Authors: Virgil
650 Scarcely had he finished speaking when Saces suddenly came
galloping up on his foaming horse having ridden through the
middle of the enemy with an arrow wound full in his face. On
he rushed, calling the name of Turnus and imploring him: ‘You
are our last hope of safety, Turnus. You must take pity on your
people. The sword and spear of Aeneas are like the lightning
and he is threatening to throw down the highest citadels of Italy
and give them over to destruction. Firebrands are already flying
to the roofs. Every Latin face, every Latin eye, is turned to you.
The king himself is at a loss. Whom should he choose to marry
660 our daughters? What treaties should he turn to? And then the
queen, who placed all her trust in you, has taken her own life.
Fear overcame her and she fled the light of day. Alone in front
of the gates Messapus and bold Atinas are holding the line and
all round them on every side stand the battalions of the enemy
in serried ranks. Their drawn swords are a crop of steel bristling
in the fields. And you are out here wheeling your chariot in the
deserted grasslands.’
Turnus was thunderstruck, bewildered by the changing shape
of his fortune, and stood there dumb and staring. In that one
heart of his there seethed a bitter shame, a grief shot through
with madness, love driven on by fury, and a consciousness of
his own courage. As soon as the shadows lifted from his mind
670 and light returned, he forced his burning eyes round towards
the walls, looking back in deep dismay from his chariot at the
great city. There, between the storeys of a tower, came a tongue
of flame, rolling and billowing to the sky. It was taking hold of
the tower, which he had built himself, putting the wheels under
it and fitting the long gangways. ‘Sister,’ he said, ‘the time has
come at last. The Fates are too strong. You must not delay them
any longer. Let us go where God and cruel Fortune call me. I
am resolved to meet Aeneas in battle. I am resolved to suffer
what bitterness there is in death. You will not see me put to
680 shame again. This is madness, but before I die, I beg of you, let
me be mad.’ No sooner had he spoken than he leapt to the
ground from his chariot and dashed through all his enemies and
their weapons, leaving his sister behind him to grieve as his
charge broke through the middle of their ranks. Just as a boulder
comes crashing down from the top of a mountain, torn out by
gales, washed out by flood water or loosened by the stealthy
passing of the years; it comes down the sheer face with terrific
force, an evil mountain of rock, and bounds over the plain,
690 rolling with it woods and flocks and men – so did Turnus crash
through the shattered ranks of his enemies towards the walls of
the city where all the ground was wet with shed blood and the
air sang with flying spears. There he made a sign with his hand,
and in the same moment he called out in a loud voice: ‘Enough,
Rutulians! Put up your weapons, and you too, Latins! Whatever
Fortune brings is mine. It is better that I should be the one man
who atones for this treaty for all of you, and settles the matter
with the sword.’ At these words the armies parted and left a
clear space in the middle between them.
But when Father Aeneas heard the name of Turnus, he abandoned
the walls and the lofty citadel, sweeping aside all delay
700 and breaking off all his works of war. He leapt for joy and
clashed his armour with a noise as terrible as thunder. Huge he
was as Mount Athos or Mount Eryx or Father Appenninus
himself roaring when the holm-oaks shimmer on his flanks and
delighting to raise his snowy head into the winds. Now at last
the Rutulians and the Trojans and all the men of Italy, the
defenders guarding the high ramparts and the besiegers
pounding the base of the walls with their rams, they all turned
their eyes eagerly to see and took the armour off their shoulders.
King Latinus himself was amazed at the sight of these two huge
heroes born at opposite sides of the earth coming together to
710 decide the issue by the sword. There, on a piece of open ground
on the plain, they threw their spears at long range as they
charged, and when they clashed the bronze of their shields rang
out and the earth groaned. Blow upon blow they dealt with
their swords as chance and courage met and mingled in confusion.
Just as two enemy bulls on the great mountain of Sila or
on top of Taburnus bring their horns to bear and charge into
battle; the herdsmen stand back in terror, the herd stands silent
and afraid, and the heifers low quietly together waiting to see
who is to rule the grove, who is to be the leader of the whole
720 herd; meanwhile the bulls are locked together exchanging blow
upon blow, gouging horn into hide till their necks and shoulders
are awash with blood and all the grove rings with their lowing
and groaning – just so did Aeneas of Troy and Turnus son of
Daunus rush together with shields clashing and the din filled the
heavens. Then Jupiter himself lifted up a pair of scales with the
tongue centred and put the lives of the two men in them to
decide who would be condemned in the ordeal of battle, and
with whose weight death would descend.
Turnus leapt forward thinking he was safe, and lifting his
730 sword and rising to his full height, he struck with all his strength
behind it. The Trojans shouted and the Latins cried out in their
anxiety, while both armies watched intently. But in the height
of his passion the treacherous sword broke in mid-blow and left
him defenceless, had he not sought help in flight. Faster than
the east wind he flew, when he saw his own right hand holding
nothing but a sword handle he did not recognize. The story goes
that when his horses were yoked and he was mounting his
chariot in headlong haste to begin the battle, he left his father’s
sword behind and caught up the sword of his charioteer
Metiscus. For some time, while the Trojans were scattered and
in flight, that was enough. But when it met the divine armour
740 made by Vulcan, the mortal blade was brittle as an icicle and
shattered on impact, leaving its fragments glittering on the
golden sand. At this Turnus fled in despair and tried to escape
to another part of the plain, weaving his uncertain course now
to this side now to that, for the Trojans formed a dense barrier
round him, hemming him in between a huge marsh and the
high walls.
Nor did Aeneas let up in his pursuit. Slowed down as he was
by the arrow wound, his legs failing him sometimes and unable
to run, he still was ablaze with fury and kept hard on the heels
750 of the terrified Turnus, like a hunting dog that happens to trap
a stag in the bend of a river or in a ring of red feathers used as a
scare, pressing him hard with his running and barking; the stag
is terrified by the ambush he is caught in or by the high river
bank; he runs and runs back a thousand ways, but the untiring
Umbrian hound stays with him with jaws gaping; now he has
him; now he seems to have him and the jaws snap shut, but he
is thwarted and bites the empty air; then as the shouting rises
louder than ever, all the river banks and pools return the sound
and the whole sky thunders with the din. As he ran Turnus kept
shouting at the Rutulians, calling each of them by name and
760 demanding the sword he knew so well. Aeneas on the other
hand was threatening instant death and destruction to anyone
who came near. Much as that alarmed them, he terrified them
even more by threatening to raze their city to the ground, and
though he was wounded he did not slacken in his pursuit. Five
times round they ran in one direction, five times they rewound
the circle. For this was no small prize they were trying to win at
games. What they were competing for was the lifeblood of
Turnus.
It so chanced that a bitter-leaved wild olive tree had stood on
this spot, sacred to Faunus and long revered by sailors. On it
men saved from storms at sea used to nail their offerings to the
Laurentine god, and dedicate the clothes they had vowed for
770 their safety. But the Trojans, making no exception for the sacred
tree trunk, had removed it to clear space for the combat. In this
stump the spear of Aeneas was now embedded. The force of his
throw had carried it here and lodged it fast in the tough wood
of the root. He strained at it and tried to pull it out so that he
could hunt with a missile the quarry he could not catch on foot.
Wild now with fear, Turnus cried: ‘Pity me, I beg of you, Faunus,
and you, good Mother Earth, hold on to that spear, if I have
always paid you those honours which Aeneas and his men have
780 profaned in war.’ So he prayed and he did not call for the help
of the god in vain. Aeneas was long delayed struggling with the
stubborn stump and no strength of his could prise open the bite
of the wood. While he was heaving and straining with all his
might, the goddess Juturna, daughter of Daunus, changed once
more into the shape of the charioteer Metiscus and ran forward
to give Turnus his sword. Venus was indignant that the nymph
was allowed to be so bold, so she came and wrenched out
Aeneas’ spear from deep in the root. Then these glorious warriors,
their weapons and their spirits restored to them, one
relying on his sword, the other towering and formidable behind
790 his spear, stood there breathing hard, ready to engage in the
contest of war.
Meanwhile the King of All-powerful Olympus saw Juno
watching the battle from a golden cloud and spoke these words
to her: ‘O my dear wife, what will be the end of this? What is
there left for you to do? You yourself know, and admit that you
know, that Aeneas is a god of this land, that he has a right to
heaven and is fated to be raised to the stars. What are you
scheming? What do you hope to achieve by perching there in
those chilly clouds? Was it right that a god should suffer violence
and be wounded by the hand of a mortal? Was it right that
Turnus should be given back the sword that was taken from
him? For what could Juturna have done without your help?
800 Why have you put strength into the arm of the defeated? The
time has come at last for you to cease and give way to our
entreaties. Do not let this great sorrow gnaw at your heart in
silence, and do not make me listen to grief and resentment for
ever streaming from your sweet lips. The end has come. You
have been able to harry the Trojans by sea and by land, to light
the fires of an unholy war, to soil a house with sorrow and mix
the sound of mourning with the marriage song. I forbid you to
go further.’
These were the words of Jupiter. With bowed head the goddess
Juno, daughter of Saturn, made this reply: ‘Because I have
known your will, great Jupiter, against my own wishes I have
810 abandoned Turnus and abandoned the earth. But for your will,
you would not be seeing me sitting alone in mid-air on a cloud,
suffering whatever is sent me to suffer. I would be clothed in
fire, standing close in to the line of battle and dragging Trojans
into bloody combat. It was I, I admit it, who persuaded Juturna
to come to the help of her unfortunate brother, and with my
blessing to show greater daring for the sake of his life, but not
to shoot arrows, not to stretch the bow. I swear it by the
implacable fountainhead of the river Styx, the one oath which
binds the gods of heaven. And now I, Juno, yield and quit these
820 battles which I so detest. But I entreat you for the sake of Latium
and the honour of your own kin, to allow what the law of Fate
does not forbid. When at last their marriages are blessed – I
offer no obstruction – when at last they come together in peace
and make their laws and treaties together, do not command the
Latins to change their ancient name in their own land, to become
Trojans and be called Teucrians. They are men. Do not make
them change their voice or native dress. Let there be Latium.
Let the Alban kings live on from generation to generation and
the stock of Rome be made mighty by the manly courage of
Italy. Troy has fallen. Let it lie, Troy and the name of Troy.’