—if haply chance or deity sweep me to adverse doom, I would have thee survive; thine age is worthier to live. Be there one to commit me duly to earth, rescued or ransomed from the battlefield: or, if fortune deny that, to pay me far away the rites of funeral and the grace of a tomb. Neither would I bring such pain on thy poor mother, she who singly of many matrons hath dared to follow her boy to the end, and slights great Acestes' city.'

And he: 'In vain dost thou string idle reasons; nor does my purpose yield or change its place so soon. Let us make haste.' He speaks, and rouses the watch; they come up, and relieve the guard; quitting their post, he and Nisus stride on to seek the prince.

The rest of living things over all lands were soothing their cares in sleep, and their hearts forgot their pain; the foremost Trojan captains, a chosen band, held council of state upon the kingdom; what should they do, or who would now be their messenger to Aeneas? They stand, leaning on their long spears and grasping their shields, in mid level of the camp. Then Nisus and Euryalus together pray with quick urgency to be given audience; their matter is weighty and will be worth the delay. Iülus at once heard their hurried plea, and bade Nisus speak. Thereon the son of Hyrtacus: 'Hear, O people of Aeneas, with favourable mind, nor regard our years in what we offer. Sunk in sleep and wine, the Rutulians are silent; we have stealthily spied the open ground that lies in the path through the gate next the sea. The line of fires is broken, and their smoke rises darkly upwards. If you allow us to use the chance towards seeking Aeneas in Pallanteum town, you will soon descry us here at hand with the spoils of the great slaughter we have dealt. Nor shall we miss the way we go; up the dim valleys we have seen the skirts of the town, and learned all the river in continual hunting.'

Thereon aged Aletes, sage in counsel: 'Gods of our fathers, under whose deity Troy ever stands, not wholly yet do you purpose to blot out the Trojan race, when you have brought us young honour and hearts so sure as this.' So speaking, he caught both by shoulder and hand, with tears showering down over face and feature. 'What guerdon shall I deem may be given you, O men, what recompense for these noble deeds? First and fairest shall be your reward from the gods and your own conduct; and Aeneas the good shall speedily repay the rest, and Ascanius' fresh youth never forget so great a service.'—'Nay,' breaks in Ascanius, 'I whose sole safety is in my father's return, I adjure thee and him, O Nisus, by our great household gods, by the tutelar spirit of Assaracus and hoar Vesta's sanctuary—on your knees I lay all my fortune and trust—recall my father; give him back to sight; all sorrow disappears in his recovery. I will give a pair of cups my father took in vanquished Arisba, wrought in silver and rough with tracery, twin tripods, and two large talents of gold, and an ancient bowl of Sidonian Dido's giving. If it be indeed our lot to possess Italy and grasp a conquering sceptre, and to assign the spoil; thou sawest the horse and armour of Turnus as he went all in gold; that same horse, the shield and the ruddy plume, will I reserve from partition, thy reward, O Nisus, even from now. My father will give besides twelve mothers of the choicest beauty, and men captives, all in their due array; above these, the space of meadow-land that is now King Latinus' own domain. Thee, O noble boy, whom mine age follows at a nearer interval, even now I welcome to all my heart, and embrace as my companion in every fortune. No glory shall be sought for my state without thee; whether peace or war be in conduct, my chiefest trust for deed and word shall be in thee.'

Answering whom Euryalus speaks thus: 'Let but the day never come to prove me degenerate from this daring valour; fortune may fall prosperous or adverse. But above all thy gifts, one thing I ask of thee. My poor mother of Priam's ancient race, whom neither the Ilian land nor King Acestes' city kept from following me forth, her I now leave in ignorance of this danger, such as it is, and without a farewell, because—night and thine hand be witness!—I cannot bear a parent's tears. But thou, I pray, support her want and relieve her loneliness. Let me take with me this hope in thee, I shall go more daringly to every fortune.' Deeply stirred at heart, the Dardanians shed tears, fair Iülus before them all, as the likeness of his own father's love wrung his soul. Then he speaks thus: . . . 'Assure thyself all that is due to thy mighty enterprise; for she shall be a mother to me, and only in name fail to be Creüsa; nor slight is the honour reserved for the mother of such a son. What chance soever follow this deed, I swear by this head whereby my father was wont to swear, what I promise to thee on thy prosperous return shall abide the same for thy mother and kindred.' So speaks he weeping, and ungirds from his shoulder the sword inlaid with gold, fashioned with marvellous skill by Lycaon of Gnosus and fitly set in a sheath of ivory. Mnestheus gives Nisus the shaggy spoils of a lion's hide; faithful Aletes exchanges his helmet. They advance onward in arms, and as they go all the company of captains, young and old, speed them to the gates with vows. Likewise fair Iülus, with a man's thought and a spirit beyond his years, gave many messages to be carried to his father. But the breezes shred all asunder and give them unaccomplished to the clouds.

They issue and cross the trenches, and through the shadow of night seek the fatal camp, themselves first to be the death of many a man. All about they see bodies strewn along the grass in drunken sleep, chariots atilt on the shore, the men lying among their traces and wheels, with their armour by them, and their wine. The son of Hyrtacus began thus: 'Euryalus, now for daring hands; all invites them; here lies our way; see thou that none raise a hand from behind against us, and keep far-sighted watch. Here will I deal desolation, and make a broad path for thee to follow.' So speaks he and checks his voice; therewith he drives his sword at lordly Rhamnes, who haply on carpets heaped high was drawing the full breath of sleep; a king himself, and King Turnus' best-beloved augur, but not all his augury could avert his doom. Three of his household beside him, lying carelessly among their arms, and the armour-bearer and charioteer of Remus go down before him, caught at the horses' feet. Their drooping necks he severs with the sword, then beheads their lord likewise and leaves the trunk spouting blood; the dark warm gore soaks ground and cushions. Therewithal Lamyrus and Lamus, and beautiful young Serranus, who that night had played long and late, and lay with the conquering god heavy on every limb; happy, had he played out the night, and carried his game to day! Even thus an unfed lion riots through full sheepfolds, for the madness of hunger urges him, and champs and rends the fleecy flock that are dumb with fear, and roars with blood-stained mouth. Nor less is the slaughter of Euryalus; he too rages all aflame; an unnamed multitude go down before his path, and Fadus and Herbesus and Rhoetus and Abaris, unaware; Rhoetus awake and seeing all, but he hid in fear behind a great bowl; right in whose breast, as he rose close by, he plunged the sword all its length, and drew it back heavy with death. He vomits forth the crimson life-blood, and throws up wine mixed with blood in the death agony. The other presses hotly on his stealthy errand, and now bent his way towards Messapus' comrades, where he saw the last flicker of the fires go down, and the horses tethered in order cropping the grass; when Nisus briefly speaks thus, for he saw him carried away by excess of murderous desire; 'Let us stop; for unfriendly daylight draws nigh. Vengeance is sated to the full; a path is cut through the enemy.' Much they leave behind, men's armour wrought in solid silver, and bowls therewith, and beautiful carpets. Euryalus tears away the decorations of Rhamnes and his sword-belt embossed with gold, a gift which Caedicus, wealthiest of men of old, sends to Remulus of Tibur when plighting friendship far away; he on his death-bed gives them to his grandson for his own; after his death the Rutulians captured them as spoil of war; these he fits on the shoulders valiant in vain, then puts on Messapus' light helmet with its graceful plumes. They issue from the camp and make for safety.

Meanwhile an advanced guard of cavalry were on their way from the Latin city, while the rest of their marshalled battalions linger on the plains, and bore a reply to King Turnus; three hundred men all under shield, in Volscens' leading. And now they approached the camp and drew near the wall, when they descry the two turning away by the pathway to the left; and in the glimmering darkness of night the forgotten helmet betrayed Euryalus, glittering as it met the light. It seemed no thing of chance. Volscens cries aloud from his column: 'Stand, men! why on the march, or how are you in arms? or whither hold you your way?' They offer nothing in reply, but quicken their flight into the forest, and throw themselves on the night. On this side and that the horsemen bar the familiar crossways, and encircle every outlet with sentinels. The forest spread wide in tangled thickets and dark ilex; thick growth of briars choked it all about, and the muffled pathway glimmered in a broken track. Hampered by the shadowy boughs and his cumbrous spoil, Euryalus in his fright misses the line of way. Nisus gets clear; and now unthinkingly he had passed the enemy, and the place afterwards called Albani from Alba's name; then the deep coverts were of King Latinus' domain; when he stopped, and looked back in vain for his lost friend. 'Euryalus, unhappy! on what ground have I left thee? or where shall I follow, again unwinding all the entanglement of the treacherous woodland way?' Therewith he marks and retraces his footsteps, and wanders down the silent thickets. He hears the horses, hears the clatter and signal-notes of the pursuers. Nor had he long to wait, when shouts reach his ears, and he sees Euryalus, whom even now, in the perplexity of ground and darkness, the whole squadron have borne down in a sudden rush, and seize in spite of all his vain struggles. What shall he do? with what force, what arms dare his rescue? or shall he rush on his doom amid their swords, and find in their wounds a speedy and glorious death? Quickly he draws back his arm with poised spear, and looking up to the moon on high, utters this prayer: 'Do thou give present aid to our enterprise, O Latonian goddess, glory of the stars and guardian of the woodlands: by all the gifts my father Hyrtacus ever bore for my sake to thine altars, by all mine own hand hath added from my hunting, or hung in thy dome, or fixed on thy holy roof, grant me to confound these masses, and guide my javelin through the air.' He ended, and with all the force of his body hurls the steel. The flying spear whistles through the darkness of the night, and comes full on the shield of Sulmo, and there snaps, and the broken shaft passes on through his heart. Spouting a warm tide from his breast he rolls over chill in death, and his sides throb with long-drawn gasps. Hither and thither they gaze round. Lo, he all the fiercer was poising another weapon high by his ear; while they hesitate, the spear went whizzing through both Tagus' temples, and pierced and stuck fast in the warm brain. Volscens is mad with rage, and nowhere espies the sender of the weapon, nor where to direct his fury. 'Yet meanwhile thy warm blood shalt pay me vengeance for both,' he cries; and unsheathing his sword, he made at Euryalus. Then indeed frantic with terror Nisus shrieks out; no longer could he shroud himself in darkness or endure such agony. 'On me, on me, I am here, I did it, on me turn your steel, O Rutulians! Mine is all the guilt; he dared not, no, nor could not; to this heaven I appeal and the stars that know; he only loved his hapless friend too well.' Such words he was uttering; but the sword driven hard home is gone clean through his ribs and pierces the white breast. Euryalus rolls over in death, and the blood runs over his lovely limbs, and his neck sinks and settles on his shoulder; even as when a lustrous flower cut away by the plough droops in death, or weary-necked poppies bow down their head if overweighted with a random shower. But Nisus rushes amidst them, and alone among them all makes at Volscens, keeps to Volscens alone: round him the foe cluster, and on this side and that hurl him back: none the less he presses on, and whirls his sword like lightning, till he plunges it full in the face of the shrieking Rutulian, and slays his enemy as he dies. Then, stabbed through and through, he flung himself above his lifeless friend, and there at last found the quiet sleep of death.

Happy pair! if my verse is aught of avail, no length of days shall ever blot you from the memory of time, while the house of Aeneas shall dwell by the Capitoline's stedfast stone, and the lord of Rome hold sovereignty.

The victorious Rutulians, with their spoils and the plunder regained, bore dead Volscens weeping to the camp. Nor in the camp was the wailing less, when Rhamnes was found a bloodless corpse, and Serranus and Numa and all their princes destroyed in a single slaughter. Crowds throng towards the corpses and the men wounded to death, the ground fresh with warm slaughter and the swoln runlets of frothing blood. They mutually recognise the spoils, Messapus' shining helmet and the decorations that cost such sweat to win back.

And now Dawn, leaving the saffron bed of Tithonus, scattered over earth her fresh shafts of early light; now the sunlight streams in, now daylight unveils the world. Turnus, himself fully armed, awakes his men to arms, and each leader marshals to battle his brazen lines and whets their ardour with varying rumours. Nay, pitiable sight! they fix on spear-points and uprear and follow with loud shouts the heads of Euryalus and Nisus. . . . The Aeneadae stubbornly face them, lining the left hand wall (for their right is girdled by the river), hold the deep trenches and stand gloomily on the high towers, stirred withal by the faces they know, alas, too well, in their dark dripping gore. Meanwhile Rumour on fluttering wings rushes with the news through the alarmed town and glides to the ears of Euryalus' mother. But instantly the warmth leaves her woeful body, the shuttle starts from her hand and the threads unroll. She darts forth in agony, and with woman's wailing and torn hair runs distractedly towards the walls and the foremost columns, recking naught of men, naught of peril or weapons; thereon she fills the air with her complaint: 'Is it thus I behold thee, O Euryalus? Couldst thou, the latest solace of mine age, leave me alone so cruelly? nor when sent into such danger was one last word of thee allowed thine unhappy mother? Alas, thou liest in a strange land, given for a prey to the dogs and fowls of Latium! nor was I, thy mother, there for chief mourner, to lay thee out or close thine eyes or wash thy wounds, and cover thee with the garment I hastened on for thee whole nights and days, an anxious old woman taking comfort from the loom. Whither shall I follow? or what land now holds thy mangled corpse, thy body torn limb from limb? Is this all of what thou wert that returns to me, O my son? is it this I have followed by land and sea? Strike me through of your pity, on me cast all your weapons, Rutulians; make me the first sacrifice of your steel. Or do thou, mighty lord of heaven, be merciful, and with thine own weapon hurl this hateful life to the nether deep, since in no wise else may I break away from life's cruelty.' At this weeping cry their courage falters, and a sigh of sorrow passes all along; their strength is benumbed and broken for battle. Her, while her grief kindled, at Ilioneus' and weeping Iülus' bidding Idaeus and Actor catch up and carry home in their arms.

But the terrible trumpet-note afar rang on the shrill brass; a shout follows, and is echoed from the sky. The Volscians hasten up in even line under their advancing roof of shields, and set to fill up the trenches and tear down the palisades. Some seek entrance by scaling the walls with ladders, where the defenders' battle-line is thin, and light shows through gaps in the ring of men. The Teucrians in return shower weapons of every sort, and push them down with stiff poles, practised by long warfare in their ramparts' defence: and fiercely hurl heavy stones, so be they may break the shielded line; while they, crowded under their shell, lightly bear all the downpour. But now they fail; for where the vast mass presses close, the Teucrians roll a huge block tumbling down that makes a wide gap in the Rutulians and crashes through their armour-plating. Nor do the bold Rutulians care longer to continue the blind fight, but strive to clear the rampart with missiles. . . . Elsewhere in dreadful guise Mezentius brandishes his Etruscan pine and hurls smoking brands; but Messapus, tamer of horses, seed of Neptune, tears away the palisading and calls for ladders to the ramparts.

Thy sisterhood, O Calliope, I pray inspire me while I sing the destruction spread then and there by Turnus' sword, the deaths dealt from his hand, and whom each warrior sent down to the under world; and unroll with me the broad borders of war.

A tower loomed vast with lofty gangways at a point of vantage; this all the Italians strove with main strength to storm, and set all their might and device to overthrow it; the Trojans in return defended it with stones and hurled showers of darts through the loopholes. Turnus, leading the attack, threw a blazing torch that caught flaming on the side wall; swoln by the wind, the flame seized the planking and clung devouring to the standards. Those within, in hurry and confusion, desire retreat from their distress; in vain; while they cluster together and fall back to the side free from the destroyer, the tower sinks prone under the sudden weight with a crash that thunders through all the sky. Pierced by their own weapons, and impaled on hard splinters of wood, they come half slain to the ground with the vast mass behind them. Scarcely do Helenor alone and Lycus struggle out; Helenor in his early prime, whom a slave woman of Licymnos bore in secret to the Maeonian king, and sent to Troy in forbidden weapons, lightly armed with sheathless sword and white unemblazoned shield. And he, when he saw himself among Turnus' encircling thousands, ranks on this side and ranks on this of Latins, as a wild beast which, girt with a crowded ring of hunters, dashes at their weapons, hurls herself unblinded on death, and comes with a bound upon the spears; even so he rushes to his death amid the enemy, and presses on where he sees their weapons thickest. But Lycus, far fleeter of foot, holds by the walls in flight midway among foes and arms, and strives to catch the coping in his grasp and reach the hands of his comrades. And Turnus pursuing and aiming as he ran, thus upbraids him in triumph: 'Didst thou hope, madman, thou mightest escape our hands?' and catches him as he clings, and tears him and a great piece of the wall away: as when, with a hare or snowy-bodied swan in his crooked talons, Jove's armour-bearer soars aloft, or the wolf of Mars snatches from the folds some lamb sought of his mother with incessant bleating. On all sides a shout goes up. They advance and fill the trenches with heaps of earth; some toss glowing brands on the roofs. Ilioneus strikes down Lucetius with a great fragment of mountain rock as, carrying fire, he draws nigh the gate. Liger slays Emathion, Asylas Corinaeus, the one skilled with the javelin, the other with the stealthy arrow from afar. Caeneus slays Ortygius; Turnus victorious Caeneus; Turnus Itys and Clonius, Dioxippus, and Promolus, and Sagaris, and Idas where he stood in front of the turret top; Capys Privernus: him Themillas' spear had first grazed lightly; the madman threw down his shield to carry his hand to the wound; so the arrow winged her way, and pinning his hand to his left side, broke into the lungs with deadly wound. The son of Arcens stood splendid in arms, and scarf embroidered with needlework and bright with Iberian blue, the beautiful boy sent by his father Arcens from nurture in the grove of our Lady about the streams of Symaethus, where Palicus' altar is rich and gracious. Laying down his spear, Mezentius whirled thrice round his head the tightened cord of his whistling sling, pierced him full between the temples with the molten bullet, and stretched him all his length upon the sand.

Then, it is said, Ascanius first aimed his flying shaft in war, wont before to frighten beasts of the chase, and struck down a brave Numanian, Remulus by name, but lately allied in bridal to Turnus' younger sister. He advancing before his ranks clamoured things fit and unfit to tell, and strode along lofty and voluble, his heart lifted up with his fresh royalty.

'Take you not shame to be again held leaguered in your ramparts, O Phrygians twice taken, and to make walls your fence from death? Behold them who demand in war our wives for theirs! What god, what madness, hath driven you to Italy? Here are no sons of Atreus nor glozing Ulysses. A race of hardy breed, we carry our newborn children to the streams and harden them in the bitter icy water; as boys they spend wakeful nights over the chase, and tire out the woodland; but in manhood, unwearied by toil and trained to poverty, they subdue the soil with their mattocks, or shake towns in war. Every age wears iron, and we goad the flanks of our oxen with reversed spear; nor does creeping old age weaken our strength of spirit or abate our force. White hairs bear the weight of the helmet; and it is ever our delight to drive in fresh spoil and live on our plunder. Yours is embroidered raiment of saffron and shining sea-purple. Indolence is your pleasure, your delight the luxurious dance; you wear sleeved tunics and ribboned turbans. O right Phrygian women, not even Phrygian men! traverse the heights of Dindymus, where the double-mouthed flute breathes familiar music. The drums call you, and the Berecyntian boxwood of the mother of Ida; leave arms to men, and lay down the sword.'

As he flung forth such words of ill-ominous strain, Ascanius brooked it not, and aimed an arrow on him from the stretched horse sinew; and as he drew his arms asunder, first stayed to supplicate Jove in lowly vows: 'Jupiter omnipotent, deign to favour this daring deed. My hands shall bear yearly gifts to thee in thy temple, and bring to stand before thine altars a steer with gilded forehead, snow-white, carrying his head high as his mother's, already pushing with his horn and making the sand fly up under his feet.' The Father heard and from a clear space of sky thundered on the left; at once the fated bow rings, the grim-whistling arrow flies from the tense string, and goes through the head of Remulus, the steel piercing through from temple to temple. 'Go, mock valour with insolence of speech! Phrygians twice taken return this answer to Rutulians.' Thus and no further Ascanius; the Teucrians respond in cheers, and shout for joy in rising height of courage. Then haply in the tract of heaven tressed Apollo sate looking down from his cloud on the Ausonian ranks and town, and thus addresses triumphant Iülus: 'Good speed to thy young valour, O boy! this is the way to heaven, child of gods and parent of gods to be! Rightly shall all wars fated to come sink to peace beneath the line of Assaracus; nor art thou bounded in a Troy.' So speaking, he darts from heaven's height, and cleaving the breezy air, seeks Ascanius. Then he changes the fashion of his countenance, and becomes aged Butes, armour-bearer of old to Dardanian Anchises, and the faithful porter of his threshold; thereafter his lord gave him for Ascanius' attendant. In all points like the old man Apollo came, voice and colour, white hair, and grimly clashing arms, and speaks these words to eager Iülus:

'Be it enough, son of Aeneas, that the Numanian hath fallen unavenged beneath thine arrows; this first honour great Apollo allows thee, nor envies the arms that match his own. Further, O boy, let war alone.' Thus Apollo began, and yet speaking retreated from mortal view, vanishing into thin air away out of their eyes. The Dardanian princes knew the god and the arms of deity, and heard the clash of his quiver as he went. So they restrain Ascanius' keenness for battle by the words of Phoebus' will; themselves they again close in conflict, and cast their lives into the perilous breach. Shouts run all along the battlemented walls; ringing bows are drawn and javelin thongs twisted: all the ground is strewn with missiles. Shields and hollow helmets ring to blows; the battle swells fierce; heavy as the shower lashes the ground that sets in when the Kids are rainy in the West; thick as hail pours down from storm-clouds on the shallows, when the rough lord of the winds congeals his watery deluge and breaks up the hollow vapours in the sky.

Pandarus and Bitias, sprung of Alcanor of Ida, whom woodland Iaera bore in the grove of Jupiter, grown now tall as their ancestral pines and hills, fling open the gates barred by their captain's order, and confident in arms, wilfully invite the enemy within the walls. Themselves within they stand to right and left in front of the towers, sheathed in iron, the plumes flickering over their stately heads: even as high in air around the gliding streams, whether on Padus' banks or by pleasant Athesis, twin oaks rise lifting their unshorn heads into the sky with high tops asway. The Rutulians pour in when they see the entrance open. Straightway Quercens and Aquicolus beautiful in arms, and desperate Tmarus, and Haemon, seed of Mars, either gave back in rout with all their columns, or in the very gateway laid down their life. Then the spirits of the combatants swell in rising wrath, and now the Trojans gather swarming to the spot, and dare to close hand to hand and to sally farther out.

News is brought to Turnus the captain, as he rages afar among the routed foe, that the enemy surges forth into fresh slaughter and flings wide his gates. He breaks off unfinished, and, fired with immense anger, rushes towards the haughty brethren at the Dardanian gate. And on Antiphates first, for first he came, the bastard son of mighty Sarpedon by a Theban mother, he hurls his javelin and strikes him down; the Italian cornel flies through the yielding air, and, piercing the gullet, runs deep into his breast; a frothing tide pours from the dark yawning wound, and the steel grows warm where it pierces the lung. Then Meropes and Erymas, then Aphidnus goes down before his hand; then Bitias, fiery-eyed and exultant, not with a javelin; for not to a javelin had he given his life; but the loud-whistling pike came hurled with a thunderbolt's force; neither twofold bull's hide kept it back, nor the trusty corslet's double scales of gold: his vast limbs sink in a heap; earth utters a groan, and the great shield clashes over him: even as once and again on the Euboïc shore of Baiae falls a mass of stone, built up of great blocks and so cast into the sea; thus does it tumble prone, crashes into the shoal water and sinks deep to rest; the seas are stirred, and the dark sand eddies up; therewith the depth of Prochyta quivers at the sound, and the couchant rocks of Inarime, piled above Typhoeus by Jove's commands.

On this Mars armipotent raised the spirit and strength of the Latins, and goaded their hearts to rage, and sent Flight and dark Fear among the Teucrians. From all quarters they gather, since battle is freely offered; and the warrior god inspires. . . . Pandarus, at his brother's fall, sees how fortune stands, what hap rules the day; and swinging the gate round on its hinge with all his force, pushes it to with his broad shoulders, leaving many of his own people shut outside the walls in the desperate conflict, but shutting others in with him as they pour back in retreat. Madman! who saw not the Rutulian prince burst in amid their columns, and fairly shut him into the town, like a monstrous tiger among the silly flocks. At once strange light flashed from his eyes, and his armour rang terribly; the blood-red plumes flicker on his head, and lightnings shoot sparkling from his shield. In sudden dismay the Aeneadae know the hated form and giant limbs. Then tall Pandarus leaps forward, in burning rage at his brother's death: 'This is not the palace of Amata's dower,' he cries, 'nor does Ardea enclose Turnus in her native walls. Thou seest a hostile camp; escape hence is hopeless.' To him Turnus, smiling and cool: 'Begin with all thy valiance, and close hand to hand; here too shalt thou tell that a Priam found his Achilles.' He ended; the other, putting out all his strength, hurls his rough spear, knotty and unpeeled. The breezes caught it; Juno, daughter of Saturn, made the wound glance off as it came, and the spear sticks fast in the gate. 'But this weapon that my strong hand whirls, this thou shalt not escape; for not such is he who sends weapon and wound.' So speaks he, and rises high on his uplifted sword; the steel severs the forehead midway right between the temples, and divides the beardless cheeks with ghastly wound. He crashes down; earth shakes under the vast weight; dying limbs and brain-spattered armour tumble in a heap to the ground, and the head, evenly severed, dangles this way and that from either shoulder. The Trojans scatter and turn in hasty terror; and had the conqueror forthwith taken thought to burst the bars and let in his comrades at the gate, that had been the last day of the war and of the nation. But rage and mad thirst of slaughter drive him like fire on the foe. . . . First he catches up Phalaris; then Gyges, and hamstrings him; he plucks away their spears, and hurls them on the backs of the flying crowd; Juno lends strength and courage. Halys he sends to join them, and Phegeus, pierced right through the shield; then, as they ignorantly raised their war-cry on the walls, Alcander and Halius, Noëmon and Prytanis. Lynceus advanced to meet him, calling up his comrades; from the rampart the glittering sword sweeps to the left and catches him; struck off by the one downright blow, head and helmet lay far away. Next Amycus fell, the deadly huntsman, incomparable in skill of hand to anoint his arrows and arm their steel with venom; and Clytius the Aeolid, and Cretheus beloved of the Muses, Cretheus of the Muses' company, whose delight was ever in songs and harps and stringing of verses; ever he sang of steeds and armed men and battles.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

Nor does Turnus keep idly dallying, but swiftly hurries his whole array against the Trojans and ranges it to face the beach. The trumpets blow. At once Aeneas charges and confounds the rustic squadrons of the Latins, and slays Theron for omen of battle. The giant advances to challenge Aeneas; but through sewed plates of brass and tunic rough with gold the sword plunges in his open side. Next he strikes Lichas, cut from his mother already dead, and consecrated, Phoebus, to thee, since his infancy was granted escape from the perilous steel. Near thereby he struck dead brawny Cisseus and vast Gyas, whose clubs were mowing down whole files: naught availed them the arms of Hercules and their strength of hand, nor Melampus their father, ever of Alcides' company while earth yielded him sore travail. Lo! while Pharus utters weak vaunts the hurled javelin strikes on his shouting mouth. Thou too, while thou followest thy new delight, Clytius, whose cheeks are golden with youthful down—thou, luckless Cydon, struck down by the Dardanian hand, wert lying past thought, ah pitiable! of the young loves that were ever thine, did not the close array of thy brethren interpose, the children of Phorcus, seven in number, and send a sevenfold shower of darts. Some glance ineffectual from helmet and shield; some Venus the bountiful turned aside as they grazed his body. Aeneas calls to trusty Achates: 'Give me store of weapons; none that hath been planted in Grecian body on the plains of Ilium shall my hand hurl at Rutulian in vain.' Then he catches and throws his great spear; the spear flies grinding through the brass of Maeon's shield, and breaks through corslet and through breast. His brother Alcanor runs up and sustains with his right arm his sinking brother; through his arm the spear passes speeding straight on its message, and holds its bloody way, and the hand dangles by the sinews lifeless from the shoulder. Then Numitor, seizing his dead brother's javelin, aims at Aeneas, but might not fairly pierce him, and grazed tall Achates on the thigh. Here Clausus of Cures comes confident in his pride of strength, and with a long reach strikes Dryops under the chin, and, urging the stiff spear-shaft home, stops the accents of his speech and his life together, piercing the throat; but he strikes the earth with his forehead, and vomits clots of blood. Three Thracians likewise of Boreas' sovereign race, and three sent by their father Idas from their native Ismarus, fall in divers wise before him. Halesus and his Auruncan troops hasten thither; Messapus too, seed of Neptune, comes up charioted. This side and that strive to hurl back the enemy, and fight hard on the very edge of Ausonia. As when in the depth of air adverse winds rise in battle with equal spirit and strength; not they, not clouds nor sea, yield one to another; long the battle is doubtful; all stands locked in counterpoise: even thus clash the ranks of Troy and ranks of Latium, foot fast on foot, and man crowded up on man.

But in another quarter, where a torrent had driven a wide path of rolling stones and bushes torn away from the banks, Pallas saw his Arcadians, unaccustomed to move as infantry, giving back before the Latin pursuit, when the roughness of the ground bade them dismount. This only was left in his strait, to kindle them to valour, now by entreaties, now by taunts: 'Whither flee you, comrades? by your deeds of bravery, by your leader Evander's name, by your triumphant campaigns, and my hope that now rises to rival my father's honour, trust not to flight. Our swords must hew a way through the enemy. Where yonder mass of men presses thickest, there your proud country calls you with Pallas at your head. No gods are they who bear us down; mortals, we feel the pressure of a mortal foe; we have as many lives and hands as he. Lo, the deep shuts us in with vast sea barrier; even now land fails our flight; shall we make ocean or Troy our goal?'

So speaks he, and bursts amid the serried foe. First Lagus meets him, drawn thither by malign destiny; him, as he tugs at a ponderous stone, hurling his spear where the spine ran dissevering the ribs, he pierces and wrenches out the spear where it stuck fast in the bone. Nor does Hisbo catch him stooping, for all that he hoped it; for Pallas, as he rushes unguarded on, furious at his comrade's cruel death, receives him on his sword and buries it in his distended lungs. Next he attacks Sthenius, and Anchemolus of Rhoetus' ancient family, who dared to violate the bridal chamber of his stepmother. You, too, the twins Larides and Thymber, fell on the Rutulian fields, children of Daucus, indistinguishable for likeness and a sweet perplexity to your parents. But now Pallas made cruel difference between you; for thy head, Thymber, is swept off by Evander's sword; thy right hand, Larides, severed, seeks its master, and the dying fingers jerk and clutch at the sword. Fired by his encouragement, and beholding his noble deeds, the Arcadians advance in wrath and shame to meet the enemy in arms. Then Pallas pierces Rhoeteus as he flies past in his chariot. This space, this much of respite was given to Ilus; for at Ilus he had aimed the strong spear from afar, and Rhoeteus intercepts its passage, in flight from thee, noble Teuthras and Tyres thy brother; he rolls from the chariot in death, and his heels strike the Rutulian fields. And as the shepherd, when summer winds have risen to his desire, kindles the woods dispersedly; on a sudden the mid spaces catch, and a single flickering line of fire spreads wide over the plain; he sits looking down on his conquest and the revel of the flames; even so, Pallas, do thy brave comrades gather close to sustain thee. But warrior Halesus advances full on them, gathering himself behind his armour; he slays Ladon, Pheres, Demodocus; his gleaming sword shears off Strymonius' hand as it rises to his throat; he strikes Thoas on the face with a stone, and drives the bones asunder in a shattered mass of blood and brains. Halesus had his father the soothsayer kept hidden in the woodland: when the old man's glazing eyes sank to death, the Fates laid hand on him and devoted him to the arms of Evander. Pallas aims at him, first praying thus: 'Grant now, lord Tiber, to the steel I poise and hurl, a prosperous way through brawny Halesus' breast; thine oak shall bear these arms and the dress he wore.' The god heard it; while Halesus covers Imaon, he leaves, alas! his breast unarmed to the Arcadian's weapon. Yet at his grievous death Lausus, himself a great arm of the war, lets not his columns be dismayed; at once he meets and cuts down Abas, the check and stay of their battle. The men of Arcadia go down before him; down go the Etruscans, and you, O Teucrians, invincible by Greece. The armies close, matched in strength and in captains; the rear ranks crowd in; weapons and hands are locked in the press. Here Pallas strains and pushes on, here Lausus opposite, nearly matched in age, excellent in beauty; but fortune had denied both return to their own land. Yet that they should meet face to face the sovereign of high Olympus allowed not; an early fate awaits them beneath a mightier foe.

Meanwhile Turnus' gracious sister bids him take Lausus' room, and his fleet chariot parts the ranks. When he saw his comrades, 'It is time,' he cried, 'to stay from battle. I alone must assail Pallas; to me and none other Pallas is due; I would his father himself were here to see.' So speaks he, and his Rutulians draw back from a level space at his bidding. But then as they withdrew, he, wondering at the haughty command, stands in amaze at Turnus, his eyes scanning the vast frame, and his fierce glance perusing him from afar. And with these words he returns the words of the monarch: 'For me, my praise shall even now be in the lordly spoils I win, or in illustrious death: my father will bear calmly either lot: away with menaces.' He speaks, and advances into the level ring. The Arcadians' blood gathers chill about their hearts. Turnus leaps from his chariot and prepares to close with him. And as a lion sees from some lofty outlook a bull stand far off on the plain revolving battle, and flies at him, even such to see is Turnus' coming. When Pallas deemed him within reach of a spear-throw, he advances, if so chance may assist the daring of his overmatched strength, and thus cries into the depth of sky: 'By my father's hospitality and the board whereto thou camest a wanderer, on thee I call, Alcides; be favourable to my high emprise; let Turnus even in death discern me stripping his blood-stained armour, and his swooning eyes endure the sight of his conqueror.' Alcides heard him, and deep in his heart he stifled a heavy sigh, and let idle tears fall. Then with kindly words the father accosts his son: 'Each hath his own appointed day; short and irrecoverable is the span of life for all: but to spread renown by deeds is the task of valour. Under high Troy town many and many a god's son fell; nay, mine own child Sarpedon likewise perished. Turnus too his own fate summons, and his allotted period hath reached the goal.' So speaks he, and turns his eyes away from the Rutulian fields. But Pallas hurls his spear with all his strength, and pulls his sword flashing out of the hollow scabbard. The flying spear lights where the armour rises high above the shoulder, and, forcing a way through the shield's rim, ceased not till it drew blood from mighty Turnus. At this Turnus long poises the spear-shaft with its sharp steel head, and hurls it on Pallas with these words: See thou if our weapon have not a keener point. He ended; but for all the shield's plating of iron and brass, for all the bull-hide that covers it round about, the quivering spear-head smashes it fair through and through, passes the guard of the corslet, and pierces the breast with a gaping hole. He tears the warm weapon from the wound; in vain; together and at once life-blood and sense follow it. He falls heavily on the ground, his armour clashes over him, and his bloodstained face sinks in death on the hostile soil. And Turnus standing over him . . .: 'Arcadians,' he cries, 'remember these my words, and bear them to Evander. I send him back his Pallas as was due. All the meed of the tomb, all the solace of sepulture, I give freely. Dearly must he pay his welcome to Aeneas.' And with these words, planting his left foot on the dead, he tore away the broad heavy sword-belt engraven with a tale of crime, the array of grooms foully slain together on their bridal night, and the nuptial chambers dabbled with blood, which Clonus, son of Eurytus, had wrought richly in gold. Now Turnus exults in spoiling him of it, and rejoices at his prize. Ah spirit of man, ignorant of fate and the allotted future, or to keep bounds when elate with prosperity!—the day will come when Turnus shall desire to have bought Pallas' safety at a great ransom, and curse the spoils of this fatal day. But with many moans and tears Pallas' comrades lay him on his shield and bear him away amid their ranks. O grief and glory and grace of the father to whom thou shalt return! This one day sent thee first to war, this one day takes thee away, while yet thou leavest heaped high thy Rutulian dead.

And now no rumour of the dreadful loss, but a surer messenger flies to Aeneas, telling him his troops are on the thin edge of doom; it is time to succour the routed Teucrians. He mows down all that meets him, and hews a broad path through their columns with furious sword, as he seeks thee, O Turnus, in thy fresh pride of slaughter. Pallas, Evander, all flash before his eyes; the board whereto but then he had first come a wanderer, and the clasped hands. Here four of Sulmo's children, as many more of Ufens' nurture, are taken by him alive to slaughter in sacrifice to the shade below, and slake the flames of the pyre with captive blood. Next he levelled his spear full on Magus from far. He stoops cunningly; the spear flies quivering over him; and, clasping his knees, he speaks thus beseechingly: 'By thy father's ghost, by Iülus thy growing hope, I entreat thee, save this life for a child and a parent. My house is stately; deep in it lies buried wealth of engraven silver; I have masses of wrought and unwrought gold. The victory of Troy does not turn on this, nor will a single life make so great a difference.' He ended; to him Aeneas thus returns answer: 'All the wealth of silver and gold thou tellest of, spare thou for thy children. Turnus hath broken off this thy trafficking in war, even then when Pallas fell. Thus judges the ghost of my father Anchises, thus Iülus.' So speaking, he grasps his helmet with his left hand, and, bending back his neck, drives his sword up to the hilt in the suppliant. Hard by is Haemonides, priest of Phoebus and Trivia, his temples wound with the holy ribboned chaplet, all glittering in white-robed array. Him he meets and chases down the plain, and, standing over his fallen foe, slaughters him and wraps him in great darkness; Serestus gathers the armour and carries it away on his shoulders, a trophy, King Gradivus, to thee. Caeculus, born of Vulcan's race, and Umbro, who comes from the Marsian hills, fill up the line. The Dardanian rushes full on them. His sword had hewn off Anxur's left arm, with all the circle of the shield—he had uttered brave words and deemed his prowess would second his vaunts, and perchance with spirit lifted up had promised himself hoar age and length of years—when Tarquitus in the pride of his glittering arms met his fiery course, whom the nymph Dryope had borne to Faunus, haunter of the woodland. Drawing back his spear, he pins the ponderous shield to the corslet; then, as he vainly pleaded and would say many a thing, strikes his head to the ground, and, rolling away the warm body, cries thus over his enemy: 'Lie there now, terrible one! no mother's love shall lay thee in the sod, or place thy limbs beneath thine heavy ancestral tomb. To birds of prey shalt thou be left, or borne down sunk in the eddying water, where hungry fish shall suck thy wounds.' Next he sweeps on Antaeus and Lucas, the first of Turnus' train, and brave Numa and tawny-haired Camers, born of noble Volscens, who was wealthiest in land of the Ausonians, and reigned in silent Amyclae. Even as Aegaeon, who, men say, had an hundred arms, an hundred hands, fifty mouths and breasts ablaze with fire, and arrayed against Jove's thunders as many clashing shields and drawn swords: so Aeneas, when once his sword's point grew warm, rages victorious over all the field. Nay, lo! he darts full in face on Niphaeus' four-horse chariot; before his long strides and dreadful cry they turned in terror and dashed back, throwing out their driver and tearing the chariot down the beach. Meanwhile the brothers Lucagus and Liger drive up with their pair of white horses. Lucagus valiantly waves his drawn sword, while his brother wheels his horses with the rein. Aeneas, wrathful at their mad onslaught, rushes on them, towering high with levelled spear. To him Liger . . . 'Not Diomede's horses dost thou discern, nor Achilles' chariot, nor the plains of Phrygia: now on this soil of ours the war and thy life shall end together.' Thus fly mad Liger's random words. But not in words does the Trojan hero frame his reply: for he hurls his javelin at the foe. As Lucagus spurred on his horses, bending forward over the whip, with left foot advanced ready for battle, the spear passes through the lower rim of his shining shield and pierces his left groin, knocks him out of the chariot, and stretches him in death on the fields. To him good Aeneas speaks in bitter words: 'Lucagus, no slackness in thy coursers' flight hath betrayed thee, or vain shadow of the foe turned them back; thyself thou leapest off the harnessed wheels.' In such wise he spoke, and caught the horses. His brother, slipping down from the chariot, pitiably outstretched helpless hands: 'Ah, by the parents who gave thee birth, great Trojan, spare this life and pity my prayer.' More he was pleading; but Aeneas: 'Not such were the words thou wert uttering. Die, and be brother undivided from brother.' With that his sword's point pierces the breast where the life lies hid. Thus the Dardanian captain dealt death over the plain, like some raging torrent stream or black whirlwind. At last the boy Ascanius and his troops burst through the ineffectual leaguer and issue from the camp.