Authors: Virgil
Now Mars, mighty in war, put new spirit and strength into
the Latins and twisted a sharp goad into their flesh, while
720 sending Flight and black Fear upon the Trojans. Now that their
chance had come to fight, the Latins gathered from all sides and
the God of War stormed their hearts. When Pandarus saw his
brother stretched out in death and knew how his fortunes stood
and the turn events were taking, he put his broad shoulder to
the gate with all his force and heaved it shut on its hinges,
leaving many of his own people cut off outside the walls with a
hard battle to fight, but taking in those who came running, and
shutting them in with himself. Fool that he was! He did not see
the Rutulian king bursting into the city in the middle of the
730 press. By his own act he penned him in like a great tiger among
helpless cattle. In that instant a new light shone from the eyes
of Turnus. He clashed his armour with a fearsome noise, the
blood-red crest trembled on his head, his shield flashed lightning.
Suddenly Aeneas’ men recognized him – the hated face, the huge
body – and were thrown into confusion. But the giant Pandarus
leapt forward to confront him, burning with anger at the death
of his brother: ‘This is not your bridal chamber in the palace of
Amata!’ he shouted. ‘Turnus is not safe in the middle of Ardea
behind his father’s walls. This is the camp of your enemies and
740 there is no way out.’ Turnus replied, smiling calmly: ‘If there is
any courage in you, then come and fight. You will soon be able
to tell Priam that here too you found an Achilles!’ At these
words Pandarus took a spear of rough, knotted wood with its
bark unplaned and hurled it with all his force. As it flew to
wound Turnus, the winds caught it, Juno deflected it and it
lodged in the gate. ‘You will not escape this weapon of mine,’
called out Turnus, ‘which I brandish here in my right hand. This
sword is wielded by a different arm, and gives a deeper wound.’
With these words he lifted it above his head, rising with it, and
750 struck Pandarus between the temples. The blade went straight
through the middle of the forehead and parted the smooth,
young cheeks. The wound was hideous. He fell with a crash and
the ground shook with the weight of him. As he lay dying he
strewed around his nerveless limbs and armour blooded with
brains, and the two halves of his head hung on his two shoulders.
The Trojans turned and ran in terror. If at that moment the
victor had thought of breaking the bolts and letting his comrades
in through the gates, that would have been the end of the war
760 and the end of the Trojan race, but instead his mad lust for
blood drove him upon his enemies in an ecstasy of passion. First
he caught Phaleris and Gyges, slitting his hamstrings. He then
took their spears, and with Juno lending him strength and spirit,
he hurled them into the backs of the retreating enemy. Next he
sent Halys to keep them company and Phegeus, the spear passing
through his shield; then Alcander, Halius, Noemon and Prytanis,
who were on the walls in the thick of battle and did not
know he was inside. Now Lynceus was coming at him and
calling on his comrades for help. Turnus from the rampart on
770 his right stopped him short with one flashing stroke of his sword,
a blow from close range that severed the head and sent it flying
far from the body, helmet and all. Next he brought down
Amycus, that mighty hunter and slayer of wild beasts – no man
better to charge the spear-point with poison or smear the tip of
the arrow; then Clytius, son of Aeolus, and Cretheus, that dear
companion of the Muses, Cretheus, a great lover of song and of
the lyre, a great setter of poems to the strings, always singing
of horses and armour and the battles of heroes.
At last the Trojan leaders, Mnestheus and the bold Serestus,
hearing of the slaughter of their men, came on the scene to find
780 their allies scattering and the enemy within the walls. ‘Where
are you running to now, citizens?’ cried Mnestheus. ‘Where is
there to go? What other walls have you? What other defences
when you leave these? Can one man, and one man hemmed in
on every side by your ramparts, cause all this slaughter and send
so many of your best fighting men to their deaths all over your
city, and still live? Have you no spirit? Have you no shame? No
thought for your fatherland in its anguish, for your ancient gods
or for great Aeneas?’ These words fired them. They rallied and
held fast in close formation while Turnus gradually began to
790 disengage, making for the river and the part of the camp in the
bend of the river. Seeing this the Trojans laid on all the harder,
shouting at the top of their voices and crowding him like a pack
of huntsmen with levelled spears pressing hard on a savage lion;
the lion is afraid and gives ground, but he is still dangerous, still
glaring at his attackers; his anger and his courage forbid him to
turn tail, and though he would dearly love to, he cannot charge
through the wall of steel and the press of men – just so did
Turnus give ground, uncertain but unhurried, and his mind was
800 boiling with rage. Twice he even hurled himself into the middle
of his enemies, breaking their ranks and sending them flying
along the walls, but a whole army came together in a rush
against him from the camp, and Juno, daughter of Saturn, did
not dare to renew his strength to withstand them, for Jupiter
sent Iris down from the sky bearing stern commands through
the air for his sister Juno if Turnus did not withdraw from the
high walls of the Trojans. So sword-arm and shield were of no
avail. The warrior could no longer stand his ground in the hail
of weapons that overwhelmed him from every side. The helmet
rang and rang again on his hollow temples and the solid bronze
810 was cracked by rocks. The plumes were torn from his head and
the boss of his shield gave way under the blows. The Trojans
doubled their barrage and the spear of Mnestheus was like the
lightning. Sweat poured off the whole body of Turnus like a
river of pitch and he was given no breathing space. His lungs
were heaving. He was shaking and sick with weariness. Then,
and only then, he dived head first into the river in full armour.
The Tiber took him when he came into his yellow tide, bore him
up in his soft waves, washing away the blood of slaughter, and
gave him back in high heart to his comrades.
Meanwhile the house of All-powerful Olympus was thrown
open and the Father of Gods and King of Men summoned a
council to his palace among the stars, from whose steep heights
he looked down upon all the lands of the earth, upon the Trojan
camp and the peoples of Latium. The gods sat in their chamber
open east and west to the light, and Jupiter began to speak: ‘O
great dwellers in the sky, why have you gone back on your
word? Why do you contend with such bitterness of heart? I had
forbidden Italy to clash with the Trojans. Why is there discord
10 against my express command? What has made them afraid and
induced them to take up arms and make each other draw the
sword? The time will come for war – there is no need to hasten
it – when barbarous Carthage will let destruction loose upon
the citadels of Rome, opening up the Alps and sending them
against Italy. That will be the time for pillaging, and for hate to
vie with hate. But now let it be. A treaty has been decided upon.
Accept it, and be content.’
These were the few words spoken by Jupiter, but when golden
Venus replied, her words were not few: ‘O father, imperishable
power over men and over all the world – how could there be
20 any other to whom we might address our prayers? – you see the
Rutulians rampant and Turnus riding in glory in the midst of
them, swollen with the success of his arms. A closed ring of
fortifications no longer offers protection to the Trojans. They
now have to fight hand to hand inside their gates, even on the
ramparts of their walls, and their ditches are swimming with
blood. Aeneas is far away and knows nothing of this. Will you
never allow them to be free of besiegers? Even as Troy is being
reborn, a new enemy is threatening its walls with a new army
behind him, and from Arpi the Aetolian Diomede is once more
rising against the Trojans. I suppose I shall soon be wounded
30 again – after all, mortals are at war and your daughter stands in
their way!
‘If the Trojans have come to Italy without your approval, in
defiance of your heavenly will, they must be punished for their
sins and you must not raise a finger to help them. But if they
have obeyed all the commands they have received from the gods
above and the shades below, how can anyone overturn what
you have ordered or fashion a new destiny? You have seen their
ships burned on the shores of my own son Eryx. You have seen
the king of the storms and his raging winds roused out of their
Aeolian island. You have seen Iris driven down from the clouds.
And now she even turns to the one remaining part of the world
40 and stirs up the powers below – Allecto has suddenly been let
loose upon the earth and has run wild through all the cities in
the middle of Italy! I no longer give a thought to empire. That
was our hope, as you well know, while our fortunes remained.
But those who must prevail are those you wish to prevail. If
there is no region on earth that your cruel queen could concede
to the Trojans, I beg of you, father, by the smoking ruins of the
sacked city of Troy, allow me to take Ascanius safely out of the
war. Allow my grandson to live. As for Aeneas, let him be tossed
by storms in unknown waters and go the road that Fortune
50 gives him, but grant me the power to protect Ascanius and take
him out of this fearful battle. I have Amathus. I have lofty
Paphos, and Cythera, and my palace at Idalium. Let him lay
down his arms and there live out his life in obscurity, while you
give the order for Italy to be crushed beneath the mighty empire
of Carthage. The cities of Tyre will have nothing to fear from
Ascanius. What good has it done him to escape the plague of
war and come safe through the middle of all the fires of the
Greeks, to have drained the cup of danger over all the vast earth
and sea while the Trojans have been searching for Latium and
a new Pergamum? Would it not have been better for them to
60 settle on the dead ashes of their native land, on the soil that was
once Troy? Take pity on them, I beg you, and if the wretched
Trojans must live again the fall of Troy, give them back their
Xanthus and their Simois.’
At this Juno, Queen of Heaven, burst out, wild with rage:
‘Why do you force me to break my deep silence? The scars have
formed over my wounds. Why do you make me speak and
reopen them? Neither man nor god compelled Aeneas to choose
the ways of war and confront king Latinus as an enemy. We are
told he has the authority of the Fates for coming to Italy. The
Fates, indeed! He was goaded into it by the ravings of Cassandra!
And did we urge him to abandon his camp or put his life at
70 the mercy of the winds? Did we advise him to entrust his
fortifications and the whole management of the war to a boy?
To disturb the loyalty of the Etruscans and stir up a peaceful
people? Was it a god that drove him to dishonesty? Was it some
cruel power of mine? Where is Juno in all this? Where is Iris
sent down from the clouds? It is wrong, we hear, for Italians to
ring Troy with fire at the moment of its birth, and for Turnus
to take his stand in the land of his fathers, Turnus, whose
grandfather was Pilumnus and whose mother was the goddess
Venilia. Why then is it right for Trojans to raise the blacksmoking
torches of war against Latins, to put other men’s lands
under their yoke, to carry off plunder, to pick and choose who
are to be their fathers-in-law, to tear brides from their mothers’
80 laps and to hold out the olive branch of peace with their weapons
fixed on the high sterns of their ships? You can steal Aeneas
away from the hands of the Greeks, and where there was a man
you can spread a cloud with empty winds. You can change ships
into sea nymphs. Is it an impiety if we in our turn have given
some help to the Rutulians? Aeneas, you tell us, is far away and
knows nothing of all this. Keep him in ignorance and let him
stay away! You have Paphos and Idalium. You have the heights
of Cythera. Why do you concern yourself with those roughhearted
Italians and their city teeming with war? You claim
we are trying to overturn from the foundations the tottering
fortunes of these Phrygians from Troy. No! Who was it who
90 put your wretched Trojans at the mercy of the Greeks? What
caused Europe and Asia to rise in arms and betray the sacred
ties of friendship? Was I in the lead when the Trojan adulterer
stormed the walls of Sparta? Did I hand him his weapons? Was
it I who kindled the fires of war with lust? That was when you
should have feared for your people. Now, when it is too late,
you get to your feet with these complaints and lies, and hurl this
empty abuse.’