When Turnus sees disgrace and rout
⁠Have Latium's spirit tamed,
Himself by every eye marked out,
⁠His plighted promise claimed,
With anger unallayed he fires,
And feels the courage pride inspires.
E'en as in Libyan plains athirst
A lion by the hunter pierced
⁠Puts forth at length his might,
Rears on his neck his angry mane,
The shaft that galls him snaps in twain,
⁠And roaring claims the fight;
So Turnus' wrath infuriate glows,
And, once ablaze, each moment grows.
Then thus Latinus he bespeaks
With flushing brow and kindling cheeks:
'Not Turnus, trust me, bars the way:
No need the Phrygians should unsay
The words they spoke in face of day,
⁠Their covenant disown:
I meet him now: the victims bring
And seal the treaty, gracious king.
My hand shall lay the Dardan low
Who left his Asia to the foe—
Let Latium sit and see the show,
⁠While I in arms alone
​Wash out the blot that stains our pride—
Or let him take the forfeit bride,
⁠Accept the conquered throne!'
He spoke: the aged majesty
Of Latium makes him calm reply:
'O gallant youth! the more intense
Your generous spirit's vehemence,
The wiselier should Latinus' care
For Fortune's every chance prepare.
Yours is your father Daunus' reign;
Yours are the towns your sword has ta'en:
And I that speak have stores of gold
And hand that knows not to withhold:
Latium has other maids unwed
And worthy of a royal bed.
Thus let me speak, direct and clear,
Though sharp the pang: now further hear:
I might not give my daughter's hand
To suitor from her native land:
Gods, prophets, with unfaltering voice
And plain accord forbade the choice:
But kindred sympathies are strong,
And weeping wives can sway to wrong:
Heaven's ties I snapped; I failed my word;
I drew the inexpiable sword:
Since then what dire result of ill
Has followed me and follows still
Your eyes bear witness: why recall
What Turnus feels the first of all?
We, twice in bloody field o'erthrown,
Scarce in our ramparts hold our own:
Still Tiber reeks from Latium's veins,
And whitening bone-heaps mound the plains.
Why reel I thus, confused and blind?
What madness mars my sober mind?
If Turnus' death makes Troy my friend,
E'en while he lives let war have end.
​Or what will kin and country say,
If—ward the omen, heaven, I pray!—
I leave him now his life to lose
While for my daughter's hand he sues?
O think of war, its change and chance,
How luck may warp the surest lance!
Think of your father old and grey,
Forlornly hiding leagues away!'
But Turnus' wrath no words can tame:
What seemed to slake but feeds the flame
Soon as impatience found a tongue
With fury into speech he flung:
'Those anxious bodings, father mine,
For me you keep, for me resign:
Leave me to meet the invader's claim:
Let death redeem the gage of fame.
I too no feeble dart can throw,
And flesh will bleed that feels my blow.
No goddess mother will be there
To tend him with a woman's care,
Conceal in mist his recreant flight,
And palter with a brave man's sight.'

⁠But the sad queen, struck wild by fears
⁠Of battle's new award,
Death swimming in her view, with tears
⁠Holds fast her daughter's lord:
'Turnus, by these fond tears I pour,
If still survives the love you bore
⁠To Latium's hapless queen—
On you our tottering age is staid;
On you a nation's hopes are laid;
A house, dismantled and decayed,
⁠On you is fain to lean—
One boon I crave, but one: forbear
The arbitrament of fight to dare:
​For know, whate'er the chance ensue
To Turnus, threats Amata too:
With you I leave this hated life,
Nor see my child my captor's wife.'
Her mother's voice Lavinia hears,
And mingles blushes with her tears;
Deep crimson glows the sudden flame,
And dyes her tingling cheek with shame.
So blushes ivory's Indian grain
When sullied with vermilion stain:
So lilies set in roseate bed
Enkindle with contagious red.
So flushed the maid: with wildering gaze
The passion-blinded youth surveys:
The fiercer for the fight he burns,
And to the queen in brief returns:
'O let not tears nor omen ill
⁠Attend me to the stubborn fray!
Dear mother, 'tis not Turnus' will
⁠The hour of destiny can stay.
Go, Idmon, to yon Phrygian chief
Bear tidings he will hear with grief:
When first the morrow fires the air
With glowing chariot, let him spare
⁠To lead his Teucrians on:
Let Rutule arms and Teucrian rest;
His life and mine shall brook the test;
Lavinia's hand, our common quest,
⁠Shall in that field be won.'

⁠So saying, to the stall he speeds,
Bids harness his impetuous steeds,
⁠And pleased their fury sees,
Which Orithyia long ago
On king Pilumnus deigned bestow,
To match the whiteness of the snow,
⁠The swiftness of the breeze.
​They bustle round, the menial train,
Comb o'er the neck the graceful mane,
⁠And pat the sounding chest:
In mail his shoulders he arrayed
(Of gold and orichalc 'twas made);
Then dons his shield, his trusty blade,
⁠His helm with ruddy crest:
That blade which to his royal sire
⁠The hand of Vulcan gave,
Brought red from Liparæan fire
⁠And dipped in Stygian wave.
Reposing from its work of blood
His lance beside a column stood,
⁠Auruncan Actor's prize:
He seized it, shook the quivering wood,
⁠And thus impetuous cries:
'The hour is come, my spear, my spear,
Thou who hast never failed to hear
⁠Thy master's proud appeal:
Once Actor bore thee, Turnus now:
Grant that my hand to earth may bow
The Phrygian's all unmanly brow,
From off his breast the corslet tear,
And soil in dust his essenced hair,
⁠New crisped with heated steel.'
Such furies in his bosom rise:
⁠His features all ablaze
Shoot direful sparkles: from his eyes
⁠A stream of lightning plays.
So ere he tries the combat's shock
⁠A bull loud bellowing makes,
And butting at a tree's hard stock
⁠His horns to anger wakes,
With furious heel the sand upthrows,
And challenges the winds for foes.
​Meantime in Vulcan's arms arrayed
⁠Æneas mans his breast,
Rejoiced that offered truce has made
⁠Two hosts from battle rest:
Then reassures his comrades' fears
And checks Iulus' starting tears,
⁠Rehearsing Fate's decree,
And bids his envoys answer bear
To Latium's monarch, and declare
⁠The terms of peace to be.

⁠Scarce had the morn her radiance shed
⁠On topmost mountain height,
When, leaving Ocean's oozy bed,
The Sun's fleet steeds, with upturned head,
⁠Breathe out loose flakes of light.
Beneath the city's strong redoubt
Rutule and Trojan measure out
⁠The combat's listed ground,
And altars in the midst prepare
For common sacrifice and prayer,
⁠Piled up with grassy mound;
While others, girt with aprons, bring
Live coals and water from the spring,
⁠Their brows with vervain bound.
Through the thronged gates the Ausonian band
Comes streaming onward, lance in hand:
⁠Trojans and Tuscans all,
Equipped in arms of various show,
Come marshalled by their ranks, as though
⁠They heard the battle's call.
Decked out with gold and purple dye,
From troop to troop the leaders fly,
Mnestheus, Assaracus's seed,
⁠Asilas, chief divine,
​Messapus, tamer of the steed,
⁠Who comes of Neptune's line.
The signal given, they each recede
⁠Within the space assigned,
Their javelins planted in the mead,
⁠Their shields at rest reclined:
While, brimming o'er with yearning strong,
Weak matrons, an unwarlike throng,
⁠And fathers, old and grey,
Turret and roof confusedly crowd,
Or stand beside the portals proud,
⁠The combat to survey.

⁠But Juno, seated on the mount
⁠That Alban now is named
('Twas then a hill of scant account,
⁠Untitled and unfamed),
On the two hosts was gazing down,
The listed field, the Latian town.
To Turnus' sister then she said
⁠(A goddess she of lake and flood:
Such honour Jove the damsel paid
⁠For violated maidenhood):
'Pride of all streams on earth that roll,
Juturna, favourite of my soul,
Thou know'st, of all of Latian race
That e'er endured great Jove's embrace
I still have set thee first, and given
To share ungrudged the courts of heaven;
Now learn thy woes, unhappy dame,
Nor think too late that mine the blame.
While Latium yet could keep the field
And Fate seemed kind, I cast my shield
⁠O'er Turnus and his town:
Now in ill hour he tempts the fray,
And baleful force and Fate's dark day
⁠From heaven are swooping down.
​I cannot view the unequal fight,
Nor see that shameful treaty plight.
Can sister nought for brother dare?
Take heart: perchance the gods may spare.'
She said: Juturna's tears 'gan flow,
And oft she smote her breast of snow.
'No time for tears' Saturnia cries:
'Haste—save your brother ere he dies:
Or stir again the war, and break
(Mine be the risk) the league they make.'
She ceased, and left her sore distraught,
With bleeding heart and wavering thought.

⁠Now to the field the monarchs came,
Latinus, his majestic frame
⁠In four-horse chariot borne;
Twelve gilded rays, memorial sign
Of the great Sun, his sire divine,
⁠His kingly brows adorn:
Grasping two javelins as in war
Rides Turnus in his two-horse car:
Æneas leaves his rampired home,
First founder of the race of Rome,
Glorious in heavenly armour's pride,
⁠With shield that beams like day;
And young Ascanius at his side,
⁠Rome's other hope and stay.
Then to the hearth the white-robed priest
Brings two-year sheep all richly fleeced
⁠And young of bristly swine;
They turn them to the radiant east,
With knives the victims' foreheads score,
Strew cakes of salted meal, and pour
⁠The sacrificial wine.
Then thus with falchion's naked blade
Æneas supplication made:
​'Sun, and thou Land, attest my prayer,
For whom I have been fain to bear
⁠So many a year of woe;
And Jove, Almighty Sire, and thou,
Saturnia, now at last, O now
⁠No more Æneas' foe;
Thou too, great Mars, who rul'st the fray
⁠By thine imperial nod,
And you, ye Springs and Floods, I pray,
Whate'er the powers that ether sway,
⁠And ocean's every god:
If victory shall to Turnus fall,
The vanquished to Evander's wall
⁠Their instant flight shall take:
Iulus shall the realm resign,
Nor here in Latium seed of mine
⁠Fresh war hereafter wake:
But if, as prayers and hopes foresee,
The queen of battles smile on me,
I will not force Italia's land
⁠To Teucrian rule to bow;
I seek no sceptre for my hand,
⁠No diadem for my brow:
Lot race and race, unquelled and free,
Join hands in deathless amity.
My gods, my rites, I claim to bring:
Let sire Latinus still be king,
⁠In peace and war the same;
The sons of Troy my destined town
Shall build, and fair Lavinia crown
⁠The city with her name.'
He spoke, and nest Latinus prays
With lifted hand and heavenward gaze:
'By land, by sea, by stars I swear,
⁠E'en as Æneas swore;
By queen Latona's princely pair,
⁠And two-faced Janus hoar;
​By all the infernal powers divine
And grisly Pluto's mystic shrine:
Let Jove give ear, whose vengeful tire
Makes treaties firm, the Almighty Sire:
I touch the hearth with either hand,
I call the gods that 'twixt us stand:
No time shall make the treaty vain,
⁠Whate'er to-day's event;
No violence shall my will constrain,
Though earth were scattered in the main
⁠And Styx with ether blent:
E'en as this sceptre' (as he swore
A sceptre in his hand he bore)
'Shall ne'er put forth or leaf or gem,
Since severed from its parent stem
⁠Foliage and branch it lost;
'Twas once a tree; now workman's care
Has given it Latium's kings to bear,
⁠With seemly bronze embossed.'
Thus chief and chief in open sight
With solemn words the treaty plight;
⁠Then o'er the flame they slay
The hallowed victims, strip the flesh
Yet quick with life, and warm and fresh
⁠On loaded altars lay.

⁠But in the Rutules' jealous sight
Unequal seems the chance of fight,
⁠Ill matched the champions twain,
And fitfully their bosoms heave
As near and nearer they perceive
⁠The encounter on the plain.
Compassion deepening into dread,
They note young Turnus' quiet tread,
The downcast meekness of his eyes
Turned to the hearth in suppliant guise,
​Cheeks whence the bloom of health is gone,
And that young frame so ghastly wan.
Juturna saw their whispers grow,
And marked them wavering to and fro:
Then, like to Camers' form and face—
A warrior he of noblest race,
Long by his fathers' exploits known
And long by valour of his own—
She joins their ranks, each heart to read,
And sows in all dissension's seed:
'Shame, shame, ye Rutules, thus to try
The coward hazard of the die!
A myriad warrior lives to shun
The deadly risk reserved for one!
Compute the numbers and the powers:
Say whose the vantage, theirs or ours?
Behold them all, in arms allied,
Troy and Arcadia, side by side,
And all Etruria, leagued in hate
Of him, our chief, the men of fate!
Take half our force, we scarce should know
Each for himself to find a foe.
Aye, Turnus' name to heaven shall rise,
Devoted to whose shrines he dies,
⁠On lips of thousands borne:
We, as in listless ease we sit,
To foreign tyrants shall submit,
⁠And our lost country mourn.'
By whisper thus and chance-dropped word
Their hearts to farther rage are stirred:
From band to band the murmur runs:
Changed are Laurentum's fickle sons,
⁠Changed is the Latian throng:
Who late were hoping war to cease,
Now yearn for arms, abhor the peace,
⁠And pity Turnus' wrong.

​⁠Now, heaping fuel on the flame,
With new resource the crafty dame
⁠Displays in heaven a sign:
No evidence more strongly wrought
On Italy's deluded thought,
⁠As 'twere indeed divine.
Jove's royal bird in pride of place
Was putting river-fowl in chase
⁠And all the feathery crew,
When swooping from the ruddy sky
Off from the flood he bears on high
⁠A swan of dazzling hue.
The Italians gaze, when lo! the rout
Turn from their flight and face about,
In blackening mass obscure the skies,
And clustering close with shrill sharp cries
⁠Their mighty foe pursue,
Till he, by force and weight o'erbome,
Dropped river-ward his prey untorn
⁠And off to distance flew.
With loud acclaim the Rutule bands
⁠Salute the portent of the skies:
Aloft they raise their eager hands,
⁠And first the seer Tolumnius cries:
'For this, for this my prayers have striven
I hail, I seize the omen given;
⁠Draw, draw with me the sword,
Poor Rutules, whom the pirate base
Puts like unwarlike birds in chase,
⁠And spoils your river-board.
Yes, he will fly, if you pursue,
And vanish in the distant blue.
Close firm your ranks, and bring relief
And rescue to your ravished chief,
⁠All, all with one accord.'
He said, and hurled, as forth he ran,
His javelin at the foeman's van.
​The hurtling cornel cuts the skies:
Loud clamours follow as it flies:
The assembly starts in mid alarm,
And hearts beat high with tumult warm.
There as nine brothers of one blood,
Gylippus' Arcad offspring, stood,
One, with bright arms and beauty graced,
Receives the javelin in his waist,
Where chafes the belt against the groin
And 'neath the ribs the buckles join;
Pierced through and through he falls amain,
And lies extended on the plain.
His gallant brethren feel the smart;
With falchion drawn or brandished dart
⁠They charge, struck blind with rage.
Laurentum's host the shock withstand:
Like deluge bursting o'er the land
The Trojan force, the Agyllan band,
⁠The Arcad troop engage.
Each burns alike with frantic zeal
To end the quarrel by the steel:
Stripped are the hearths; o'er all the sky
Dense iron showers in volleys fly:
⁠With eager haste they run
To snatch the bowls and altar-sods:
Latinus takes his outraged gods
⁠And leaves the league undone.
Those yoke again the battle car,
⁠These vault into the selle,
And wave their falchions, drawn for war,
⁠To challenge or repel.

⁠Messapus singles from the rest
The king Aulestes, richly dressed
⁠In robe and regal crown;
Spurning the truce, his horse he pressed,
⁠And fiercely rides him down.
​He with a backward spring retires,
And headlong falls 'mid altar fires
⁠That meet him in the rear:
Up spurs Messapus, hot with speed,
And as the pale lips vainly plead
Drives through him, towering on his steed,
⁠His massy beam-like spear.
'He has his death' the victor cries:
'Heaven gains a worthier sacrifice.'
Around the corpse the Italians swarm,
And strip the limbs, yet reeking warm.
From blazing altar close at hand
Bold Corynæus seized a brand:
As Ebysus a death-wound aims,
Full in his face he dashed the flames.
The bushy beard that instant flares
And wafts a scent of burning hairs.
The conqueror rushes on his prize,
⁠Wreathes in his hair his hand,
To his broad breast his knee applies,
⁠And pins him to the sand:
Then, grovelling as he lay in dust,
Deep in his side his sword he thrust.
Stout Alsus, born of shepherd race,
⁠Death in the forefront braves,
When Podalirius gives him chase
⁠And high his falchion waves:
A ponderous axe the swain upheaves:
From brow to chin the head he cleaves,
⁠While blood the arms o'erflows:
A heavy slumber, iron-bound,
Seals the dull eyes in rest profound:
⁠In endless night they close.

⁠But good Æneas chides his band,
His head all bare, unarmed his hand,
​And 'Whither now so fast?' he cries:
'What demon bids contention rise?
⁠O soothe your rage, I pray!
The terms are fixed, the treaty plight:
Mine, mine alone the combat's right:
⁠Be calm, and give me way.
My hand shall make the assurance true:
Henceforward Turnus is my due.'
Thus while to lay the storm he strives,
Full on the chief an arrow drives:
Sped by what arm, what wind it came,
If Heaven or fortune ruled its aim,
None knew: the deed was lost to fame;
Nor then nor after was there found
Who boasted of Æneas' wound.

⁠When Turnus saw Æneas part
⁠Retiring from his band
And Troy's brave chiefs dismayed, his heart
⁠With sudden hope he manned:
He calls his armour and his car,
Leaps to his seat in pride of war,
⁠And takes the reins in hand.
Full many a gallant chief he slays,
Or pierced on earth in torture lays,
Drives down whole ranks in fierce career,
And plies the fliers with spear on spear.
As, where cold Hebrus parts the field,
Grim Mars makes thunder on his shield
⁠And stings his steeds to fight;
They scud, the Zephyrs not so fleet:
Thrace groans beneath the hoof's quick beat;
His dire attendants round him fly,
Anger and blackest Treachery,
⁠And gloomy-browed Affright:
​So where the battle sorest bleeds
Keen Turnus drives his smoking steeds
⁠Insulting o'er the slain,
While gore and sand the horsehoof kneads,
⁠And spirts the crimson rain.
Thamyris and Sthenelus lie dead,
⁠Encountered hand to hand;
Pholus by spear from distance sped,
And Glaucus too and Lades bled,
Whom Imbrasus their father bred
⁠In native Lycian land
And trained alike to fight or speed
Like lightning with the harnessed steed.
Now through the field Eumedes came,
Old Dolon's son, of Trojan fame,
His grandsire's counterpart in name,
⁠In courage like his sire,
Who erst, the Danaan camp to spy,
Pelides' car, a guerdon high,
⁠From Hector dared require:
But Tydeus' son with other meed
Requited that audacious deed,
⁠And cured his proud desire.
Him from afar when Turnus views
With missile dart he first pursues,
Then quits the chariot with a bound,
Stands o'er him grovelling on the ground,
Plants on his neck his foot, and tears
From his weak grasp the lance he bears,
Deep in his throat the bright point dyes,
And o'er the corpse in triumph cries:
'Lie there, and measure out the plain,
The Hesperian soil you sought to gain:
Such meed they win who wish me killed;
'Tis thus their city-walls they build.'
​Again he hurls his spear, and sends
Asbytes to rejoin his friends:
And Chloreus, Dares, Sybaris,
The ground in quick succession kiss;
Thersilochus, Thymœtes too,
Whose restiff steed his rider threw.
As when the northwind's tyrant stress
⁠Makes loud the Ægæan roar,
Still following on the waves that press
⁠Tumultuous to the shore,
Where drives the gale, the cloud-rack flies
In wild confusion o'er the skies:
So wheresoe'er through all the field
Comes Turnus on, whole squadrons yield,
⁠Turn, and resist no more:
The impulse bears him as he goes,
And 'gainst the wind his plumage flows.
With shame and anger Phegeus saw
⁠The chief's insulting pride:
He meets the car, and strives to draw
⁠The steeds' proud necks aside.
There, dragged as to the yoke he clings,
⁠The spear his side has found,
Bursts through the corslet's plaited rings,
⁠And prints a surface wound:
Shifting his shield, he threats the foe,
His sword plucks out, and aims a blow:
When the fierce wheels with onward bound
Dislodge and dash him to the ground:
⁠And Turnus' weaponed hand,
Stretched from the car, the head has reft
Where helm and breastplate meet, and left
⁠The trunk upon the sand.

⁠While Turnus heaps the plain with dead,
Æneas, with Achates tried
​And Mnestheus moving at his side,
⁠And young Ascanius near,
All bleeding to the camp is led,
Faltering and propping up his tread
⁠With guidance of a spear.
He frets and strives with vain essay
To pluck the broken reed away,
Demands the surest, readiest aid,
To ope the wound with broad-sword blade,
Unflesh the barb so deep concealed,
And send him back to battle-field.
And now Iapis had appeared,
Blest leech, to Phœbus' self endeared
⁠Beyond all men below,
On whom the fond indulgent god
His augury had fain bestowed,
⁠His lyre, his sounding bow:
But he, the further to prolong
⁠A sickly parent's span,
The humbler art of medicine chose.
The knowledge of each herb that grows,
Plying a craft unknown to song,
⁠An unambitious man.
Chafing with anguish, rage, and grief,
Impatient halts the wounded chief,
⁠Propped on his mighty spear:
Iulus weeping and a band
Of gallant youths around him stand:
⁠He heeds not groan or tear.
The aged leech, his garment wound
In Pæon sort his shoulder round,
In vain his sovereign simples plies,
⁠His science skilled to heal,
In vain with hand and pincer tries
⁠To loose the stubborn steel.
​No happy chance on art attends,
No patron god the leech befriends:
And wilder grows the fierce alarm,
And nearer yet the deadly harm:
⁠The thick dust props the skies:
The tramp of cavalry they hear,
And 'mid the encampment dart and spear
⁠Rain down before their eyes:
And dismal rings the mingled cry
Of those that fight and those that die.
Then Venus, all a mother's heart
Touched by her son's unworthy smart,
Plucks dittany, a simple rare,
⁠From Ida's summit brown,
With flower of purple, bright and fair,
⁠And leaf of softest down:
Well known that plant to mountain goat,
Should arrow pierce its shaggy coat.
There as they toil, she brings the cure,
⁠Her bright face wrapped in cloudy hood,
And drops it where in shining ewer
⁠The crystal water stood,
With juices of ambrosia blent
And panace of fragrant scent.
So with the medicated flood
The sage unknowing stanched the blood:
When all at once the anguish fled,
And the torn flesh no longer bled.
Now at a touch, no violence used,
⁠Drops out the barbed dart,
And strength by heavenly aid infused
⁠Revives the feinting heart.
'Arms for the valiant chief!' exclaims
⁠Iapis 'why so slow?'
The gentle leech the first inflames
⁠The warrior 'gainst the foe.
​'Not human help, nor sovereign art,
Nor old Iapis healed that smart:
'Tis Heaven that interferes, to save
For greater deeds the strength it gave.'
The chief, impatient of delays,
His legs in pliant gold arrays,
And to and fro his javelin sways.
And now, his corslet round his breast,
In his mailed arms his child he pressed,
Kissed through his helm, and thus addressed:
'Learn of your father to be great,
Of others to be fortunate.
This hand awhile shall be your shield
And lead you safe from field to field:
When grown yourself to manhood's prime,
Remember those of former time,
Recall each venerable name,
⁠And catch heroic fire
From Hector's and Æneas' fame,
⁠Your uncle and your sire.'

⁠So speaking, from the camp he passed,
A godlike chief, of stature vast,
⁠Shaking his ashen beam:
Mnestheus and Antheus and their train
With kindred speed o'er all the plain
⁠From trench and rampart stream.
Thick blinding dust the champaign fills,
And earth with trampling throbs and thrills.
Pale Turnus saw them from the height;
The Ausonians saw, and chilly fright
⁠Through all their senses ran:
Foremost of all the Latian crew
Juturna heard the sound and knew,
⁠And left the battle's van.
Onward he flies, and whirls along
Through the wide plain his blackening throng.
​As, burst from heaven, with headlong sweep
A storm comes landward from the deep:
Through rustic hearts faint terrors creep
⁠As coming ill they taste:
Ah yes! 'twill lay the standing corn,
Will scatter trees from earth uptorn,
⁠And make the land a waste:
The winds, its couriers, fly before,
And waft its muttering to the shore:
So the dread Trojan sweeps along
⁠Down on the hostile swarm;
In close battalions, firm and strong,
⁠His followers round him form.
Osiris feels Thymbræus' blow,
⁠At Mnestheus' feet Anchetius lies,
Achates slaughters Epulo,
⁠By Gyas Ufens dies:
E'en proud Tolumnius falls, the seer
Who 'gainst the foe first hurled his spear.
Upsoars to heaven a mingled shout:
⁠In turn the Rutules yield,
And huddled thick in dusty rout
⁠Fly wildly o'er the field.
But he, he stoops him not to smite
The craven backs that turn to flight,
Nor chases those who stand and fight,
⁠Intent on other aims:
Turnus alone he cares to track
Through dust and darkness, blinding black,
⁠Turnus alone he claims.
Juturna, agonised with fear,
Metiscus, Turnus' charioteer,
⁠Flings from his seat on high,
And leaves him fallen at distance far:
Herself succeeds him, guides the car,
⁠And bids the coursers fly;
​In voice, in form, in dress complete,
The hapless driver's counterfeit.
As swallow through some mansion flies
With courts and stately galleries,
Flaps noisy wing, gives clamorous tongue,
Still catering for her callow young,
Makes cloisters echo to the sound,
And tank and cistern circles round,
So whirls the dame her glowing car,
So flashes through the maze of war:
Now here, now there, in conquering pride
⁠Her brother she displays,
Yet lets him not the encounter bide,
⁠But winds through devious ways.
Nor less Æneas shifts and wheels,
⁠Pursues and tracks him out,
And clamouring to his faith appeals
⁠Across the weltering rout:
Oft as he marks the foe, and tries
To match the chariot as it flies,
So oft her scourge Juturna plies,
⁠And turns her steeds about.
What should he do? he undulates
⁠With aimless ebb and flow:
His bosom's passionate debates
⁠Distract him to and fro.
Messapus then, who chanced to wield
Two quivering javelins, barbed and steeled,
Takes one, and levels with his eye,
And bids it at Æneas fly.
The Trojan halts, and making pause,
His arms around him closer draws,
⁠On bended knee firm stayed:
The javelin struck the helmet's cone,
And razed the plume that, tossed and blown,
⁠High on its summit played.
​Then surges fury high, to know
The baseness of the treacherous foe,
As horse and car he sees afar
⁠Careering o'er the plain:
To the just gods appeal he makes
Who watch the league that Turnus breaks:
Then charges resolute to kill,
Lets reckless slaughter rage her fill,
⁠And gives his wrath the rein.

⁠O that some god would prompt my strain
⁠And all those horrors tell,
What gallant chiefs throughout the plain
By Turnus now, pursued and slain,
⁠Now by Æneas fell!
Was it thy will, almighty Jove,
To such extreme of conflict drove
Two nations, doomed in peace and love
⁠Through after years to dwell?
First of the Rutules Sucro tried
To stem the foe's advancing tide;
⁠But vain that brief delay;
Æneas caught him on the side,
And, opening ribs and bosom wide
With the fell sword his fury plied,
⁠Brought death the swiftest way.
By Turnus' hand Diores bleeds;
His brother Amycus succeeds;
One from his steed by spear brought low,
One, hand to hand, by falchion's blow:
Their severed heads the victor bore
Fixed to his car, distilling gore.
That sends down Talos to the grave
With Tanais and Cethegus brave,
⁠Three chiefs at once struck dead,
​And sad Onites, him who came
From Peridia, noble dame,
⁠Born in Echion's bed.
This lays in death the brethren twain
From Lycia, Phœbus' own domain,
And young Menœtes, who in vain
⁠Had shunned the battle's roar:
An Arcad he by Lerna's side
His fisher craft obscurely plied,
⁠Contented to be poor:
In honest penury his sire
Tilled scanty ground let out to hire,
⁠Nor knocked at rich man's door.
As fires that launched on different ways
Stream through a wood of crackling bays.
Or torrents that from mountain steep
Tumbling and thundering toward the deep
⁠Plough each his own wild path;
Æneas thus and Turnus fly
Through the wide field; now, now 'tis nigh,
⁠The boiling-point of wrath;
Their fierce hearts burst with rage; they throw
A giant's force on every blow.
Murranus that, whose boastful tongue
With high-born sires and grandsires rung,
And pedigrees of long renown
Through Latian monarchs handed down,
Smites with a stone of mountain size
⁠And tumbles on the sward:
By reins and harness caught, the wheels
Still drag him on: the horses' heels
Beat down and crush him as he lies,
⁠Unmindful of their lord.
While this, as Hyllus overbold
⁠In furious onset springs,
​Through the bright helm the weapon passed,
And rooted in the brain stood fast.
Nor could thy prowess, Cretheus brave,
⁠'Gainst Turnus' coming stand,
Nor those his gods Cupencus save
⁠From out Æneas' hand:
His bosom met the impetuous blade,
Nor long the shield its fury stayed.
Thou too, great Æolus, the plains
⁠Of Latium saw thee dead;
They saw thy giant-like remains
⁠Wide o'er their surface spread:
Fallen, fallen art thou, whom not the bands
⁠Of Argos could destroy,
Nor those unconquerable hands
⁠Which wrought the doom of Troy:
'Twas here thy sepulchre was made,
Thy palace high 'neath Ida's shade:
Lyrnesus reared thy palace high,
Laurentum gave thee room to die.
So, turning, rallying, front to front,
Face the two hosts the battle's brunt:
The Latian and the Dardan throng,
Brave Mnestheus and Serestus strong,
Messapus, tamer of the horse,
Asilas with his Tuscan force,
⁠Evander's Arcad train,
Each for himself, make desperate fight—
No stint, no stay—and all their might
⁠With fierce contention strain.

⁠Now Venus prompts her darling chief
⁠To lead his forces to the town,
And with a sudden stroke and brief
⁠On the scared foe come down.
​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/455 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/456 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/457 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/458 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/459 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/460 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/461 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/462 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/463 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/464 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/465 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/466 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/467 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/468 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/469 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/470 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/471 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/472 ​Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/473