battle and assails the triumphant Teucrians. The Tyrrhene ranks gather
round him, and all at once in unison shower their darts down on the
hated foe. As a cliff that juts into the waste of waves, meeting the
raging winds and breasting the deep, endures all the threatening force
of sky and sea, itself fixed immovable, so he dashes to earth Hebrus son
of Dolichaon, and with him Latagus, and Palmus as he fled; catching
Latagus full front in the face with a vast fragment of mountain rock,
while Palmus he hamstrings, and leaves him rolling helpless; his armour
he gives Lausus to wear on his shoulders, and the plumes to fix on his
crest. With them fall Evanthes the Phrygian, and Mimas, fellow and
birthmate of Paris; for on one night Theano bore him to his father
Amycus, and the queen, Cisseus' daughter, was delivered of Paris the
firebrand; he sleeps in his fathers' city; Mimas lies a stranger on the
Laurentian coast. And as the boar driven by snapping hounds from the
mountain heights, [708-744]many a year hidden by Vesulus in his pines,
many an one fed in the Laurentian marsh among the reedy forest, once
come among the nets, halts and snorts savagely, with shoulders bristling
up, and none of them dare be wrathful or draw closer, but they shower
from a safe distance their darts and cries; even thus none of those
whose anger is righteous against Mezentius have courage to meet him with
drawn weapon: far off they provoke him with missiles and huge clamour,
and he turns slow and fearless round about, grinding his teeth as he
shakes the spears off his shield. From the bounds of ancient Corythus
Acron the Greek had come, leaving for exile a bride half won. Seeing him
afar dealing confusion amid the ranks, in crimson plumes and his
plighted wife's purple,--as an unpastured lion often ranging the deep
coverts, for madness of hunger urges him, if he haply catches sight of a
timorous roe or high-antlered stag, he gapes hugely for joy, and, with
mane on end, clings crouching over its flesh, his cruel mouth bathed in
reeking gore. . . . so Mezentius darts lightly among the thick of the
enemy. Hapless Acron goes down, and, spurning the dark ground, gasps out
his life, and covers the broken javelin with his blood. But the victor
deigned not to bring down Orodes with the blind wound of his flying
lance as he fled; full face to face he meets him, and engages man with
man, conqueror not by stealth but armed valour. Then, as with planted
foot, he thrust him off the spear: 'O men,' he cries, 'Orodes lies low,
no slight arm of the war.' His comrades shout after him the glad battle
chant. And the dying man: 'Not unavenged nor long, whoso thou art, shalt
thou be glad in victory: thee too an equal fate marks down, and in these
fields thou shalt soon lie.' And smiling on him half wrathfully,
Mezentius: 'Now die thou. But of me let the father of gods and king of
men take counsel.' So saying, he drew the weapon out of his body.
[745-780]Grim rest and iron slumber seal his eyes; his lids close on
everlasting night. Caedicus slays Alcathoüs, Sacrator Hydaspes, Rapo
Parthenius and the grim strength of Orses, Messapus Clonius and
Erichaetes son of Lycaon, the one when his reinless horse stumbling had
flung him to the ground, the other as they met on foot. And Agis the
Lycian advanced only to be struck from horseback by Valerus, brave as
his ancestry; and Thronius by Salius, and Salius by Nealces with
treacherous arrow-shot that stole from far.
Now the heavy hand of war dealt equal woe and counterchange of death; in
even balance conquerors and conquered slew and fell; nor one nor other
knows of retreat. The gods in Jove's house pity the vain rage of either
and all the agonising of mortals. From one side Venus, from one opposite
Juno, daughter of Saturn, looks on; pale Tisiphone rages among the many
thousand men. But now, brandishing his huge spear, Mezentius strides
glooming over the plain, vast as Orion when, with planted foot, he
cleaves his way through the vast pools of mid-ocean and his shoulder
overtops the waves, or carrying an ancient mountain-ash from the
hilltops, paces the ground and hides his head among the clouds: so moves
Mezentius, huge in arms. Aeneas, espying him in the deep columns, makes
on to meet him. He remains, unterrified, awaiting his noble foe, steady
in his own bulk, and measures with his eye the fair range for a spear.
'This right hand's divinity, and the weapon I poise and hurl, now be
favourable! thee, Lausus, I vow for the live trophy of Aeneas, dressed
in the spoils stripped from the pirate's body.' He ends, and throws the
spear whistling from far; it flies on, glancing from the shield, and
pierces illustrious Antores hard by him sidelong in the flank; Antores,
companion of Hercules, who, sent thither from Argos, had stayed by
Evander, and [781-814]settled in an Italian town. Hapless he goes down
with a wound not his own, and in death gazes on the sky, and Argos is
sweet in his remembrance. Then good Aeneas throws his spear; through the
sheltering circle of threefold brass, through the canvas lining and
fabric of triple-sewn bull-hide it went, and sank deep in his groin; yet
carried not its strength home. Quickly Aeneas, joyful at the sight of
the Tyrrhenian's blood, snatches his sword from his thigh and presses
hotly on his struggling enemy. Lausus saw, and groaned deeply for love
of his dear father, and tears rolled over his face. Here will I not keep
silence of thy hard death-doom and thine excellent deeds (if in any wise
things wrought in the old time may win belief), nor of thyself, O fitly
remembered! He, helpless and trammelled, withdrew backward, the deadly
spear-shaft trailing from his shield. The youth broke forward and
plunged into the fight; and even as Aeneas' hand rose to bring down the
blow, he caught up his point and held him in delay. His comrades follow
up with loud cries, so the father may withdraw in shelter of his son's
shield, while they shower their darts and bear back the enemy with
missiles from a distance. Aeneas wrathfully keeps covered. And as when
storm-clouds pour down in streaming hail, all the ploughmen and
country-folk scatter off the fields, and the wayfarer cowers safe in his
fortress, a stream's bank or deep arch of rock, while the rain falls,
that they may do their day's labour when sunlight reappears; thus under
the circling storm of weapons Aeneas sustains the cloud of war till it
thunders itself all away, and calls on Lausus, on Lausus, with chiding
and menace: 'Whither runnest thou on thy death, with daring beyond thy
strength? thine affection betrays thee into rashness.' But none the less
he leaps madly on; and now wrath rises higher and fiercer in the
Dardanian captain, and the Fates pass Lausus' last [815-849]threads
through their hand; for Aeneas drives the sword strongly right through
him up all its length: the point pierced the light shield that armed his
assailant, and the tunic sewn by his mother with flexible gold: blood
filled his breast, and the life left the body and passed mourning
through the air to the under world. But when Anchises' son saw the look
on the dying face, the face pale in wonderful wise, he sighed deeply in
pity, and reached forth his hand, as the likeness of his own filial
affection flashed across his soul. 'What now shall good Aeneas give
thee, what, O poor boy, for this thy praise, for guerdon of a nature so
noble? Keep for thine own the armour thou didst delight in; and I
restore thee, if that matters aught at all, to the ghosts and ashes of
thy parents. Yet thou shalt have this sad comfort in thy piteous death,
thou fallest by great Aeneas' hand.' Then, chiding his hesitating
comrades, he lifts him from the ground, dabbling the comely-ranged
tresses with blood.
Meanwhile his father, by the wave of the Tiber river, stanched his wound
with water, and rested his body against a tree-trunk. Hard by his brazen
helmet hangs from the boughs, and the heavy armour lies quietly on the
meadow. Chosen men stand round; he, sick and panting, leans his neck and
lets his beard spread down over his chest. Many a time he asks for
Lausus, and sends many an one to call him back and carry a parent's sad
commands. But Lausus his weeping comrades were bearing lifeless on his
armour, mighty and mightily wounded to death. Afar the soul prophetic of
ill knew their lamentation: he soils his gray hairs plenteously with
dust, and stretches both hands on high, and clings on the dead. 'Was
life's hold on me so sweet, O my son, that I let him I bore receive the
hostile stroke in my room? Am I, thy father, saved by these wounds of
thine, and living by thy death? Alas and woe! [850-885]now at last
exile is bitter! now the wound is driven deep! And I, even I, O my son,
stained thy name with crime, driven in hatred from the throne and
sceptre of my fathers. I owed vengeance to my country and my people's
resentment; might mine own guilty life but have paid it by every form of
death! Now I live, and leave not yet man and day; but I will.' As he
speaks thus he raises himself painfully on his thigh, and though the
violence of the deep wound cripples him, yet unbroken he bids his horse
be brought, his beauty, his comfort, that ever had carried him
victorious out of war, and says these words to the grieving beast:
'Rhoebus, we have lived long, if aught at all lasts long with mortals.
This day wilt thou either bring back in triumph the gory head and spoils
of Aeneas, and we will avenge Lausus' agonies; or if no force opens a
way, thou wilt die with me: for I deem not, bravest, thou wilt deign to
bear an alien rule and a Teucrian lord.' He spoke, and took his welcome
seat on the back he knew, loading both hands with keen javelins, his
head sheathed in glittering brass and shaggy horse-hair plumes. Thus he
galloped in. Through his heart sweep together the vast tides of shame
and mingling madness and grief. And with that he thrice loudly calls
Aeneas. Aeneas knew the call, and makes glad invocation: 'So the father
of gods speed me, so Apollo on high: do thou essay to close hand to
hand. . . .' Thus much he utters, and moves up to meet him with levelled
spear. And he: 'Why seek to frighten me, fierce man, now my son is gone?
this was thy one road to my ruin. We shrink not from death, nor relent
before any of thy gods. Cease; for I come to my death, first carrying
these gifts for thee.' He spoke, and hurled a weapon at his enemy; then
plants another and yet another as he darts round in a wide circle; but
they are stayed on the boss of gold. Thrice he rode wheeling close round
him by the [886-908]left, and sent his weapons strongly in; thrice the
Trojan hero turns round, taking the grim forest on his brazen guard.
Then, weary of lingering in delay on delay, and plucking out spear-head
after spear-head, and hard pressed in the uneven match of battle, with
much counselling of spirit now at last he bursts forth, and sends his
spear at the war-horse between the hollows of the temples. The creature
raises itself erect, beating the air with its feet, throws its rider,
and coming down after him in an entangled mass, slips its shoulder as it
tumbles forward. The cries of Trojans and Latins kindle the sky. Aeneas
rushes up, drawing his sword from the scabbard, and thus above him:
'Where now is gallant Mezentius and all his fierce spirit?' Thereto the
Tyrrhenian, as he came to himself and gazing up drank the air of heaven:
'Bitter foe, why these taunts and menaces of death? Naught forbids my
slaughter; neither on such terms came I to battle, nor did my Lausus
make treaty for this between me and thee. This one thing I beseech thee,
by whatsoever grace a vanquished enemy may claim: allow my body
sepulture. I know I am girt by the bitter hatred of my people. Stay, I
implore, their fury, and grant me and my son union in the tomb.' So
speaks he, and takes the sword in his throat unfalteringly, and the
lifeblood spreads in a wave over his armour.
BOOK ELEVENTH
THE COUNCIL OF THE LATINS, AND THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CAMILLA
Meanwhile Dawn arose forth of Ocean. Aeneas, though the charge presses
to give a space for burial of his comrades, and his mind is in the
tumult of death, began to pay the gods his vows of victory with the
breaking of the East. He plants on a mound a mighty oak with boughs
lopped away on every hand, and arrays it in the gleaming arms stripped
from Mezentius the captain, a trophy to thee, mighty Lord of War; he
fixes on it the plumes dripping with blood, the broken spears, and the
corslet struck and pierced in twelve places; he ties the shield of brass
on his left hand, and hangs from his neck the ivory sword. Then among
his joyous comrades (for all the throng of his captains girt him close
about) he begins in these words of cheer:
'The greatest deed is done, O men; be all fear gone for what remains.
These are the spoils of a haughty king, the first-fruits won from him;
my hands have set Mezentius here. Now our way lies to the walls of the
Latin king. Prepare your arms in courage, and let your hopes anticipate
the war; let no ignorant delay hinder or tardy thoughts of fear keep us
back, so soon as heaven grant us to pluck up the standards and lead our
army from the camp. [22-58]Meanwhile let us commit to earth the
unburied bodies of our comrades, since deep in Acheron this honour is
left alone. Go,' says he, 'grace with the last gifts those noble souls
whose blood won us this land for ours; and first let Pallas be sent to
Evander's mourning city, he whose valour failed not when the day of
darkness took him, and the bitter wave of death.'
So speaks he weeping, and retraces his steps to the door, where aged
Acoetes watched Pallas' lifeless body laid out for burial; once
armour-bearer to Evander in Parrhasia, but now gone forth with darker
omens, appointed attendant to his darling foster-child. Around is the
whole train of servants, with a crowd of Trojans, and the Ilian women
with hair unbound in mourning after their fashion. When Aeneas entered
at the high doorway they beat their breasts and raise a loud wail aloft,
and the palace moans to their grievous lamentation. Himself, when he saw
the pillowed head and fair face of Pallas, and on his smooth breast the
gaping wound of the Ausonian spear-head, speaks thus with welling tears:
'Did Fortune in her joyous coming,' he cries, 'O luckless boy, grudge
thee the sight of our realm, and a triumphal entry to thy father's
dwelling? Not this promise of thee had I given to Evander thy sire at my
departure, when he embraced me as I went and bade me speed to a wide
empire, and yet warned me in fear that the men were valiant, the people
obstinate in battle. And now he, fast ensnared by empty hope, perchance
offers vows and heaps gifts on his altars; we, a mourning train, go in
hollow honour by his corpse, who now owes no more to aught in heaven.
Unhappy! thou wilt see thy son cruelly slain; is this our triumphal
return awaited? is this my strong assurance? Ah me, what a shield is
lost, mine Iülus, to Ausonia and to thee!'
[59-96]This lament done, he bids raise the piteous body, and sends a
thousand men chosen from all his army for the last honour of escort, to
mingle in the father's tears; a small comfort in a great sorrow, yet the
unhappy parent's due. Others quickly plait a soft wicker bier of arbutus
rods and oak shoots, and shadow the heaped pillows with a leafy
covering. Here they lay him, high on their rustic strewing; even as some
tender violet or drooping hyacinth-blossom plucked by a maiden's finger,
whose sheen and whose grace is not yet departed, but no more does Earth
the mother feed it or lend it strength. Then Aeneas bore forth two
purple garments stiff with gold, that Sidonian Dido's own hands, happy
over their work, had once wrought for him, and shot the warp with
delicate gold. One of these he sadly folds round him, a last honour, and
veils in its covering the tresses destined to the fire; and heaps up
besides many a Laurentine battle-prize, and bids his spoils pass forth
in long train; with them the horses and arms whereof he had stripped the
enemy, and those, with hands tied behind their back, whom he would send
as nether offering to his ghost, and sprinkle the blood of their slaying
on the flame. Also he bids his captains carry stems dressed in the
armour of the foe, and fix on them the hostile names. Unhappy Acoetes is
led along, outworn with age, he smites his breast and rends his face,
and flings himself forward all along the ground. Likewise they lead
forth the chariot bathed in Rutulian blood; behind goes weeping Aethon
the war-horse, his trappings laid away, and big drops wet his face.
Others bear his spear and helmet, for all else is Turnus' prize. Then
follow in mourning array the Teucrians and all the Tyrrhenians, and the
Arcadians with arms reversed. When the whole long escorting file had
taken its way, Aeneas stopped, and sighing deep, pursued thus: 'Once
again war's dreadful destiny calls us hence to other tears:
[97-129]hail thou for evermore, O princely Pallas, and for evermore
farewell.' And without more words he bent his way to the high walls and
advanced towards his camp.
And now envoys were there from the Latin city with wreathed boughs of
olive, praying him of his grace to restore the dead that lay strewn by
the sword over the plain, and let them go to their earthy grave: no war
lasts with men conquered and bereft of breath; let this indulgence be
given to men once called friends and fathers of their brides. To them
Aeneas grants leave in kind and courteous wise, spurning not their
prayer, and goes on in these words: 'What spite of fortune, O Latins,
hath entangled you in the toils of war, and made you fly our friendship?
Plead you for peace to the lifeless bodies that the battle-lot hath
slain? I would fain grant it even to the living. Neither have I come but
because destiny had given me this place to dwell in; nor wage I war with
your people; your king it is who hath broken our covenant and preferred
to trust himself to Turnus' arms. Fitter it were Turnus had faced death
to-day. If he will fight out the war and expel the Teucrians, it had
been well to meet me here in arms; so had he lived to whom life were
granted of heaven or his own right hand. Now go, and kindle the fire
beneath your hapless countrymen.' Aeneas ended: they stood dumb in
silence, with faces bent steadfastly in mutual gaze. Then aged Drances,
ever young Turnus' assailant in hatred and accusation, with the words of
his mouth thus answers him again:
'O Trojan, great in renown, yet greater in arms, with what praises may I
extol thy divine goodness? Shall thy righteousness first wake my wonder,
or thy toils in war? We indeed will gratefully carry these words to our
fathers' city, and, if fortune grant a way, will make thee at one with
King Latinus. Let Turnus seek his own alliances. Nay, [130-163]it will
be our delight to rear the massy walls of destiny and stoop our
shoulders under the stones of Troy.'
He ended thus, and all with one voice murmured assent. Twelve days'
truce is struck, and in mediation of the peace Teucrians and Latins
stray mingling unharmed on the forest heights. The tall ash echoes to
the axe's strokes; they overturn pines that soar into the sky, and
busily cleave oaken logs and scented cedar with wedges, and drag
mountain-ashes on their groaning waggons.
And now flying Rumour, harbinger of the heavy woe, fills Evander and
Evander's house and city with the same voice that but now told of Pallas
victorious over Latium. The Arcadians stream to the gates, snatching
funeral torches after their ancient use; the road gleams with the long
line of flame, and parts the fields with a broad pathway of light; the
arriving crowd of Phrygians meets them and mingles in mourning array.
When the matrons saw all the train approach their dwellings they kindle
the town with loud wailing. But no force may withhold Evander; he comes
amid them; the bier is set down; he flings himself on Pallas, and clasps
him with tears and sighs, and scarcely at last does grief leave his
voice's utterance free. 'Other than this, O Pallas! was thy promise to
thy father, that thou wouldst not plunge recklessly into the fury of
battle. I knew well how strong was the fresh pride of arms and the
sweetness of honour in a first battle. Ah, unhappy first-fruits of his
youth and bitter prelude of the war upon our borders! ah, vows and
prayers of mine that no god heard! and thou, pure crown of wifehood,
happy that thou art dead and not spared for this sorrow! But I have
outgone my destiny in living, to stay here the survivor of my child.
Would I had followed the allied arms of Troy, to be overwhelmed by
Rutulian weapons! Would my life had been given, and I and not my Pallas
were borne home in this [164-198]procession! I would not blame you, O
Teucrians, nor our treaty and the friendly hands we clasped: our old age
had that appointed debt to pay. Yet if untimely death awaited my son, it
will be good to think he fell leading the Teucrians into Latium, and
slew his Volscian thousands before he fell. Nay, no other funeral than
this would I deem thy due, my Pallas, than good Aeneas does, than the
mighty Phrygians, than the Tyrrhene captains and all the army of
Tyrrhenia. Great are the trophies they bring on whom thine hand deals
death; thou also, Turnus, wert standing now a great trunk dressed in
arms, had his age and his strength of years equalled thine. But why,
unhappy, do I delay the Trojan arms? Go, and forget not to carry this
message to your king: Thine hand it is that keeps me lingering in a life
that is hateful since Pallas fell, and Turnus is the debt thou seest son
and father claim: for thy virtue and thy fortune this scope alone is
left. I ask not joy in life; I may not; but to carry this to my son deep
in the under world.'
Meanwhile Dawn had raised her gracious light on weary men, bringing back
task and toil: now lord Aeneas, now Tarchon, have built the pyres on the
winding shore. Hither in ancestral fashion hath each borne the bodies of
his kin; the dark fire is lit beneath, and the vapour hides high heaven
in gloom. Thrice, girt in glittering arms, they have marched about the
blazing piles, thrice compassed on horseback the sad fire of death, and
uttered their wail. Tears fall fast upon earth and armour; cries of men
and blare of trumpets roll skyward. Then some fling on the fire Latin
spoils stripped from the slain, helmets and shapely swords, bridles and
glowing chariot wheels; others familiar gifts, the very shields and
luckless weapons of the dead. Around are slain in sacrifice oxen many in
number, and bristly swine and cattle gathered out of all the country
[199-234]are slaughtered over the flames. Then, crowding the shore,
they gaze on their burning comrades, and guard the embers of the pyres,
and cannot tear themselves away till dewy Night wheels on the
star-spangled glittering sky.
Therewithal the unhappy Latins far apart build countless pyres and bury
many bodies of men in the ground; and many more they lift and bear away
to the neighbouring country, or send them back to the city; the rest, a
vast heap of undistinguishable slaughter, they burn uncounted and
unhonoured; on all sides the broad fields gleam with crowded rivalry of
fires. The third Dawn had rolled away the chill shadow from the sky;
mournfully they piled high the ashes and mingled bones from the embers,
and heaped a load of warm earth above them. Now in the dwellings of rich
Latinus' city the noise is loudest and most the long wail. Here mothers
and their sons' unhappy brides, here beloved sisters sad-hearted and
orphaned boys curse the disastrous war and Turnus' bridal, and bid him
his own self arm and decide the issue with the sword, since he claims
for himself the first rank and the lordship of Italy. Drances fiercely
embitters their cry, and vouches that Turnus alone is called, alone is
claimed for battle. Yet therewith many a diverse-worded counsel is for
Turnus, and the great name of the queen overshadows him, and he rises
high in renown of trophies fitly won.
Among their stir, and while confusion is fiercest, lo! to crown all, the
envoys from great Diomede's city bring their gloomy message: nothing is
come of all the toil and labour spent; gifts and gold and strong
entreaties have been of no avail; Latium must seek other arms, or sue
for peace to the Trojan king. For heavy grief King Latinus himself
swoons away. The wrath of heaven and the fresh graves before his eyes
warn him that Aeneas is borne on by fate's evident will. So he sends
imperial summons to [235-269]his high council, the foremost of his
people, and gathers them within his lofty courts. They assemble, and
stream up the crowded streets to the royal dwelling. Latinus, eldest in
years and first in royalty, sits amid them with cheerless brow, and bids
the envoys sent back from the Aetolian city tell the news they bring,
and demands a full and ordered reply. Then tongues are hushed; and
Venulus, obeying his word, thus begins to speak:
'We have seen, O citizens, Diomede in his Argive camp, and outsped our
way and passed all its dangers, and touched the hand whereunder the land
of Ilium fell. He was founding a town, named Argyripa after his
ancestral people, on the conquered fields of Iapygian Garganus. After we
entered in, and licence of open speech was given, we lay forth our
gifts, we instruct him of our name and country, who are its invaders,
and why we are drawn to Arpi. He heard us, and replied thus with face
unstirred: