Authors: Virgil
‘You have heard, O best of kings, the answer of a king. You
have heard his judgement on this great war.’
The envoys had scarcely finished before a confused roar was
running through the troubled ranks of the Italians, as when
rocks resist a river in spate and the trapped waters eddy and
growl while the banks on either side roar with the din of the
300 waves. As soon as calm returned to their minds and the words
of fear were stilled on their lips, the king on his high throne
addressed the gods and then began. ‘For my part, O men of
Latium, I would have wished, and it would have been better so,
to have decided this great issue long since, and not be summoning
a council at a time like this with the enemy sitting by our
walls. We are fighting a misguided war, fellow-citizens, against
unconquerable heroes and the sons of gods. Battle does not
weary them, and even in defeat they cannot take their hands
from the sword. If you had any hope of recruiting the Aetolians
as your allies, lay it aside. To everyone his own hopes, but you
310 can see how feeble this one is. All other resource is shattered
and lies in ruins. You can see this with your own eyes. The
whole truth is there at your finger tips. I accuse no one. Courage
has done all that courage could do. The whole body of the
kingdom has fought this fight. But now the time has come for
me to express an opinion which has formed in my doubting
mind. Give me your attention, and I shall tell it in a few words.
Near the Tuscan river Tiber I have long owned some land which
stretches away to the west beyond the land of the Sicani. Here
Auruncans and Rutulians sow their seeds, wearying the stony
320 hills with the plough and grazing the roughest of them. Let this
whole area with the pine forests clothing its high mountains be
given to the Trojans as a token of our friendship, and let us
propose a treaty in just terms, inviting them to become partners
in our kingdom. Let them settle here, if their hearts are so set
on it, and build their walls. But if it is their wish to go elsewhere
and seize the land of some other nation, and if it is within their
power to leave this country of ours, let us weave the timbers of
twenty ships in Italian oak, or more if they can man them. The
wood is all lying on the shore. Let them say what ships they
want and how many, and we can provide the bronze, the dockyards
330 and the hands to do the work. I propose also that a
hundred envoys, men of the highest rank in the Latin race, be
sent to carry this message and conclude this treaty, holding out
the branches of peace in their hands and bearing gifts, talents of
gold and ivory, and the throne and robe which are the emblems
of our royal power. Consider this together, and rescue our
crippled fortunes.’
Then rose Drances, hostile as ever, who always looked askance
at Turnus’ great reputation and was goaded by bitter
jealousy. He was generous with his wealth and readier still with
his tongue, but his hand did not warm to battle. His voice had
340 some weight in council and was always a force for discord. His
mother’s breeding gave him pride of rank; his father’s origins
were unknown. These were the words he spoke to add force
and substance to their anger: ‘What you propose, good king
Latinus, is clear to all and needs no words of mine to support
it. Everyone knows, and admits that he knows, what Fortune
has in store for the people, but they are all afraid to utter it. It
is time for the man whose auspices the gods reject to blow a
little less hard and give us freedom to speak. It is because of his
fatal recklessness – I, for one, shall not be silent though he draw
his sword and threaten me with death – we have seen so many
of our leaders, who have been the lights of our people, extinguished,
350 and the whole of our city now slumped in grief, while he
storms the Trojan camp and frightens the sky with his weapons,
knowing he can save his own life by taking to his heels. There
is still one thing you must add, O best of kings, to all those
many proposals and gifts you tell us to send to the sons of
Dardanus, one thing only, and no man’s violence should be able
to overrule your right as a father to give your own daughter to
a noble husband in a marriage that will be worthy of her, sealing
this peace in a treaty for all time. But if our hearts and minds
are so beset with fear of the man, let us beg and beseech him to
give her up and restore to his king and to his fatherland the
360 rights which are their due. Why do you keep throwing your
unfortunate fellow-citizens into the jaws of danger, Turnus, you
who are the single source and cause of all these sufferings of
Latium? War will never save us. We are all asking you for peace,
and the one inviolable pledge of that peace. I am the first to
come to you as a suppliant – you imagine I am your enemy and
that causes me no distress – look at me! I beg you to pity your
people and lay down your pride. You are defeated. You must
leave the field. We have been routed often enough and have seen
enough funerals. We have stripped our wide fields bare. But if
fame drives you on, if you have the strength in your heart, if
you have such a yearning to receive a palace as a dowry, then
370 be bold, have the confidence to go and stand face to face with
your enemy. So that Turnus can get himself a royal bride, our
lives are cheap. We, the rank and file, are to litter the fields,
unburied and unwept. But you too, if there is any strength in
you, if you have any of the fighting spirit of your fathers, stand
up to your challenger and look him in the face.’
At this, Turnus groaned, and blazed up into a violent rage.
The words burst from the depths of his heart: ‘You have always
a good supply of words, Drances, when war calls for action.
380 When the senate is summoned, you are the first to appear. But
this is no time for filling the council chamber with talk, for
pouring out high-flown speeches in comfort while our walls and
ramparts are all that keep the enemy from us, and we are waiting
for the ditches to fill with blood. By all means, Drances, you can
thunder out your eloquence in your usual style and accuse me
of cowardice, when your right hand has heaped up as many
Trojan corpses as mine has and all the fields are studded with
your trophies. But now is our chance to test our vigour and our
valour. We do not have to look too far for enemies – they are
standing all round the walls. Shall we advance to meet them?
You hesitate? Where is your martial spirit? Will it always be in
390 your long tongue and nimble feet? You say I have been defeated.
You scum of the earth, who can say I am defeated when he sees
the Thybris rising, swollen with Trojan blood, the house of
Evander destroyed root and branch and the Arcadians stripped
of their arms? This is not how great Pandarus and Bitias found
me, nor the thousand men I sent down to Tartarus on my day
of victory when I was trapped inside the walls and rampart of
the enemy. You say that war will never save us. That prophecy
400 is for the Trojan and for yourself, you fool. But go on, stirring
up panic everywhere and praising to the skies the strength of a
race of men who have been twice defeated. Go on insulting the
armies of Latinus. Now, it seems, the leaders of the Myrmidons
are afraid of Phrygian weapons! Now it seems that Diomede
and Achilles of Larisa are taking fright, and the river Aufidus is
flowing backwards in full retreat from the waves of the Adriatic!
Drances even pretends to be terrified when I speak – a rogue’s
trick! The fear is a pretence to add sting to his charges against
me. But there is no need for you to be alarmed. My hand will
never take the breath of life from a man like you. It is welcome
to stay where it is in that breast of yours.
410 ‘But now, father, I come to you and to your great plan. If you
no longer hold out any hope for our arms, if we are left to
fight on utterly alone, if after one setback we are completely
destroyed, and Fortune has abandoned us never to return, let us
stretch out our defenceless arms and sue for peace. But if only
there were a spark of our old courage left in us! Any man who
has fallen and bitten the dust of death rather than live to see
such a thing, I count him fortunate in his life’s labours, the
noblest spirit amongst us! Surely we still have untapped resources
and warriors who have not yet engaged and there are
420 still cities and peoples in Italy to help us? And surely the Trojans
have paid a heavy price in blood for the glory they have won!
They too have had their funerals. The same storm has fallen on
all of us. Why then do we disgrace ourselves by stumbling on
the threshold? Why do our knees start shaking before we hear
the trumpet? Many things change for the better with the passing
of the days and the ever-varying workings of time. Fortune
comes and goes. She has mocked many a man, and then set his
feet back on solid ground. So the Aetolian Diomede and his city
of Arpi will not help us. But Messapus will, and Tolumnius,
430 blessed by the gods, and all the leaders who have come to us
from so many peoples, and great will be the glory for the chosen
men of Latium and the Laurentine fields. We have Camilla too,
from the noble Volscian race, leading her mounted column and
her squadrons flowering with bronze. But if I am the only one
the Trojans want to meet in battle, if that is your will and I am
such a great obstacle to the good of all, then the Goddess of
Victory has not entirely abandoned me, nor is she so ill-disposed
to these hands of mine that I should refuse any undertaking for
which I have such hopes. I shall go and face him with my spirits
440 high were he mightier than Achilles and with armour the equal
of his, made like his by the hands of Vulcan. To all of you, and
to Latinus, father of my bride, I, Turnus, second in courage to
none of those who have gone before me, have offered up my
life. Is Aeneas challenging me, and me alone? Let him challenge.
It is the answer to my prayer. If this is the anger of the gods I
would not have Drances appease it; if it is a moment for courage
and glory, I would not give it to Drances.’
So they disputed among themselves in deep uncertainty.
Aeneas, meanwhile, had struck camp and was moving his army.
Suddenly there came a messenger rushing wildly through the
royal palace and causing panic all over the city: the Trojans,
450
drawn up in line of battle, the Etruscan squadron with them,
were coming down the valley of the Tiber and filling the whole
plain. There was instant confusion and dismay among the people
and hearts were roused by the sharp spur of anger. With wild
gestures the young men asked for arms. ‘Arms!’ they shouted,
while their fathers wept and murmured. On every side a great
clamour of dissenting voices rose to the winds like the sound of
flocks of birds settling in groves of tall trees, or swans whose
harsh calls ring across the chattering pools of the river Padusa,
so rich in fish. ‘Do not disturb yourselves, citizens!’ shouted
460 Turnus, seizing the moment. ‘Convene your council and sit there
praising peace while your enemies invade your kingdom with
swords in their hands.’ These were his only words to them as he
leapt to his feet and rushed from the lofty palace shouting: ‘You,
Volusus, tell the Volscian contingents to arm! And take the
Rutulians with you! Deploy the cavalry, Messapus, and you
too Coras with your brother, in battle array over the whole
plain! Some of you reinforce the approaches to the city and man
the towers. The rest of you come and advance with me where I
order.’