Virgil · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1| And while these things were taking place in a far distant quarter, Saturnian Juno dispatched Iris down from heaven to bold Turnus. Turnus, as it happened, was sitting in the grove of his ancestor Pilumnus, in a sacred valley. To him the daughter of Thaumas spoke thus with her rose-colored mouth: "Turnus, what not one god would dare to promise you if you prayed for it, the turning day has brought you of its own accord. Aeneas has left his city, his companions and his fleet and is making for the Palatine kingdom and the home of Evander. Nor is that enough: he has made his way to the furthest cities of Corythus and the band of Lydians, and is arming the country people he has gathered. Why hesitate? Now is the time to call for your horses, now for your chariots. Break off all delay and seize the camp in its confusion." So she spoke and rose skyward on balanced wings, and in her flight cut a huge bow beneath the clouds. The young man recognized her, raised both hands to the stars, and followed her as she fled with these words: "Iris, glory of the sky, who sent you down to me on earth, driven through the clouds? Where does this sudden bright weather come from? I see the sky part in the middle and the stars wandering in the heavens. I follow such great omens, whoever you are who call me to arms." Saying this, he went down to the river, drew water from the surface of the stream, praying much to the gods, and loaded the sky with vows.
25| And now the whole army was advancing over the open plains, rich in horses, rich in embroidered clothing and gold. Messapus controls the front ranks, the young sons of Tyrrhus the rear, and Turnus is the leader in the middle of the column: like the Ganges rising high in silence, fed by seven calm streams, or the Nile with its rich flood when it flows back from the fields and has now settled into its bed. Here the Trojans see a sudden cloud of black dust gathering and darkness rising over the plain. Caicus is the first to shout from the rampart facing it: "What is this mass, citizens, rolling on in black gloom? Quick, bring swords, hand out weapons, climb the walls: the enemy is here — up!" With a great shout the Trojans take cover through every gate and crowd the walls. For so Aeneas, best in arms, had instructed them on leaving: if any chance occurred in the meantime, they were not to dare to draw up a battle line or trust themselves to the open field; they were only to guard the camp and the walls, safe behind their rampart. So, although shame and anger urge them to engage hand to hand, they bar the gates nonetheless, carry out his orders, and wait for the enemy, armed, inside their hollow towers.
47| Turnus, flying ahead, had outstripped his slow column, and with twenty picked horsemen as escort he appears unexpectedly before the city. A Thracian horse dappled with white carries him, and a golden helmet with a red crest covers his head. "Young men, who will be with me, who will be the first against the enemy — ? Look!" he says, and, whirling a javelin, he sends it into the air as the beginning of the fight, and rides out tall onto the plain. His companions take up the shout and follow with a fearful roar. They wonder at the cowardly hearts of the Trojans, that they do not commit themselves to fair ground, do not bring their arms to meet them as men, but huddle in their camp. Wildly, this way and that, he rides around the walls and looks for an entrance where there is no way. And as a wolf, lying in wait by a full sheepfold, howls at the pens in the middle of the night, enduring wind and rain; the lambs, safe beneath their mothers, keep up their bleating; he, savage and ruthless in his anger, rages against what is out of reach; the long-gathered fury of hunger and his jaws, dry of blood, torment him: just so the Rutulian's anger blazes as he looks at the walls and the camp, and resentment burns in his hard bones. By what plan can he try for a way in, and what route can force the Trojans out from their shut rampart and pour them onto the level ground? He attacks the fleet, which lay hidden, joined to the side of the camp, fenced around with earthworks and the waters of the river; he calls on his exultant companions to bring fire, and, burning with eagerness, fills his hand with a blazing pine torch. Then indeed they set to work — Turnus' presence spurs them on — and all the young men arm themselves with black torches. They have plundered the hearths: the smoking pine brands give off a pitchy light, and Vulcan sends up a mingled cloud of ash to the stars.
77| What god, Muses, turned such savage fires away from the Trojans? Who drove such flames from the ships? Tell me: the tale is old in credit, but its fame is everlasting. At the time when Aeneas was first building his fleet on Phrygian Ida and preparing to seek the deep sea, the Berecyntian mother of the gods herself is said to have addressed great Jupiter with these words: 'Grant, my son, what your dear mother asks of you, now that you have conquered Olympus. I had a pine forest, beloved to me for many years, a grove on the highest peak, where offerings were brought, dark with black pitch-pine and maple beams. I gave these gladly to the Dardan youth when he needed a fleet; now anxious fear torments me in my worry. Free me from fear, and let a mother's prayers prevail in this: let them not be broken by any voyage or conquered by any whirlwind; may it help them that they were born on my mountains.' Her son, who turns the stars of the universe, replied: 'Mother, where are you calling the fates? Or what are you asking for these? Should keels made by mortal hands have an immortal right? Should Aeneas travel through uncertain dangers with certainty? To what god has such power been given? No: when, their task done, they reach the end and the harbors of Ausonia, whichever ship has escaped the waves and carried the Dardan leader to the Laurentine fields, I will take away its mortal form and command it to be a goddess of the great sea, like Nereid Doto and Galatea, who cleave the foaming deep with their breasts.' He had spoken, and confirmed it by the stream of his Stygian brother, by the shores seething with pitch and the black abyss, and with a nod he made all Olympus tremble.
107| So the promised day had come, and the Fates had fulfilled the time owed, when Turnus' outrage reminded the Mother to drive the torches from her sacred ships. Here first a strange light flashed before their eyes, and a great cloud seemed to cross the sky from the dawn, with choirs of Ida; then a terrifying voice fell through the air and filled the ranks of the Trojans and Rutulians: 'Do not be afraid, Trojans, to defend my ships, and do not take up arms; sooner will Turnus be allowed to burn up the seas than my sacred pines. You go free, go as goddesses of the sea; your mother commands it.' And at once each ship breaks the cables from the banks, and like dolphins they dive with their beaks down and make for the depths of the sea. Then (an amazing portent) just as many maiden forms appear and are carried over the sea.
123| The Rutulians were stunned; Messapus himself was terrified as his horses panicked, and the river hesitates, roaring hoarsely, and Tiber draws back his foot from the deep. But Turnus' boldness did not give way; he raises their spirits with his words and rebukes them: 'These portents are aimed at the Trojans; from them Jupiter himself has taken away their usual help: they do not wait for Rutulian spears or fire. So the seas are closed to the Trojans, and they have no hope of flight: one half of the world is taken from them, while the land is in our hands, and so many thousands of Italian peoples bear arms. The oracles of the gods that the Phrygians boast of do not frighten me at all. Enough has been granted to the Fates and to Venus, that the Trojans have touched the fields of fertile Ausonia. I too have my own fate against theirs, to destroy with the sword that wicked race that stole my bride; nor does that pain touch the sons of Atreus alone, nor is it only Mycenae that may take up arms. "But it is enough to have perished once": it should have been enough for them to have sinned once before, now that they hate almost the whole female race utterly. The confidence these men have, in the barrier of a rampart in between and the delay of ditches, small obstacles on the way to death, gives them courage; but have they not seen the walls of Troy, built by Neptune's hand, sink into the flames?
146| But you, my chosen men, who is ready to cut through the rampart with iron and rush with me against the panicking camp? I have no need of Vulcan's arms or a thousand ships against the Trojans. Let all the Etruscans join them as allies at once. Let them not fear darkness and cowardly theft of the Palladium with its guards slaughtered far and wide on the citadel, nor shall we be hidden in the blind belly of a horse: it is my resolve to ring their walls with fire openly in the light of day. I will make sure they do not claim they have to do with Greeks and Pelasgian youth, whom Hector put off for ten years. And now, since the greater part of the day has been spent, for what remains, men, take care of your bodies, glad in what has been done well, and expect that battle is being prepared.' Meanwhile the care of besieging the gates with watch-posts of sentries and of ringing the walls with flames is given to Messapus. Fourteen Rutulians are chosen to guard the walls with soldiers, and each is followed by a hundred young men, purple-crested and gleaming with gold. They run to and fro and vary the watches, and stretched out on the grass they indulge in wine and tip up bronze bowls. The fires shine, and the guard passes a sleepless night in play.
168| The Trojans look out on this from the rampart and hold the heights under arms, and, anxious with fear, they inspect the gates, join bridges and bulwarks, and carry weapons. Mnestheus and keen Serestus press the work, whom father Aeneas appointed as leaders of the young men and masters of affairs if ever adversity should call. The whole legion, having drawn lots for the danger, keeps watch along the walls and takes turns at whatever each has to guard.
176| Nisus, son of Hyrtacus, was guardian of the gate, a fierce fighter, whom huntress Ida had sent as a companion to Aeneas, quick with the javelin and light arrows; and beside him stood his comrade Euryalus, than whom no other of Aeneas' followers was more handsome or put on Trojan arms, a boy whose face bore the mark of early youth, not yet shaved. These two shared a single love and rushed into battle side by side; on this night too they held the gate together on a shared watch. Nisus said: 'Euryalus, do the gods put this fire into our minds, or does each man's fierce desire become his god? For some time now my mind has been urging me to attack, whether in battle or in some great enterprise, and it is not content with peaceful rest. You see how the Rutulians are confident in their position: their lights glimmer here and there, they lie slack with sleep and wine, and the ground is silent far and wide. Now listen to what I am wondering about and what plan is rising in my mind. All the people and the elders demand that Aeneas be summoned and that men be sent to bring back sure word. If they promise you what I ask (for the fame of the deed is enough reward for me), I think I can find a way beneath that hill to the walls and the city of Pallas.'
197| Euryalus was stunned, struck by a great love of glory, and at once spoke to his eager friend: 'Do you then shun joining me to the highest enterprise, Nisus? Am I to send you alone into such great danger? That is not how my father Opheltes, schooled in wars, raised me, brought up amid Greek terror and the sufferings of Troy; nor have I behaved like that toward you, following great-hearted Aeneas and his final fortunes. There is in me, there is a spirit that despises life and believes that the honor you are after is well bought at the price of life.' Nisus replied to this: 'For my part I feared nothing of the kind from you, nor could I rightly; so may great Jupiter, or whoever looks on these things with fair eyes, bring me back to you in triumph. But if any chance or god (as you see many in such a danger) sweeps me into the enemy's path, I want you to survive; your life is worthier than mine at your age. Let there be someone to bury me in the earth, snatched from battle or ransomed for a price, or if Fortune forbids that, as she often does, to bring offerings to me in my absence and honor me with a tomb. And let me not be the cause of such grief to my poor mother, who alone of many mothers has dared to follow you, boy, and does not care about the walls of great Acestes.' But Euryalus said: 'You weave empty excuses in vain, and my resolve does not yield or change. Let us hurry,' he said, and woke the sentries at once. They take over and keep the watch in turn; leaving his post, he goes with Nisus as his companion, and they look for the king.
224| All other living things throughout the earth were releasing their cares in sleep, their hearts forgetting their toils; but the leaders of the Trojans, the chosen young men, were holding a council on the supreme affairs of the kingdom, about what to do and who would now be a messenger to Aeneas. They stand leaning on long spears, holding shields, in the middle of the camp and the field. Then Nisus and Euryalus with him, eager, at once ask to be admitted: the matter is great, they say, and worth the delay. Iulus was the first to receive them in their agitation, and told Nisus to speak. Then the son of Hyrtacus said: 'Listen with fair minds, Aeneadae, and do not judge what we bring by our years. The Rutulians, slack with sleep and wine, have fallen silent. We ourselves have spotted a place for an ambush, which opens at the fork of the gate nearest the sea. Their fires are broken up and black smoke rises to the stars. If you allow us to use our chance to seek Aeneas and the city of Pallas, soon you will see us here again with spoils, when great slaughter is done. And the road will not fail us as we go:
244| in our constant hunting we have seen the first part of the city beneath dim valleys and have come to know the whole river.' Then Aletes, heavy with years and mature in judgment, said: 'Gods of our fathers, under whose power Troy always stands, you are not wholly set on destroying the Trojans, since you have brought forth such spirits in our young men and such steadfast hearts.' So speaking, he held both their shoulders and hands, and wet their faces and cheeks with tears. 'What rewards, men, what rewards worthy of such praise can I think could be paid you? The first and fairest the gods and your own character will give you; then dutiful Aeneas will quickly add the rest, and Ascanius, in the prime of life, never forgetful of so great a service.' 'Indeed, I, whose only safety lies in my father's return,' Ascanius took up, 'I beseech you, Nisus, by the great household gods, by the Lar of Assaracus, and by the shrine of grey Vesta: whatever fortune and trust I have, I place in your laps. Bring my father back, give him back to my sight; with him recovered, nothing is sad. I will give you two cups worked in silver and rough with figures, which my father seized when he captured Arisba, and two tripods, a pair of great talents of gold, and an old mixing-bowl which Sidonian Dido gave him.
267| And if it is indeed our lot as victors to take Italy and gain the scepter and to decide the allotment of the spoils, you have seen the horse Turnus rode and the arms in which he went, all golden; that very horse, with the shield and the red crests, I will exclude from the lot, already your reward, Nisus. Besides, my father will give twelve of the choicest women and captives, and for all of them their own arms, and in addition the land that King Latinus himself holds. And you, revered boy, whom my age follows at a closer distance, I already take to my whole heart and embrace as my comrade in every chance. No glory will be sought in my affairs without you: whether I make peace or war, my greatest trust in deeds and words will lie in you.' To him Euryalus replies in these words: 'No day shall show that I am unlike such bold deeds; only let fortune fall favorable, not adverse. But above all gifts I ask you one thing: there is a mother of mine, of Priam's ancient line, whom the land of Troy did not keep, poor woman, when she left with me, nor the walls of King Acestes.
287| Her I now leave unaware of this danger, whatever it may be, and without a farewell (let night and your right hand be witness), because I could not bear a mother's tears. But you, I beg, comfort her in her need and help her in her abandonment. Let me carry this hope of you with me, and I will go the more boldly into every chance.' The Trojans, their hearts struck, shed tears, most of all fair Iulus, and the image of his own love for his father touched his spirit. Then he said: 'Be assured of everything worthy of your great undertaking. For that woman will be my mother, and only the name of Creusa will be lacking; and no small gratitude awaits the woman who bore such a son. Whatever chances follow the deed, I swear by this head, by which my father used to swear: what I promise you on your return and in success will remain the same for your mother and your family.' So he spoke in tears; at the same time he took from his shoulder his gilded sword, which Lycaon of Cnossus had made with marvelous art and fitted with an ivory scabbard. Mnestheus gives Nisus the hide and spoils of a shaggy lion, and faithful Aletes exchanges helmets with him.
308| At once they go forth armed; the whole band of leaders, young and old, escorts them as they go to the gates with prayers. And fair Iulus too, showing a man's spirit and concern beyond his age, gave his father many instructions to deliver; but the breezes tear every one apart and hand them over, fruitless, to the clouds.
314| They go out and cross the ditches and through the night's shadow seek the enemy camp, though first they will be the death of many. Here and there they see bodies stretched on the grass in sleep and wine, chariots standing upright on the shore, men among the reins and wheels, arms lying beside wine. The son of Hyrtacus spoke first: 'Euryalus, my hand must dare: the moment itself calls. This is the way. You keep watch, so that no band can rise at our backs, and look out far ahead; I will lay waste here and lead you along a broad path.' So he speaks and lowers his voice, and at the same moment attacks proud Rhamnes with his sword, who, as it happened, lay on high-piled rugs and was breathing out sleep from his whole chest, a king and also the augur most dear to King Turnus, but he could not drive off ruin with his augury. Nearby he kills three servants lying carelessly among their weapons, and Remus' armor-bearer, and finds his charioteer beneath the very horses and cuts his drooping neck with the blade. Then he takes the head off the master himself and leaves the trunk gasping blood; the ground and couches are wet, warmed with dark gore. And he kills Lamyrus and Lamus, and the young Serranus, who had played much that night, handsome in appearance, and who lay with his limbs overcome by the abundant god--happy, had he made his play last the whole night and carried it on into daylight:
339| like a starving lion raging through a full sheepfold (for mad hunger drives him) who mauls and drags the soft flock, dumb with fear, and growls with bloody mouth. Euryalus' slaughter is no less; he too, inflamed, rages, and attacks a nameless crowd in the middle, and Fadus, Herbesus, Rhoetus and Abaris, who knew nothing of it; Rhoetus was awake and saw everything, but in his fear was hiding behind a great mixing-bowl. As he rose, Euryalus buried the whole sword in his chest, face to face, and drew it out with much death. The man vomits his crimson life, and dying brings back wine mixed with blood; Euryalus, hot with the stealth of it, presses on. And now he was heading toward Messapus' comrades; there he saw the last fire dying and the horses, tethered in the proper manner, cropping grass, when Nisus briefly said to him (for he sensed that he was carried away by too much slaughter and eagerness): 'Let us stop, for the hostile daylight is near. We have taken enough revenge, and a path has been made through the enemy.' They leave behind much that men had made of solid silver, and arms and mixing-bowls and fine rugs as well.
359| Euryalus takes the medallions of Rhamnes and the belt with golden studs, which rich Caedicus once sent as a gift to Remulus of Tibur when, though absent, he bound him in guest-friendship; Remulus as he died gave it to his grandson to keep; after his death the Rutulians gained it in war and battle. This he seizes and fits to his shoulders, strong though to no purpose. Then he puts on Messapus' helmet, well fitting and beautiful with its crests. They leave the camp and make for safety.
367| Meanwhile horsemen sent ahead from the Latin town, and the rest of the legion waited drawn up on the plains, were going to bring answers to King Turnus: three hundred, all with shields, under Volcens as their commander. They were now nearing the camp and approaching the walls when from afar they see these two turning aside on a left-hand path, and the helmet betrayed unmindful Euryalus in the half-light of night's shadows and flashed as it faced the rays. It was not seen without effect. Volcens shouts from the column: 'Halt, men. What is the reason for your journey? Who are you in arms? Where are you heading?' They make no reply, but hurry their flight into the woods and trust the night. The horsemen spread out to the known side-roads on this side and that, and ring every approach with a guard. There was a wood, wide and bristling with thickets and dark holm oak, which dense brambles filled on every side; a faint path gleamed through hidden tracks. The darkness of the branches and the burden of his plunder hold Euryalus back, and fear misleads him about the direction of the paths. Nisus goes on; and unawares he had already escaped the enemy and the places later called Alban from the name of Alba (at that time King Latinus had his high stables there), when he halted, glancing back in vain for his missing friend:
390| 'Unlucky Euryalus, in what region did I leave you? Or where shall I follow?' Again turning over the whole tangled route of the deceptive wood, he retraces the footprints he had noted behind him and wanders through the silent thickets. He hears horses, hears the din and signals of pursuers; and not much time passes before a shout reaches his ears and he sees Euryalus, whom the whole band, with the trick of the place and the night, in a sudden confusion, has overwhelmed and is carrying off, struggling much in vain. What can he do? With what force, with what weapons can he dare to rescue the young man? Or should he throw himself, ready to die, into the midst of the swords and hasten a fair death through wounds? Quickly he draws back his arm and brandishes his spear, looking up to the high Moon, and prays aloud: 'You, goddess, you who are present, help our effort, radiance of the stars and protector of the woods, Latona's daughter. If ever my father Hyrtacus brought any gifts on your altars for me, if I myself have added any from my hunting or hung them from the dome or fixed them to your sacred gable, let me throw this band into confusion and guide my weapons through the air.'
410| He had spoken, and straining with his whole body hurls the iron. The flying spear cuts through the shadows of night and reaches the back of Sulmo, who had turned away, and there it breaks, and the splintered wood passes through his midriff. He rolls over, vomiting a warm stream from his chest, cold, and heaves his sides with long gasps. They look around in different directions. Keener for it, Nisus poised another weapon at the top of his ear. While they were in confusion, the spear goes whistling through both temples of Tagus and sticks, warm, in his pierced brain. Fierce Volcens rages and sees no source of the weapon anywhere, nor where he might hurl himself in his fury. 'Meanwhile you,' he says, 'will pay me with your hot blood for the penalty of both'; and at once, with sword drawn, he went at Euryalus. Then indeed Nisus, terrified, out of his mind, cries out, unable to hide himself in the darkness any longer or to bear so great a pain: 'Me, me, here I am, I did it, turn your iron on me, Rutulians! The whole trick is mine; he neither dared nor could do anything; I call heaven and the stars that know it to witness;
430| he only loved his unlucky friend too much.' He was saying such things, but the sword, driven with force, goes through the ribs and breaks the white chest. Euryalus rolls in death, and blood runs over his fair limbs, and his neck collapses and falls back onto his shoulders: like a purple flower cut by the plough that droops, dying, or poppies whose heads sink on their weary stems when they are heavy with chance rain. But Nisus rushes into their midst and among them all seeks only Volcens, and lingers on Volcens alone. The enemies crowd around him and drive him back from this side and that at close quarters. He presses on no less and whirls his lightning sword, until he buried it in the face of the shouting Rutulian as he cried out, and dying took the life of his enemy. Then, pierced through, he threw himself down on his lifeless friend, and there at last he rested in peaceful death.
446| Fortunate both! If my poems have any power, no day will ever remove you from the memory of time, as long as the house of Aeneas dwells on the immovable rock of the Capitol, and a Roman father holds sovereignty.
450| The victorious Rutulians, in possession of their booty and spoils, carried the lifeless Volcens weeping into the camp. Nor was the grief in the camp any less when Rhamnes was found bloodless, and so many leaders killed in a single slaughter, with Serranus and Numa. A huge crowd gathers around the bodies themselves and the half-dead men, and the spot still warm from fresh slaughter and the streams foaming with abundant blood. They recognize among them the spoils, Messapus' shining helmet and the medallions recovered after much sweat.
459| And now Dawn, rising from Tithonus' saffron bed, was sprinkling the earth with new light. With the sun now poured out and things revealed in daylight, Turnus, himself armed, rouses his men to arms; each leader gathers his own bronze-clad lines for battle, and they sharpen their anger with various rumors. Indeed, they fix the heads of Euryalus and Nisus on raised spears (a pitiful sight) and follow them with loud shouting. The hardy Trojans drew up their line on the left part of the walls (for the right is bounded by a river), and hold the huge ditches and stand mournfully on the high towers; at the same time the faces of the men set on the spears, only too familiar to the wretched watchers and dripping with black gore, moved them.
473| Meanwhile winged Rumor flies through the frightened city as messenger and slips into the ears of Euryalus' mother. But at once the warmth left the poor woman's bones, the shuttles fell from her hands and the wool unrolled. The unhappy woman flies out, and with a woman's wailing, her hair torn, she runs frantic to the walls and the front of the columns, mindless of men, mindless of danger and weapons; then she fills the sky with her laments: 'Is this how I see you, Euryalus? Are you the one who was the late comfort of my old age, and could you leave me alone, cruel boy? And when you were sent into such dangers, was your poor mother not even given the chance to say a last word to you? Alas, you lie in an unknown land, given as prey to Latin dogs and birds! I, your mother, did not lead your funeral, nor close your eyes, nor wash your wounds, covering you with the cloth that I hurried over night and day, comforting an old woman's cares with my weaving. Which way am I to follow? Or what land holds your limbs, your torn-off members, and your mangled corpse? Is this what you bring back to me of yourself, my son? Was it for this that I trailed after you across lands and seas? Run me through, if you have any pity, hurl all your weapons at me, Rutulians, destroy me first with the sword; or you, great father of the gods, have pity, and with your thunderbolt thrust this hated head down to Tartarus, since I cannot otherwise break off this cruel life.' By this weeping their spirits were shaken, a mournful groan ran through all of them, and their strength for battle grew numb and broken. As she kindled their grief, Idaeus and Actor, on Ilioneus' advice and with Iulus weeping much, take hold of her and carry her back indoors between their hands.
503| But from afar the trumpet sounded its dreadful note with ringing bronze, a shout follows, and the sky bellows back. The Volscians hurry, their shields locked in a tortoise formation together, and prepare to fill the ditches and tear down the rampart; some look for an approach and to climb the walls by ladders, where the line is thin and the ring is not so thick with men, and light shows through. The Trojans, accustomed to defending walls in a long war, pour out every kind of weapon against them and thrust them back with hard poles. They also rolled down rocks of menacing weight, in case they could break through the covered line, although the Volscians were glad to endure every blow beneath their dense tortoise. But now this does not suffice. For where the huge mass threatens, the Trojans roll and hurl down an enormous weight, which laid the Rutulians low far and wide and broke up the cover of their shields. The bold Rutulians no longer care to fight in blind combat, but strive to drive them from the rampart with missiles. Elsewhere, terrible to see, Mezentius was shaking an Etruscan pine and bringing smoking fires; but Messapus, tamer of horses, son of Neptune, tears down the rampart and calls for ladders against the walls.
525| I pray, Calliope, breathe on me as I sing what slaughter Turnus dealt there with the sword, what deaths, which man each sent down to Orcus, and unroll with me the vast course of the war.
530| There was a tower of vast height and with high bridges, well placed for the site, which all the Italians strove with their utmost strength to storm and to overthrow with the utmost force of their resources, while the Trojans, in turn, defended it with stones and, crowded together, hurled weapons through its hollow windows. Turnus was the first to throw a blazing torch and fixed the flame to its side; it caught the planks in the wind, and clung to the gnawed doorposts. Inside, they panicked in confusion and vainly wished to flee their troubles. While they crowd together and draw back into the part free of the plague, then the tower collapsed suddenly under its weight, and all the sky thunders at the crash. Half-dead, they fall to the ground, followed by the immense mass, pierced by their own weapons and run through the chest by hard timber. Hardly two escaped, Helenor and Lycus; of whom Helenor, in the first flush of youth, whom the slave Licymnia had secretly borne to the Maeonian king and had sent to Troy with forbidden arms, was lightly armed with a bare sword, inglorious in his plain white shield. And when he saw himself amid Turnus' thousands, with Latin lines standing ranked on this side and that, like a wild beast that, fenced in by a dense ring of hunters, rages against the spears and, well aware, hurls itself on death and is carried by a leap over the hunting spears-- just so the young man, bound to die, rushes into the midst of the enemy and heads where he sees the weapons thickest.
556| But Lycus, far better on his feet, among enemies and among arms, holds to the walls in flight, and strives to seize the high roof with his hand and to reach the hands of his comrades. Turnus, pursuing him equally with running and spear, taunts him as the victor: 'Madman, did you hope you could escape our hands?' and at the same time he seizes him as he hangs, and tears him away with a great part of the wall: as when Jupiter's armor-bearer, seeking the heights, carries off a hare or a swan with gleaming body in his hooked talons, or when a wolf, sacred to Mars, snatches from the folds a lamb, sought by its mother with many bleatings. A shout goes up from every side: they charge and fill the ditches with earth, while others throw burning torches against the rooftops. Ilioneus lays low Lucetius, as he approaches the gate carrying fire, with a rock, a huge fragment of a mountain; Liger kills Emathion, Asilas Corynaeus (one good with the javelin, the other with an arrow that deceives from afar), Caeneus Ortygius, Turnus Caeneus the victor, Turnus Itys, Clonius, Dioxippus, Promolus, Sagaris, and Idas, who stood before the topmost towers, and Capys Privernus. Themilla's light spear had grazed him first, and in his madness he flung down his shield and put his hand to the wound; so an arrow flew on wings and was fixed deep in his left side, and with a deadly wound broke the breathing passages of life hidden within.
581| The son of Arcens stood in splendid arms, with his cloak embroidered with the needle and bright with Iberian dark red, remarkable in beauty, whom his father Arcens had sent, raised in the grove of Mars around the streams of the Symaethus, where stands the rich and gentle altar of Palicus. Mezentius laid down his spears, and himself whirled the whistling sling three times around his head with the thong drawn, and split the middle of the youth's temples, facing him, with melted lead, and stretched him out at full length on the deep sand.
590| Then, they say, Ascanius first aimed a swift arrow in war, he who was accustomed before to frighten fleeing wild beasts, and he laid low strong Numanus, whose surname was Remulus, and who had recently been joined in marriage to Turnus' younger sister. He was going before the front line, shouting words both worthy and unworthy of telling, swollen in heart with his new kingship, and carried himself with great clamor: 'Are you not ashamed to be hemmed in again by siege and rampart, twice-captured Phrygians, and to hold up walls against death? Look at those who demand our brides for themselves in war! What god, what madness drove you to Italy? Here you meet no sons of Atreus, no Ulysses, that fabricator of speeches. We are a hardy race from our origin: we carry our newborn sons to the rivers first and harden them with savage cold and water; our boys keep watch in the hunt and wear out the woods, their game is to bend horses and to stretch arrows from a bow. But our young men, patient of toil and used to little, either tame the earth with hoes or shake towns in war. Our whole life is worn down with iron, and we goad our oxen with the butt end of the spear turned around, and slow old age does not weaken our spirit's strength or change our vigor:
612| we press our white hair under a helmet, and it is our pleasure always to bring in fresh plunder and to live on loot. For you, clothes embroidered with saffron and shining purple, and idleness is dear to your hearts; it pleases you to indulge in dances, and your tunics have sleeves and your caps have ribbons. O truly Phrygian women, not Phrygian men, go over the heights of Dindymus, where the pipe gives its double-voiced song to those accustomed to it. The drums and the Berecyntian boxwood flute of the Idaean Mother call you; leave arms to men and yield to the sword.'
621| Ascanius could not bear Numanus boasting with such words and chanting such grim predictions. He turned and drew his arrow against the horsehair string, and, pulling his arms apart, stood ready; first he prayed to Jupiter as a suppliant, with vows: "Almighty Jupiter, favor my bold beginning. I myself will bring you yearly gifts at your temple, and set before your altars a bull calf with gilded brow, gleaming white, as tall as its mother, already butting with its horn and flinging sand with its hooves." The father of heaven heard, and thundered on the left from a clear part of the sky; at the same moment the deadly bow rang. The drawn arrow flew off with a terrible hiss and passed through Remulus' head, piercing his hollow temples with its iron. "Go, mock brave deeds with your arrogant words! Twice-captured Phrygians send this answer back to the Rutulians." That was all Ascanius said. The Trojans followed with a shout, roared for joy, and lifted their spirits to the stars.
638| By chance, at that moment, long-haired Apollo was sitting on a cloud in the region of the upper air, looking down on the Italian lines and the city, and he addressed victorious Iulus: "Well done for your new courage, boy; this is the way to the stars, son of gods and father of gods to come. All the wars that fate will bring will rightly be settled under the line of Assaracus; Troy cannot contain you." With these words he launched himself from the heights of the sky, parted the breathing winds, and made for Ascanius. Then the shape of his face changed into that of old Butes. He had once been armor-bearer to Dardanian Anchises and the trusty guardian at his door; later his father had made him Ascanius' companion. Apollo went along like the old man in everything: voice, complexion, white hair, and weapons with a grim clash. And he addressed fiery Iulus with these words: "Son of Aeneas, let it be enough that Numanus fell to your arrows without punishment. Great Apollo grants you this first glory and does not begrudge you weapons equal to his own; for the rest, boy, hold back from the war." So Apollo began, and in the middle of his speech he left the sight of mortals and vanished from their eyes into thin air.
659| The Dardan leaders recognized the god and his divine weapons, and they heard the quiver rattling as he fled. So, with Phoebus' words and divine will, they held back Ascanius, who was eager for battle, while they themselves went back into the fight and threw their lives into open danger. A shout ran along all the battlements around the walls. They bent their keen bows and whirled the throwing-straps. The whole ground was strewn with missiles; shields and hollow helmets rang with the clash, and a harsh battle rose, as great as a rainstorm coming from the west under the rainy Kids that lashes the ground, as thick as the hail with which clouds pour down onto the shallows, when bristling Jupiter whips up a watery storm with the south winds and bursts the hollow clouds in the sky.
672| Pandarus and Bitias, sons of Alcanor of Ida, whom woodland Iaera raised in the grove of Jupiter, young men as tall as the firs and mountains of their homeland, throw open the gate that had been entrusted to them by their leader's command. Trusting in their weapons, they even invite the enemy to the walls. They themselves stand inside, on the right and the left before the towers, armed with iron, their lofty heads gleaming with crests. They were like twin oaks that rise high into the air beside flowing rivers, either on the banks of the Po or near the lovely Adige, lifting their unshorn heads to the sky and nodding with their lofty crowns. The Rutulians burst in as soon as they saw the entrance open. At once Quercens, and Aquiculus handsome in his armor, and Tmarus headstrong in spirit, and Haemon, a son of Mars, with all their columns either turned and fled or laid down their lives on the very threshold of the gate. Then the quarrel of their spirits raised their anger higher, and the Trojans, now gathered together, close ranks at that spot and dare to fight hand to hand and to charge out farther.
691| A messenger brings word to their leader Turnus, who was raging in another part of the field and throwing the men into confusion, that the enemy was seething with fresh slaughter and offering the gates open. He abandons what he had begun and, stirred by monstrous rage, rushes to the Dardan gate and the arrogant brothers. First he lays low Antiphates (he was the first to come forward), the illegitimate son of lofty Sarpedon by a Theban mother, with a thrown javelin. The Italian cornel-wood spear flies through the yielding air and, lodged in his throat, passes down deep into his chest. The cavity of the dark wound gives back a foaming stream, and the iron grows warm in the pierced lung. Then Turnus kills Merops and Erymas with his own hand, then Aphidnus, then Bitias, burning in his eyes and roaring with spirit; not with a javelin (he would never have given up his life to a javelin), but a falarica came whirling with a great hiss, driven like a thunderbolt, and neither two bull's-hide layers nor the faithful corselet with its double scales of gold held it back. His huge limbs collapse and fall, the earth groans, and his enormous shield thunders over him. Such was the stone pier that once fell on the Euboean shore of Baiae, built beforehand of massive blocks and flung into the sea: it dragged its ruin forward, headlong, and settled deep, crashing against the shallows. The seas churn together and black sand surges up; then lofty Prochyta trembles at the noise, and so does Inarime, the hard bed laid on Typhoeus by Jupiter's commands.
717| Here Mars, mighty in arms, added courage and strength to the Latins and twisted sharp goads in their hearts, and sent Flight and black Fear against the Trojans. From every side they gather, since the chance to fight was given, and the warrior god falls upon their spirits. Pandarus, when he sees his brother's body stretched out and how fortune stands, what chance is driving events, swings the gate shut on its turning hinge with great force, straining with his broad shoulders, and leaves many of his own people shut out from the walls in the hard struggle; but others he shuts in with him and takes in as they rush back — madman, not to have seen the Rutulian king bursting in among the column, and to have shut him into the city of his own accord, like a monstrous tiger among helpless cattle. At once a new light flashed from his eyes, his armor rang terribly, the blood-red crest quivered on his head, and he sends out flashing lightning from his shield. The Trojans, suddenly thrown into confusion, recognize the hated face and the huge limbs. Then huge Pandarus leaps forward and, burning with anger at his brother's death, cries out: "This is not the palace Amata promised as a dowry, nor is it Ardea that holds Turnus in the middle of his ancestral walls.
739| You are looking at an enemy camp; there is no way out of here." Turnus, smiling at him with a calm heart, replies: "Begin, if you have any courage in your heart, and come to close quarters: you will tell Priam that here too an Achilles was found." He had spoken. Pandarus, straining with all his strength, hurls his spear, rough with knots and raw bark. The breezes caught it; Saturnian Juno turned aside the wound as it came, and the spear stuck fast in the gate. "But you will not escape this weapon that my right hand wields with force; for the man who owns this weapon and makes this wound is not like you." So he speaks, and rises high to the sword he has lifted, and with the steel splits the forehead in the middle, between the two temples, and the beardless cheeks with a monstrous wound. There is a crash; the earth is shaken by the huge weight. Dying, he stretches his collapsed limbs and his armor, bloodied with brains, on the ground, and his head, split in equal halves, hangs this way and that over each shoulder.
756| The Trojans scatter and turn in panic and fear; and if the thought had come at once to the victor to break the bars with his hand and let his companions in through the gates, that would have been the final day for both the war and the nation. But rage and a frenzied lust for slaughter drove him, blazing, against those facing him. First he catches Phaleris and Gyges, hamstrung; then he snatches up spears and hurls them into the backs of the fleeing men: Juno supplies strength and courage. He adds Halys to them as a companion, and Phegeus, pierced through his shield; then, unaware, on the walls and stirring up the fight, Alcander and Halius, Noemon and Prytanis. As Lynceus comes against him calling to his companions, Turnus, from the rampart on his right, gets to him first with a sweep of his flashing sword; struck off at close quarters by a single blow, his head lay far away along with his helmet. Next Amycus, the destroyer of wild beasts — no one was more skilled at anointing weapons by hand and arming steel with poison — and Clytius, son of Aeolus, and Cretheus, friend of the Muses, Cretheus, the Muses' companion, whose heart was always in songs and the lyre and setting rhythms to the strings: always he sang of horses and the arms of men and battles.
778| At last the Trojan leaders, hearing of their men's slaughter, assemble, Mnestheus and fierce Serestus, and see their companions scattering and the enemy let in. And Mnestheus says: "Where next, where are you running? What other walls, what further ramparts do you have? Shall one man, citizens, and he hemmed in on every side by your own earthworks, deal out such slaughter through the city and go unpunished? Shall he send so many of our finest young men to Orcus? Cowards, do you feel no pity and no shame for your unhappy country, your ancient gods, and great Aeneas?" Fired by such words, they stiffen and stand firm in a dense column. Turnus gradually begins to withdraw from the fight and make for the river and the part enclosed by water. All the more fiercely the Trojans press on with a great shout and mass their forces: as when a crowd presses on a savage lion with hostile weapons, and he, frightened but fierce, glaring grimly, gives ground backward; his anger and courage do not allow him to turn his back, nor, though he longs to, can he charge against them through the weapons and the men. Just so Turnus, uncertain, retraces his steps backward without haste, and his mind seethes with anger.
799| Even then he had twice charged into the middle of the enemy, twice turned their columns in disordered flight along the walls; but the whole force from the camp quickly gathers into one, and Saturnian Juno does not dare to supply him with strength against them; for Jupiter sent airy Iris down from the sky, carrying no gentle orders to his sister, should Turnus not withdraw from the high walls of the Trojans. So the young man cannot hold his ground so well with shield or right hand: he is overwhelmed by weapons hurled at him from every side. Around his hollow temples his helmet rings with constant clanging; the solid bronze gives way under the stones; the crest is knocked away; the boss of his shield is not enough against the blows. The Trojans redouble their spear thrusts, and Mnestheus himself, like a thunderbolt. Then sweat streams over his whole body and runs in a pitch-black river — he has no chance to breathe — and a sickly panting shakes his weary limbs. Then at last, with a headlong leap, he threw himself in full armor into the river. The river took him as he came into its yellow flood, lifted him up on its gentle waves, washed off the slaughter, and returned him rejoicing to his companions.
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