Virgil · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1| Meanwhile Dawn rose and left the Ocean. Aeneas, although his cares urge him to give time to burying his companions and his mind is troubled by death, was paying his vows to the gods as victor at first light. He set up on a mound a huge oak with its branches cut away on every side and dressed it in gleaming armor, the spoils of the leader Mezentius, a trophy to you, great lord of war. He fastens on it the crests dripping with blood, the man's broken spears, and the breastplate struck and pierced in twice six places; he ties the bronze shield to its left side and hangs the ivory-hilted sword from its neck. Then, since the whole crowd of leaders gathered close around him, he begins thus to encourage his exultant companions: "Men, the greatest thing has been achieved; let all fear for what remains be gone. Here are the spoils, the first fruits taken from a proud king, and this is Mezentius at my hands. Now our road leads to the king and the Latin walls. Prepare your arms, look forward to the war with courage and hope, so that no delay holds us back unprepared, when the gods first give the sign to pull up the standards and lead the young men out of the camp, and no faint-hearted plan slows us through fear. Meanwhile let us commit to the earth our companions and their unburied bodies, the only honor there is down in Acheron. Go," he said, "honor with the last gifts those noble souls who have won this homeland for us with their blood; and let Pallas first be sent to the grieving city of Evander, Pallas, who did not lack courage, whom the black day carried off and plunged into bitter death."
29| So he speaks, weeping, and goes back to the doorway where old Acoetes was guarding the lifeless body of Pallas laid out. Once he had been armor-bearer to Parrhasian Evander, but then he had gone as companion to his dear foster son under less happy auspices. Around him stood the whole band of servants, a crowd of Trojans, and the women of Ilium with their hair let down in mourning, as custom requires. But when Aeneas came in through the high doors, they raise a huge lament to the stars, beating their breasts, and the palace resounds with grieving cries. When he saw the propped-up head and face of Pallas, white as snow, and the open wound of the Ausonian spear in his smooth chest, he speaks with welling tears: "Pitiable boy, did Fortune, when she came in joy, begrudge me you, so that you should not see our kingdom or ride back in victory to your father's home? This is not what I had promised your father Evander about you when I left, when he embraced me as I went, sent me off to a great command, and warned me in his fear that the men were fierce, that we would fight a hard race. And now he, perhaps much deceived by empty hope, is making vows and heaping the altars with gifts, while we in sorrow escort with useless honor a young man who is dead and owes nothing more to any god above. Unhappy man, you will see the cruel funeral of your son! Is this our return, our long-awaited triumph? Is this my great pledge? But you will not see him, Evander, driven off with shameful wounds, nor will you as a father pray for a dreadful death because your son survived in disgrace. Ah me, what a great protector you are losing, Ausonia, and you, Iulus!"
59| When he had wept over these things, he orders the pitiful body to be lifted, and sends a thousand men chosen from the whole army to escort him with the last honors and to be present at the father's tears — small comfort for so great a grief, but owed to the unhappy father. Others quickly weave a wicker frame and a soft bier from arbutus shoots and oak twigs, and shade the raised couch with a covering of leaves. Here they lay the young man, high on his rustic bed: like a flower picked by a girl's thumb, a soft violet or a drooping hyacinth, whose brightness and beauty have not yet faded, but whom mother earth no longer feeds or gives strength. Then Aeneas brought out two robes, stiff with gold and purple, which Sidonian Dido herself, delighting in the work, had once made for him with her own hands, threading the weave with fine gold. Sadly he dressed the young man in one of these as a last honor and veiled with it the hair that was to burn; and besides he heaps up many prizes from the Laurentine fight and orders the plunder to be led out in a long procession;
80| he adds the horses and weapons he had stripped from the enemy. He had also bound behind their backs the hands of those he would send to the shades as funeral offerings, to sprinkle the flames with the blood of the slain; and he orders the leaders themselves to carry tree trunks dressed in the enemy's armor, with the enemies' names fastened on them. Unhappy Acoetes, worn out with age, is led along, now defiling his breast with his fists, now his face with his nails, and he throws himself full length on the ground. They lead chariots, too, drenched with Rutulian blood. Behind them goes the warhorse Aethon, his trappings laid aside, weeping and wetting his face with large tears. Others carry the spear and the helmet, for Turnus as victor holds the rest. Then follows a mourning column, the Trojans and all the Etruscans and the Arcadians with their arms reversed. When the whole procession of companions had gone far ahead, Aeneas stopped and added these words with a deep groan: "Those same harsh fates of war summon us hence to other tears. Hail forever, greatest Pallas, and forever farewell." Saying nothing more, he made for the high walls and went back into the camp.
100| And now envoys had arrived from the Latin city, covered with olive branches and asking for a favor: that he should return the bodies lying scattered across the plain from the sword, and let them go to a mound of earth; that there is no contest with the conquered and those deprived of the air; that he should spare those who were once called guests and fathers-in-law. Good Aeneas treats their prayer, which was not to be scorned, with kindness, and adds these further words: "What undeserved fortune, Latins, has entangled you in so great a war, so that you flee us as friends? Do you ask me for peace for the lifeless, for those struck down by the lot of war? I would willingly grant that to the living as well. I would not have come had the Fates not given me a place and a home, and I do not wage war against your people; your king abandoned our friendship and put his trust instead in the arms of Turnus. It would have been fairer for Turnus to face this death himself. If he is preparing to end the war by force, if to drive the Trojans out, it was right for him to meet me with these weapons: whichever of us the god or his own right hand granted life would live. Now go, and put the fire beneath your wretched fellow citizens." Aeneas had spoken. They fell silent in astonishment, and turned, and held their eyes and faces fixed on each other.
122| Then Drances, an old man, always hostile to young Turnus through hatred and accusation, replies in turn with these words: "O hero of great fame, greater still in arms, Trojan, with what praises shall I raise you to the sky? Shall I admire you first for your justice or for the toils of war? We, for our part, will thankfully take these words home to our own city and, if Fortune gives a way, will join you to King Latinus. Let Turnus seek treaties for himself. Indeed, it will be a pleasure even to raise the massive fated walls and to carry Trojan stones on our shoulders." He had said this, and all murmured the same with one voice. They agreed on twelve days, and with peace as an intermediary Trojans and Latins mingled and wandered unharmed through the forests and along the ridges. The tall ash rings under the two-edged ax; they overturn pines that reach to the stars, and do not stop splitting oak with wedges and fragrant cedar, or hauling ash trees on groaning wagons.
139| And now Rumor, flying, the herald of so great a grief, fills Evander and Evander's house and walls, she who a moment before was reporting Pallas as victor in Latium. The Arcadians rushed to the gates and, following their ancient custom, snatched up funeral torches; the road gleams with a long line of flames and marks out the fields far and wide. Coming to meet them, the Phrygian crowd joins the mourning column. When the mothers saw them approaching the houses, they set the sorrowing city ablaze with their cries. But no force can hold Evander back; he comes into the midst of them. When the bier with Pallas has been set down, he falls on it and clings to it, weeping and groaning, and at last, with difficulty, a way is opened for his voice through his grief: "This is not what you promised your father, Pallas, that you would trust yourself to savage Mars more carefully. I was not unaware how much new glory in arms and the very sweet honor of a first fight could do. The first fruits of a young man, wretched, and the hard apprenticeship of a war so close, and my vows and prayers, heard by none of the gods! And you, most holy wife, happy in your death and not kept for this grief!
160| But I, by living on, have defeated my own fate, to remain as a father who outlived his son. The Rutulians should have overwhelmed me with their spears as I followed the Trojans' allied arms! I myself should have given up my life, and this procession should be bringing me home, not Pallas! I would not blame you, Trojans, nor the treaty nor the hands we joined in hospitality: that lot was owed to my old age. But if a premature death awaited my son, then it will be a comfort that he fell while leading the Trojans into Latium, after killing thousands of Volscians. Indeed, Pallas, I would not honor you with any other funeral than that which dutiful Aeneas, the great Phrygians, the Etruscan leaders and the whole Etruscan army have given. They carry great trophies, those whom your right hand sent to death; and you too would now be standing as a huge trunk in the fields, Turnus, if your age were equal and the strength that comes with years the same. But why, unhappy man, do I keep the Trojans from their arms? Go, and remember to carry this message to your king: that I prolong a hateful life now that Pallas is dead is because of your right hand; you see that Turnus owes it to son and father alike. This is the one place open for you, for your merits and your fortune. I do not seek joy in life, that would not be right, but to bring this news to my son among the deepest shades."
182| Meanwhile Dawn had raised the kindly light for wretched mortals, bringing back their tasks and toils. Now father Aeneas and Tarchon on the curving shore built the pyres. Each man carried the bodies of his own people there, according to the custom of their fathers, and when the black fires were set beneath them, the high sky is buried in darkness and smoke. Three times, girded in gleaming armor, they ran around the blazing pyres; three times on horseback they circled the mournful funeral fire and raised a wail with their voices. The earth is sprinkled with tears, and the arms are sprinkled too; the shouting of men and the blare of trumpets go up to the sky. Then some throw into the fire the spoils stripped from the slain Latins, helmets and fine swords and bridles and glowing wheels; others, the familiar gifts, the dead men's own shields and their unlucky spears. Many bodies of oxen are slaughtered around to Death, and bristly pigs and sheep seized from all the fields are slaughtered over the flames. Then along the whole shore they watch their comrades burning and guard the half-burnt pyres, and cannot be dragged away, until damp night turns the sky, set with burning stars.
203| No less, the wretched Latins in another part built countless pyres, and some buried many bodies of men in the earth, while others they carried off to the neighboring fields or sent back to the city. The rest, a huge heap of confused slaughter, they burn without count and without honor; then on every side the vast fields vie in shining with many fires. The third dawn had driven the chill shadow from the sky: grieving, they raked the deep ash and the bones mixed together from the hearths, and piled a warm mound of earth over them. But now in the houses of the city of rich Latinus, the loudest uproar and the greatest part of the long mourning is heard. Here mothers and wretched daughters-in-law, here the dear hearts of grieving sisters, and boys orphaned of their parents, curse the dreadful war and Turnus's marriage; they demand that he himself decide it with arms, he himself with the sword, since he claims the kingdom of Italy and the first honors for himself. Savage Drances adds weight to this and declares that Turnus alone is called for, that Turnus alone is summoned to the contest. At the same time many opinions in varied words speak against this on Turnus's behalf; the great name of the queen shields him, and his fame supports him with the trophies he has earned.
225| Amid this turmoil, in the middle of the blazing uproar, behold, sad envoys come back from the great city of Diomedes with his reply: that nothing had been achieved by all the expense of so much effort, that gifts and gold and great entreaties had availed nothing, that the Latins must seek other arms or ask peace from the Trojan king. King Latinus himself sinks under immense grief: the anger of the gods and the new graves in front of his eyes warn him that Aeneas is carried along by fate and by the clear will of heaven. So he summons a great council, the foremost of his people called by command, within his high threshold. They gather and stream to the royal house along crowded streets. Latinus sits in the middle, the oldest in years and first in scepter, with no happy face. And here he orders the envoys returned from the Aetolian city to tell what they report, and demands the answers, all of them in their order. Then silence fell on every tongue, and Venulus, obeying the command, begins to speak thus:
243| "We have seen Diomedes, citizens, and the Argive camp, and having traveled the whole road we overcame every danger, and we touched the hand by which the land of Ilium fell. He, as victor, was founding the city of Argyripa, named for his native people, in the fields of Iapygian Garganus. When we had entered and been given the chance to speak in his presence, we offered our gifts, told him our name and country, who had brought war on us, and what reason had drawn us to Arpi. When he had heard, he replied in these words, with a calm face: 'O fortunate peoples, kingdom of Saturn, ancient Ausonians, what fortune is disturbing your peace and persuading you to provoke a war you know nothing of? All of us who violated the fields of Ilium with the sword (I pass over what was endured in fighting beneath the high walls, the men that the famous Simois covers) have paid, through the whole world, unspeakable punishments and all the penalties for our crimes, a band pitiable even to Priam. The grim star of Minerva knows it, and the Euboean rocks and Caphereus the avenger. After that campaign we were driven to different shores: Menelaus, son of Atreus, is an exile as far as the pillars of Proteus, and Ulysses has seen the Cyclopes of Etna.
264| Shall I tell of the kingdom of Neoptolemus and the overturned household gods of Idomeneus? Of the Locrians living on the Libyan shore? The Mycenaean himself, leader of the great Achaeans, was killed on his own threshold by the hand of his shameless wife, and an adulterer lay in wait for conquered Asia. Did the gods begrudge me that, restored to my country's altars, I should see my longed-for wife and beautiful Calydon? Even now portents of horrible aspect pursue me, and my lost comrades have sought the sky on wings and wander the rivers as birds (alas, the dreadful punishment of my own men!) and fill the rocks with tearful cries. All this I should indeed have been expecting from the time when, in my madness, I attacked heavenly bodies with the sword and violated Venus's right hand with a wound. No, do not, do not urge me into such battles. I have no war with the Teucrians after Pergamum was destroyed, and I do not remember the old woes with joy. The gifts you carry to me from your native shores, take them to Aeneas. We stood against his savage weapons and joined battle hand to hand: believe one who has tested it, how he rises over his shield, with what whirl he hurls his spear.
285| If the land of Mount Ida had borne two more such men, Dardanus would have come of his own accord to the cities of Inachus, and Greece would be mourning a reversed fate. Whatever delay there was at the walls of hard Troy, the Greeks' victory stuck fast at the hand of Hector and Aeneas, and carried its footsteps back to the tenth year. Both were outstanding in courage, both in outstanding arms; Aeneas was the superior in devotion. Join hands in a treaty, wherever you can; but take care that weapon does not meet weapon.' You have heard, best of kings, both what the king's answer is and what his opinion is about the great war."
296| Scarcely had the envoys spoken when a confused murmur ran through the faces of the Ausonians, as when rocks hold back rushing rivers, a roar rises from the blocked whirlpool, and the nearby banks resound with crackling waves. As soon as their minds were calmed and their anxious voices quiet, the king, after first invoking the gods, began from his high throne:
302| "I could wish, Latins, and it would have been better, that we had decided the main question earlier, and not called a council at a time like this, when the enemy is camped before our walls. We are waging an ill-timed war, citizens, against a race of gods and unconquered men, whom no battles wear down, and who cannot stop fighting even when beaten. If you had any hope in the Aetolians' arms you called in, put it aside. Each man is his own hope; but you see how narrow it is. As for the rest, how everything lies shattered in ruin, it is all before your eyes and in your hands. I blame no one: whatever the greatest courage could do has been done; the struggle has been fought with the whole body of the kingdom. Now, then, I will lay out what my wavering mind has decided and explain it in a few words (give me your attention). I have an old tract of land near the Tuscan river, stretching west and as far as the Sicanian borders; the Aurunci and Rutulians sow it, work the hard hills with the plow, and pasture the roughest parts of them. Let this whole region and the pine-covered slope of the high mountain be given up to friendship with the Trojans, and let us propose fair terms of treaty and call them as allies into our kingdom:
323| let them settle, if their desire is so great, and build their walls. But if they have in mind to seek other lands and another people, and can leave our soil, let us construct twenty ships out of Italian oak; or if they can fill more, all the timber lies by the water. Let them themselves lay down the number and design of the hulls, and we shall provide bronze, labor, and shipyards. Besides, I propose that a hundred Latin envoys from the leading families go to carry my words and confirm the treaty, holding out in their hands the branches of peace, bringing gifts: talents of gold and ivory, and the curule chair and the striped robe, the symbols of our rule. Deliberate in common and help our exhausted state."
336| Then Drances, the same man, hostile, whom Turnus's glory goaded with sidelong envy and bitter spurs, generous with wealth and better with his tongue, but with a hand cold in war, regarded as no worthless adviser in counsel, powerful in factional strife (his mother's nobility gave him a proud ancestry; on his father's side he was of uncertain stock), stands up and heaps and piles on anger with these words: "The matter you consult us on, good king, is obscure to no one and needs no voice of ours: all admit they know what the people's fortune brings, but they hesitate to say it. Let him give freedom of speech and ease his arrogance, the man because of whose ill-omened leadership and sinister ways (I will say it, though he threaten me with arms and death), we see that so many shining leaders have fallen and the whole city has sunk into mourning, while he attacks the Trojan camp, trusting in flight, and frightens the sky with his weapons. One thing further, best of kings, add to those gifts, which you order to be sent in great number and promised to the Dardans, one thing: do not let anyone's violence prevent you from giving your daughter, father that you are, to an outstanding son-in-law in a worthy marriage, and from sealing this peace with an eternal treaty.
357| But if such terror holds our minds and hearts, let us entreat Turnus himself and beg his permission from him: let him yield, and give up his private right to the king and to his country. Why do you so often throw your wretched fellow citizens into open danger, Turnus, you who are the source of these troubles for Latium and their cause? There is no safety in war; we all ask you for peace, Turnus, and at the same time for the one inviolable pledge of peace. I first, whom you imagine to be your enemy (and I do not mind being so), look, I come as a suppliant. Pity your own people, set aside your pride, and go away beaten. We have seen enough deaths, enough of the routed, and we have laid waste vast fields. Or if glory moves you, if you feel such strength in your heart, and if the palace that comes with the dowry is so dear to you, dare, and with confidence bring your chest against the enemy. Of course, so that a royal bride may fall to Turnus, we, worthless lives, an unburied and unmourned crowd, are to be cut down on the plains. You too, if you have any strength, if you have anything of your father's war-spirit, look in the face of him who challenges you."
376| Turnus's violence flared up at these words. He groaned and broke out with these cries from deep in his chest: "You always have plenty to say, Drances, just when war demands action, and when the senators are summoned you are the first to arrive. But the senate house should not be filled with words, which fly from you so grandly while you are safe while the rampart of the walls holds the enemy off and the ditches are not yet flooded with blood. So thunder away with your eloquence (as you always do) and accuse me of cowardice, Drances, since your right hand has piled up so many heaps of slaughtered Trojans and you have made the fields everywhere conspicuous with your trophies. You are welcome to find out what living courage can do; and surely we do not have to look far for enemies. They stand all around the walls. Shall we go against them? Why do you hold back? Or will your Mars live forever in your windy tongue and those fleeing feet of yours? I, driven back? Or will anyone, you foulest of men, rightly call me driven back, anyone who will see the Tiber swollen with Trojan blood, and Evander's whole house, with his line, laid low, while the Arcadians are stripped of their weapons?
396| That is not how Bitias and mighty Pandarus found me, nor the thousand men I sent down to Tartarus in a single day as victor, though I was shut in behind walls and fenced round by the enemy's rampart. Is there no safety in war? Sing such things to the head of the Dardan and to your own cause, madman. So do not stop throwing everything into confusion with great fear and exalting the strength of a twice-conquered people, while you run down the arms of Latinus. Now the chieftains of the Myrmidons shake at Phrygian arms, now too the son of Tydeus and Achilles of Larisa, and the river Aufidus flees backward from the Adriatic waves. Or when he pretends to be afraid at my abuse, the schemer's crime, and sharpens the charge with feigned dread. You will never lose a soul like yours by this right hand (stop being stirred up): let it live with you and be in that breast of yours. Now I return to you, father, and to your great deliberation. If you place no further hope in our arms, if we are so abandoned and, with our army routed once, have been utterly destroyed, and Fortune has no way back, let us pray for peace and stretch out unarmed hands. And yet, oh, if only some of our usual courage were still here!
416| In my eyes he is fortunate above others in his hardships and outstanding in spirit, who, so as not to see anything like this, fell dying and bit the ground once and for all with his mouth. But if we still have resources and young men not yet touched, and the cities and peoples of Italy remain to help us, if glory has also come to the Trojans at the price of much blood (they have their own deaths, and the storm is the same for all), why do we falter ignobly on the very threshold? Why does trembling seize our limbs before the trumpet sounds? Time and the changing toil of shifting ages have turned many things for the better; Fortune, visiting now one man, now another, has toyed with many and set them on solid ground again. The Aetolian and Arpi will give us no help. Messapus will be with us, and fortunate Tolumnius, and the leaders so many peoples have sent; and no small glory will follow the chosen men of Latium and the Laurentine fields. There is also Camilla, from the distinguished people of the Volscians, leading a column of horsemen and squadrons gleaming with bronze. But if the Trojans call me alone to the contest, and that is your wish, and I am so much in the way of the common good, Victory does not hate these hands so much and has not fled from them so far that I would refuse to attempt anything for so great a hope.
438| I will go against him with courage, even if he were to show himself a great Achilles and put on arms like his, made by Vulcan's hands. To you, and also to my father-in-law Latinus I, Turnus, second in courage to none of the men of old, have devoted this life. Does Aeneas call me alone? Let him call, I pray; and let Drances not pay with his death instead, if this is the anger of the gods, or carry off the courage and glory, if it is that."
445| They were arguing among themselves in this way over their uncertain situation, each side contending, while Aeneas was moving his camp and his battle line. Suddenly a messenger rushed through the royal halls with great uproar and filled the city with great terror: the Trojans, drawn up in battle formation, and the Etruscan force were coming down from the river Tiber across all the plains. At once minds were thrown into confusion, the hearts of the people were shaken, and their anger was aroused by sharp goads. In alarm they demanded weapons; the young men roared for weapons; the fathers wept and muttered in distress. Then from every side a great clamor of conflicting opinion rose into the air, just as when flocks of birds happen to settle in a tall grove, or hoarse swans make their noise along the fish-filled river Padusa through its chattering pools. "Yes," said Turnus, seizing the moment, "citizens, call your council and sit and praise peace; they are rushing into your kingdom with arms." Saying no more, he leapt up and hurried out of the high halls. "You, Volusus, give the order for the Volscian companies to arm," he said, "and lead out the Rutulians. Messapus, and you, Coras, with your brother, spread the cavalry out over the broad plains in arms. Let some men secure the approaches to the city and garrison the towers; the rest of the force will attack with me where I order."
468| At once they rushed to the walls from every part of the city. Father Latinus himself abandons the council and his great undertakings, and, troubled by the grim moment, puts them off; he blames himself bitterly for not having freely welcomed Dardan Aeneas and taken him as son-in-law for the city. Some dig trenches before the gates, or haul up stones and stakes. The hoarse trumpet gives the bloody signal for war. Then mothers and boys ring the walls in a mixed circle; the last hardship calls them all. The queen too is borne up to the temple and the high citadel of Pallas with a great band of mothers, bringing gifts, and beside her goes the maiden Lavinia, cause of so great a disaster, her lovely eyes lowered. The mothers follow, fill the temple with incense, and pour out sorrowful cries from the high threshold: "Powerful in arms, guardian of war, Tritonian maiden, break with your hand the spear of the Phrygian pirate, throw him headlong to the ground, and lay him low beneath our high gates." Turnus himself, in a frenzy, arms for battle, hurrying. Already he had put on his gleaming breastplate, bristling with bronze scales, and had enclosed his calves in gold, his head still bare, and had belted his sword at his side; he ran down from the high citadel, shining with gold, exulting in spirit and already anticipating the enemy in hope: like a horse that has at last broken its tether and fled the stall, free, and, master of the open plain, either heads for the pastures and the herds of mares, or, used to bathing in a familiar river, bounds out, and neighs with head thrown high, exuberant, and his mane plays over his neck and shoulders.
498| Camilla met him with her Volscian column following, and the queen leapt from her horse right at the gates; her whole troop copied her, left their horses, and slid down to the ground. Then she says: "Turnus, if a brave man has any right to trust in himself, I dare, and I promise, to meet the squadron of the Aeneadae, and to ride alone against the Etruscan cavalry. Let me be the first to try the dangers of war with my force; you stay on foot by the walls and guard the ramparts." Turnus, his eyes fixed on the awe-inspiring maiden, replied: "Maiden, glory of Italy, what thanks can I find to speak, or to repay? But now, since your spirit is above everything, share the burden with me. Aeneas, as rumor and the scouts I sent report, has recklessly sent ahead light cavalry to shake the plains; he himself is crossing the steep heights of the mountain by the deserted ridge and is approaching the city. I am preparing a trap for him on a winding path in the forest, to block the fork of the pass with armed men. You take on the Etruscan cavalry in a clash of standards; with you will be fierce Messapus, the Latin squadrons, and Tiburtus's band; and you too take on a leader's responsibility." So he speaks, and with similar words he urges Messapus and the allied leaders into battle, and advances against the enemy.
522| There is a valley with a curving bend, suited to ambush and the tricks of war, which on both sides a dark flank presses in with dense foliage; a narrow path leads into it, and the pass is tight and the approach treacherous. Above it, on the lookout points and on the very summit of the mountain, lies a plateau unknown to the enemy, with safe places of retreat, whether you wish to meet the fight on the right or the left, or to press down from the ridges and roll great rocks. The young man went there, knowing the lie of the roads; he seized the place and settled in the dangerous woods.
532| Meanwhile in the dwellings of the gods Latona's daughter spoke to swift Opis, one of the maidens of her sacred company, and with a sorrowful voice she spoke these words: "Camilla goes to a cruel war, maiden, and arms herself in our weapons in vain, she who is dear to me above others. For this love of Diana is not new, nor did it move my heart with sudden sweetness. When Metabus, driven from his kingdom by hatred of his overbearing power, was leaving the ancient city of Privernum, he took his infant daughter as a companion in his exile as he fled amid the battle's midst, and called her Camilla, from her mother's name Casmilla, with part of it changed. Carrying her in his bosom before him, he was making for the long ridges of lonely woods; fierce weapons pressed on him from every side, and Volscian soldiers spread out around him. Look, in the middle of his flight the Amasenus, swollen, was foaming at its brimming banks, so great a rainstorm had burst from the clouds. He prepared to swim, but was held back by love for his infant, and feared for his dear burden. As he turned everything over in his mind, this decision suddenly and barely settled on him:
552| The warrior happened to be carrying a huge spear in his strong hand, solid with knots and seasoned oak. To this he ties his daughter, wrapped in bark and wild cork, and binds her securely around the middle of the shaft. Balancing it in his huge right hand, he cries to the sky: "Gracious one, dweller in the woods, Latona's daughter, maiden: I myself, her father, dedicate this child to you as your servant; this is the first weapon of yours she holds as she flees the enemy through the air, a suppliant. Receive, goddess, I call you to witness, your own child, who is now entrusted to the uncertain breezes." He spoke, drew back his arm, and hurled the twisting spear; the waters roared, and over the rushing river unlucky Camilla fled on the whirring javelin. But Metabus, with the great column now pressing close, threw himself into the river and, victorious, pulled the spear with the girl from the grassy turf, a gift for Diana. No cities received him under their roofs or within their walls (nor would he himself, in his wildness, have yielded), and he spent his life among the lonely mountains of the shepherds. Here, in thickets and among bristling wild beasts' lairs, he fed his daughter on the milk of a wild mare from a herd, milking the udder into her tender lips.
573| And as soon as the infant had set the first steps of her feet on the ground, he put a sharp javelin in her hands and hung a little spear and bow from her shoulder. Instead of a gold hairpin, instead of a trailing robe's covering, a tiger's pelt hangs down her back from her head. Even then she hurled child-sized weapons with her tender hand, and whirled a sling on its smooth cord around her head, and brought down a Strymonian crane or a white swan. Many mothers throughout the Etruscan towns longed for her as a daughter-in-law in vain; she is content with Diana alone and keeps an unstained, lasting devotion to weapons and virginity. I wish she had not been caught up in such soldiering and tried to provoke the Trojans: she would be dear to me now and one of my companions. But come, since she is driven by a bitter fate, glide down from heaven, nymph, and visit the Latin borders, where a grim battle is joined under an ill omen. Take these things, and draw an avenging arrow from the quiver: with it, whoever violates her sacred body with a wound, Trojan or Italian, let him pay me the penalty equally in blood. Afterward I will carry the body and weapons of the pitiable girl, unstripped, in a hollow cloud and lay them to rest in a tomb in her homeland." She spoke, and the other, gliding lightly down through the air of heaven, sounded, her body wrapped in a dark whirlwind.
597| Meanwhile the Trojan force draws near the walls, with the Etruscan leaders and the whole cavalry army, drawn up by number in squadrons. The warhorse roars all over the plain, prancing, fighting the tight reins, turning this way and that; then far and wide the field bristles iron with spears, and the plains blaze with raised weapons. Messapus too, and the swift Latins, and Coras with his brother, and the wing of the maiden Camilla appear opposite on the field, and with drawn-back right arms they hold their spears far out and brandish their javelins, and the approach of the men and the neighing of the horses grows hot. Already both sides, having advanced to within a spear's throw, had halted; suddenly they burst out with a shout, urge on their maddened horses, and pour out their missiles from every side, thick as snow, and the sky is covered with shade. At once Tyrrhenus and fierce Aconteus charge straight at each other with their spears, and are the first to crash down with a great noise, and horses' chests burst against horses' chests; Aconteus, flung off, plunges far like a thunderbolt or a weight shot from an engine, and scatters his life into the air.
618| At once the lines were thrown into confusion, and the Latins turned, flung their shields behind them, and wheeled their horses toward the walls; the Trojans drive them on, and Asilas leads the squadrons at their head. And now they were drawing near the gates when the Latins again raised a shout and turned their supple necks about; the Trojans flee and are carried far back with loosened reins. Like the sea, when it rushes forward in alternating tides, and now rolls toward the land and the wave foams over the rocks and drenches the edge of the sand in its curve, now sweeps rapidly back, drawing in the rocks rolled by the surge, and flees, leaving the shore as the water slips away: twice the Etruscans drove the Rutulians, turned back, toward the walls, twice, thrown back, they looked behind them, covering their backs with their shields. But when they met a third time in battle and tangled their whole lines together, and man picked out man, then truly there were the groans of the dying, and weapons and bodies and half-dead horses rolled in deep blood mixed with the slaughter of men, and a harsh fight arose. Orsilochus, since he shrank from approaching Remulus himself, hurled a spear at his horse and left the iron under its ear; the tall warhorse, frantic from the blow, raised its chest and flung up its legs, unable to bear the wound, while Remulus rolled to the ground, thrown off. Catillus strikes down Iollas, and Herminius, huge in spirit, huge in body and weapons, whose tawny hair grew on a bare head, with bare shoulders, and who did not fear wounds: so exposed was he to arms. A spear driven through his broad shoulders quivers in him and, piercing him through, doubles him over in pain. Dark blood flows everywhere; they deal death with the sword, contending, and seek a beautiful death through wounds.
648| But amid the slaughter the Amazon Camilla exults, one side bared for battle, quiver at her back, and now she thickly showers pliant spears from her hand, now seizes her strong double-axe with an untiring right hand; the golden bow and Diana's weapons ring from her shoulder. Even when she has been driven back and retreats, she turns her bow and shoots her darts as she flees. Around her are her chosen companions, the maiden Larina, and Tulla, and Tarpeia brandishing her bronze axe, Italian girls, whom divine Camilla herself chose as her glory, good servants in peace and in war: like the Amazons of Thrace when they beat the waters of the river Thermodon and fight in painted arms, whether around Hippolyte or when Penthesilea, daughter of Mars, returns in her chariot, and with great shrieking and uproar the women's columns exult with their crescent shields.
664| Whom first, whom last, fierce maiden, do you strike down with your spear? Or how many dying bodies do you lay on the ground? First Eunaeus, son of Clytius, whose open chest she pierces with a long fir spear as he faces her. He falls, vomiting streams of blood, and bites the bloody ground, and in death writhes on his wound. Then Liris and Pagasus besides, one of whom, thrown from his stricken horse, was gathering the reins, the other while he came up and stretched out his unarmed hand to the falling man; they fall headlong together. To these she adds Amastrus, son of Hippotes, and, leaning in from a distance with her spear, she pursues Tereus, Harpalycus, Demophoon and Chromis; and as many javelins as the maiden hurled with her hand, so many Phrygian men fell. Far off, Ornytus, a hunter in strange arms and on an Iapygian horse, comes riding; a hide torn from a bull covers the broad shoulders of the fighter, the great gaping mouth of a wolf and its jaws with white teeth cover his head, and a rustic hunting spear arms his hand; he himself moves among the troops, and stands a full head above them all. She catches him (for there is no effort in a routed column) and pierces him, and over him says with hostile heart: "Did you think, Tyrrhenian, that you were hunting wild animals in the woods? The day is here that refutes your words with a woman's arms. Yet no small name you will take to the shades of your fathers: that you fell to the spear of Camilla."
690| Straight away she attacks Orsilochus and Butes, two of the biggest bodies among the Trojans; Butes she pinned from behind with her spear point between the breastplate and helmet, where the neck of the seated rider shows and the shield hangs from the left arm; Orsilochus runs, and she, driven around a huge circle, outwits him by wheeling on the inside and pursues her pursuer; then, rising higher, she doubles her strong axe through the man's arms and through his bones as he begs and pleads at length; the wound wets his face with warm brain. The warrior son of Aunus, from the Apennines, ran into her and, terrified at the sudden sight, froze: not the least of the Ligurians, while the fates allowed him to deceive. And when he sees that he cannot escape the fight by any flight nor turn aside the queen who presses on him, he sets about contriving tricks by plan and cunning, and begins: "What is so remarkable, if you, a woman, trust a strong horse? Give up flight, and trust yourself to level ground, in close combat with me, and gird yourself for fighting on foot: soon you will learn whose windy glory carries deceit." He spoke, but she, furious and inflamed with sharp anger, hands her horse to a companion and stands against him in equal arms on foot, with bare sword and a plain unblazoned shield, unafraid.
712| But the young man, thinking he had won by trickery, flies off himself (no delay), and, turning his reins, escapes in flight and wears out his swift horse with iron-shod heel. "Empty Ligurian, puffed up in vain with proud spirit, you have tried your fathers' tricks in vain, slippery as you are, and deceit will not bring you back safe to deceitful Aunus." So the maiden speaks, and fiery on her swift feet she passes the horse in her run, faces it, seizing the reins, and joins battle and takes her vengeance from the enemy's blood: as easily as the hawk, the sacred bird, from a high rock overtakes in flight a dove high in a cloud, and, having caught it, holds it and tears out its entrails with its hooked talons; then blood and plucked feathers drift down from the sky.
725| But the father of men and gods, seated high on topmost Olympus, does not watch this with unseeing eyes. He rouses the Etruscan Tarchon to savage battle and drives his anger with sharp goads. So Tarchon rides among the slaughter and the retreating lines, and spurs on the cavalry wings with varied cries, calling each man by name, and rallies the beaten to the fight. "What fear is this, you Etruscans who never feel shame, always sluggish? What great cowardice has come over your spirits? A woman drives you scattering and turns these columns! Why do we carry the sword, or these useless weapons in our hands? But you are not slow to love or to night-time battles, or when the curved flute calls the dances of Bacchus. Wait for the feasts and the cups of the full table (this is your love, this your passion) until the favorable seer announces the sacrifice and the fat victim summons you into the high groves!" With these words, ready to die himself, he drives his horse into the midst, and, wild, bears down on Venulus face to face; seizing his enemy, torn from his horse, with his right arm, and with great force and speed he carries him off before his own chest.
745| A shout goes up to the sky, and the whole Latin host turns its eyes. Tarchon flies fiery across the plain, carrying off both weapons and man; then he breaks the iron head from the tip of the shaft and probes for the exposed places where he can deliver a fatal wound. Opposite, Venulus, resisting, holds Tarchon's right hand away from his throat and meets force with force. As a tawny eagle, flying high, carries off a seized snake, entwines it in its feet and fastens in its talons, while the wounded serpent twists its coiling folds, bristles with raised scales, and hisses, rearing up with its mouth, yet the eagle presses its struggling prey no less with its hooked beak, beating the air with its wings at the same time: in just that way Tarchon carries his prize in triumph out of the Tiburtine column. Following their leader's example and success, the Maeonians charge in. Then Arruns, owed to the fates, circles swift Camilla with his javelin, ahead of her in much skill, and tests which chance is easiest. Wherever the maiden rode furiously through the midst of the column, there Arruns approaches and silently marks her tracks; wherever she returns victorious and brings her foot back from the enemy, there the young man stealthily turns his swift reins. He tries these approaches and those, and prowls the whole circuit on every side, relentless, and shakes his sure spear.
768| By chance Chloreus, once a priest sacred to Cybele, was shining from far off, conspicuous in Phrygian arms, and driving a foaming horse, which a hide covered, fitted with bronze scales in the shape of feathers and clasped with gold. He himself, bright in foreign purple and scarlet, was shooting Gortynian arrows from a Lycian bow; a golden bow hung from his shoulders and the priest wore a golden helmet; he had gathered his saffron cloak and the rustling linen folds of it into a knot with tawny gold, and wore embroidered tunics and barbarian leggings for his legs. The maiden followed him alone out of the whole battle, blind to danger, either to hang Trojan arms in the temples, or to show herself off in captured gold as a huntress; heedless, she was burning through the whole column with a woman's love of prey and spoils, when at last Arruns, having seized his moment, hurled his spear from ambush and prayed to the gods above in these words: "Highest of the gods, Apollo, guardian of holy Soracte, whom we worship first, for whom a pine-wood blaze is fed on a heap of logs, and we, your worshipers, trusting in devotion, press our steps through the midst of the fire on burning coals, grant, father, almighty, that this disgrace be wiped out by our weapons. I seek no spoils or trophy from the maiden I have beaten, or any plunder; my other deeds will bring me praise. Only let this dreadful plague fall, driven back by my wound, and I will return to my native city without glory."
794| Phoebus heard, and in his mind granted part of the prayer to succeed, and part he scattered to the flying winds: that he should strike down Camilla, thrown into confusion by sudden death, he granted to the one praying; that he should see his high homeland again on his return he did not grant, and the gales turned his words into the south winds. So when the spear, sent from his hand, sounded through the air, all the Volscians turned their attention keenly and carried their eyes to the queen. She herself remembered nothing, neither the breezes nor the sound nor the weapon coming from the sky, until the spear, carried through, lodged under her bare breast and, driven deep, drank the maiden's blood. Her frightened companions run together and catch their falling mistress. Arruns flees before them all, terrified, in a mix of joy and fear, and no longer has the courage to rely on his spear or to face the maiden's weapons. And just as a wolf, before the enemy weapons can follow, at once hides itself far off in the high mountains by pathless ways, having killed a shepherd or a great bull, aware of its bold deed, and, drawing in its tail, tucks it trembling under its belly and makes for the woods:
814| in just the same way Arruns, in confusion, took himself out of sight, and, content with flight, mingled with the armed men in the middle. She, dying, tugs at the weapon with her hand, yet between her ribs the iron point stands fixed in the deep wound. She sinks down, bloodless; her cold eyes sink in death; the color that was once purple has left her face. Then, breathing her last, she speaks to Acca, one of her peers, who alone was faithful to Camilla above the others, with whom she shared her cares, and says this: "Thus far, sister Acca, I was able; now the bitter wound finishes me, and everything around me darkens in shadow. Flee, and carry these last orders to Turnus: let him take over the battle and keep the Trojans from the city. And now, farewell." With these words she let the reins slip from her hand, falling unwillingly to the ground. Then, cold, little by little she freed herself from her whole body, and let her drooping neck and her head, seized by death, fall, leaving her weapons, and her life fled with a groan, resentful, down to the shades. Then a huge shout rose and struck the golden stars; with Camilla down, the fighting grows fiercer; the whole mass of Trojans, the Etruscan leaders, and Evander's Arcadian squadrons charge in together, packed close.
836| But Opis, Trivia's sentinel, has long been sitting high on the mountaintops, watching the battle unafraid. And when far off, amid the shouting of the raging young men, she saw Camilla struck down by a grim death, she groaned and spoke these words from the depths of her heart: "Alas, maiden, too cruel, too cruel the price you have paid for trying to provoke the Trojans to war! It did you no good to have worshipped Diana alone in the thickets, or to have carried our quiver on your shoulder. Yet your queen has not left you without honor now at the very end, nor will this death be without renown among the nations, nor will you suffer the name of one left unavenged. For whoever has violated your body with a wound will pay with the death he deserves." Under a high mountain there was a huge tomb of earth heaped up for Dercennus, an ancient king of Laurentum, covered by a shady holm oak. Here the beautiful goddess first sets herself down in a swift swoop and looks out for Arruns from the high mound. When she saw him gleaming in his armor and swelling with vain pride, she said: "Why do you go off the other way? Turn your steps here, come here to die, so that you may receive the reward Camilla deserves. Shall even you die by Diana's weapons?"
858| She spoke, and the Thracian nymph drew a swift arrow from her golden quiver, bent her bow with hostile intent, and drew it far back, until the curved tips met and her hands touched evenly, the left the point of the steel, the right, with the string, her breast. At once, at the same moment, Arruns heard the whir of the weapon and the rushing air, and the steel lodged in his body. As he breathes his last and groans his final groans, his companions forget him and leave him in the unknown dust of the plain; Opis is carried away on her wings to airy Olympus.
868| First to flee, their mistress lost, is Camilla's light-armed squadron; the Rutulians flee in confusion, fierce Atinas flees, and the scattered leaders and abandoned companies seek safety and turn their horses toward the walls. No one can hold off the pressing Trojans as they bring death, or stand against them with weapons; instead they carry their unstrung bows on drooping shoulders, and the four-footed hooves shake the crumbling plain at the gallop. Dust rolls toward the walls in a black, swirling cloud, and from the watchtowers the mothers beat their breasts and raise a women's cry to the stars of heaven. Those who were first to burst at a run through the open gates are crushed by an enemy crowd mixed with their own column, and do not escape a pitiful death, but on the very threshold, within their native walls and in the safety of their homes, they are pierced and breathe out their lives. Some bar the gates, not daring to open a way to their comrades or take them into the walls though they beg; and a most pitiful slaughter begins, of those defending the entrances with arms and those rushing onto their arms. Shut out before the eyes and faces of their weeping parents, some roll into the steep ditches under the weight of the rout; some, blind and frantic, with loosened reins, ram the gates and the doorposts made fast with their bars. The mothers themselves on the walls, in the utmost struggle — true love of country shows them the way, now that they have seen Camilla — hurl weapons in fear with their hands, and in their haste imitate steel with hard oak stakes and fire-hardened poles, burning to be the first to die for the walls.
896| Meanwhile the cruelest news fills Turnus' ears in the woods, and Acca brings the young man word of the great uproar: the Volscian ranks shattered, Camilla fallen, the enemy pressing on in hostility and sweeping everything before them with the war on their side, the panic already reaching the walls. Raging — and so the cruel will of Jupiter demands — he abandons the hills he was blockading and leaves the rough woods. He had scarcely gone out of sight and reached the plain when father Aeneas, entering the open pass, crosses the ridge and comes out of the dark forest. So both are carried swiftly toward the walls with their whole columns, not many paces apart; and at the same moment Aeneas saw far off the plains smoking with dust and beheld the Laurentine columns, and Turnus recognized savage Aeneas in arms and heard the approach of feet and the snorting of horses. And at once they would join battle and try the fight, did not rosy Phoebus now bathe his weary horses in the Iberian flood and bring back night as the day slips away. They encamp before the city and fortify the walls.
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