Authors: Virgil
Seeing this and being stricken with fear, the warrior maiden
470 Juturna threw out Metiscus, the driver of Turnus’ chariot, from
between the reins and left him lying where he fell, far from the
chariot pole. She herself took over the reins and whipped them
up to make them ripple, the very image of Metiscus in voice and
form and armour, like a black swallow flying through the great
house of some wealthy man, and collecting tiny scraps of food
and dainties for her young chattering on the nest; sometimes
her twittering is heard in empty colonnades, sometimes round
marshy pools – just so did Juturna ride through the middle of
the enemy and the swift chariot flew all over the field. Now
here, now there she gave glimpses of her brother in triumph,
480 but then she would fly off and not allow him to join in the battle.
But Aeneas was no less determined to meet him and followed
his every twist and turn, tracking him and calling his name at
the top of his voice all through the scattered lines of battle.
Every time he caught sight of his enemy, he tried to match the
speed of his wing-footed horses, and every time Juturna swung
the chariot round and took to flight. What was Aeneas to do?
Conflicting tides seethed in his mind, but no answer came, and
different passions drove him to opposing thoughts. Then the
nimble Messapus, who was running with two pliant steel-tipped
490 javelins in his left hand, aimed one of them at Aeneas and hurled
it true. Aeneas checked himself and crouched on one knee behind
his shield, but the flying spear sheared off the peak of his helmet
and carried away the plumes from the top of it. At this his anger
rose. Treachery had given him no choice. When he saw Turnus’
horses pull the chariot round and withdraw, again and again he
called upon Jupiter and the altars of the broken treaty, and then,
and not till then, he plunged into the middle of his enemies. He
was terrible in his might and Mars was aiding him. Sparing no
man, he roused himself to savage slaughter and gave full rein to
his anger.
500 What god could unfold all this bitter suffering for me? What
god could express in song all the different ways of death for
men and for their leaders, driven back and forth across the
plain, now by Turnus, now by Trojan Aeneas? Was it your will,
O Jupiter, that peoples who were to live at peace for all time
should clash so violently in war?
Aeneas met Sucro the Rutulian – this was the first clash to
check the Trojan charge – but Sucro did not detain them long.
Aeneas caught him in the side and drove the raw steel through
the cage of the ribs to the breast where death comes quickest.
510 Turnus, now on foot, met Diores and his brother Amycus who
had been unhorsed. As Diores rode at him he struck him with
his long spear; Amycus he dispatched with his sword. Then,
cutting off both their heads, he hung them from his chariot and
carried them along with him, dripping their dew of blood.
Aeneas sent Talos, Tanais and brave Cethegus to their deaths,
all three in one encounter, then the gloomy Onites, who bore a
name linked with Echion of Thebes and whose mother was
Peridia. Turnus killed the brothers who came from the fields of
Apollo in Lycia, then young Menoetes, who hated war – but
that did not save him. He was an Arcadian who had plied his
art all round the rivers of Lerna, rich in fish. His home was poor
520 and he never knew the munificence of the great. His father
sowed his crops on hired land. Like fires started in different
places in a dry wood or in thickets of crackling laurel; or like
foaming rivers roaring as they run down in spate from the high
mountains to the sea, sweeping away everything that lies in their
path – no more sluggish were Aeneas and Turnus as they rushed
over the field of battle. Now if ever did the anger seethe within
them; now burst their unconquerable hearts and every wound
they gave, they gave with all their might.
530
Murranus was sounding the names of his father’s fathers and
their fathers before them, his whole lineage through all the kings
of Latium, when Aeneas knocked him flying from his chariot
with a rock, a huge boulder he sent whirling at him, and
stretched him out on the ground. The wheels rolled him forward
in a tangle of yoke and reins and his galloping horses had
no thought for their master as they trampled him under their
clattering hooves. Hyllus made a wild charge, roaring hideously,
but Turnus ran to meet him and spun a javelin at his gilded
forehead. Through the helmet it went and stuck in his brain. As
for you, Cretheus, bravest of the Greeks, your right hand did
not rescue you from Turnus; nor was Cupencus protected by
540 his gods when Aeneas came near, but his breast met the steel
and the bronze shield did not hold back the moment of his
death. You too, Aeolus. The Laurentine plains saw you fall, and
your back cover a broad measure of their ground. The Greek
battalions could not bring you down, nor could Achilles who
overturned the kingdom of Priam, but here you lie. This was the
finishing line of your life. Your home was in the hills below
Mount Ida, a home in the hills of Lyrnesus, but your grave is in
Laurentine soil. The two armies were now wholly turned to face
one another. All the Latins and all the Trojans – Mnestheus and
550 bold Serestus, Messapus, tamer of horses, and brave Asilas –
the battalion of Etruscans and the Arcadian squadrons of
Evander were striving each man with all his resources of strength
and will, waging this immense conflict with no rest and no
respite.
At that moment Aeneas’ mother, loveliest of the goddesses,
put it into his mind to go to the city, to lead his army instantly
against the walls and throw the Latins into confusion at this
sudden calamity. Turning his eyes this way and that as he
tracked down Turnus through all the different battle lines,
he noticed the city, untouched by this great war, quiet and
560 unharmed, and his spirit was fired by the sudden thought of a
greater battle he could fight. Calling the leaders of the Trojans
together, Mnestheus, Sergestus and the brave Serestus, he took
up position on some rising ground and the whole of the Trojan
legion joined them there in close formation without laying down
their shields or spears. Aeneas addressed them standing in the
middle of a high mound of earth: ‘There must be no delay in
carrying out my commands. Jupiter is on our side. No man must
go to work half-heartedly, because my plan is new to him. The
city is the cause of this war. It is the very kingdom of Latinus,
and if they do not this day agree to submit to the yoke, to accept
defeat and to obey, I shall root it out and level its smoking roofs
570 to the ground. Am I to wait until Turnus thinks fit to stand up
to me in battle and consents to meet the man who has already
defeated him? O my fellow-citizens, this city is the head and
heart of this wicked war. Bring your torches now and we shall
claim our treaty with fire!’
When he had finished speaking, they formed a wedge, all of
them striving with equal resolve in their hearts, and moved
towards the walls in a solid mass. Ladders suddenly appeared.
Fire came to hand. They rushed the gates and cut to pieces the
first guards that met them. They spun their javelins and darkened
the heavens with steel. Aeneas himself, standing among the
580 leaders under the city wall with his right hand outstretched,
lifted up his voice to accuse Latinus, calling the gods to witness
that this was the second time he had been forced into battle;
twice already the Italians had shown themselves to be his
enemies; this was not the first treaty they had violated. Alarm
and discord rose among the citizens. Some wanted the city to be
opened up and the gates thrown wide to receive the Trojans and
they even dragged the king himself on to the ramparts; others
caught up their weapons and rushed to defend the walls: just as
when a shepherd tracks some bees to their home, shut well away
inside a porous rock, and fills it with acrid smoke; the bees,
590 alarmed for their safety, rush in all directions through their
wax-built camp, sharpening their wrath and buzzing fiercely;
then as the black stench rolls through their chambers, the inside
of the rock booms with their blind complaints and the smoke
flies to the empty winds.
Weary as they were, a new misfortune now befell the Latins
and shook their whole city to its foundations with grief. As
soon as the queen, standing on the palace roof, saw the enemy
approaching the city, the walls under attack, fire flying up to the
roofs, no Rutulian army anywhere to confront the enemy and
no sign of Turnus’ columns, she thought in her misery that he
had been killed in the cut and thrust of battle. In that instant
600 her mind was deranged with grief and she screamed that she
was the cause, the guilty one, the fountainhead of all these evils.
Pouring her heart out in sorrow and madness, she resolved to
die. Her hand rent her purple robes, and she died a hideous
death in the noose of a rope tied to a high beam. When the
unhappy women of Latium heard of this, her daughter Lavinia
was the first to tear her golden hair and rosy cheeks. The
whole household was wild with grief around her, and their
lamentations rang all through the palace. From there the report
spread through the whole city and gloom was everywhere.
610 Latinus went with his garments torn, dazed by the death of his
wife and the downfall of his city, fouling his grey hair with
handfuls of dirt and dust.
Meanwhile, on a distant part of the plain, the warrior Turnus
was chasing a few stragglers. He was less vigorous now,
and less and less delighted with the triumphant progress of his horses,
when the wind carried to him this sound of shouting and of
unexplained terror. He pricked up his ears. It was a confused
620 noise from the city, a murmuring with no hint of joy in it. ‘What
is this?’ he cried in wild dismay, pulling on the reins to stop the
chariot. ‘Why such grief and distress on the walls and all this
clamour streaming from every part of the city?’ His sister, who
was driving the chariot in the shape of Metiscus and had control
of the horses and the reins, protested: ‘This way, Turnus. Let us
go after these Trojans. This is where our first victories showed
us the way. There are others whose hands can defend the city.
Aeneas is bearing hard on Italians in all the confusion of battle;
630 we too can deal out death without pity to Trojans. You will kill
as many as he does and not fall short in the honours of war.’
Turnus made his reply: ‘O my sister, I recognized you some
time ago when first you shattered the treaty with your scheming
and engaged in this war, and you do not deceive me now,
pretending not to be a goddess. But whose will is it that you
have been sent down from Olympus to endure this agony? Was
it all to see the cruel death of your pitiable brother? For what
am I to do? What stroke of Fortune could grant me safety now?
No one is left whom I love as much as I loved Murranus, and I
640 have seen him before my own eyes calling for me as he fell, a
mighty warrior laid low by a mighty wound. The luckless Ufens
has died rather than look on my disgrace, and the Trojans have
his body and his arms. Shall I stand by and see our homes
destroyed? This is the one indignity that remained. And shall I
not lift my hand to refute the words of Drances? Shall I turn
tail? Will this land of Italy see Turnus on the run? Is it so bad a
thing to die? Be gracious to me, you gods of the underworld,
since the gods above have turned their faces from me. My spirit
will come down to you unstained, knowing nothing of such
dishonour and worthy of my great ancestors to the end.’