The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Works of John Dryden Volume 15, by John Dryden with Walter Scott.

When Turnus saw the Latins leave the field,

Their armies broken, and their courage quelled,

Himself become the mark of public spite,

His honour questioned for the promised fight—

The more he was with vulgar hate oppressed,

The more his fury boiled within his breast:

He roused his vigour for the last debate,

And raised his haughty soul, to meet his fate.

As, when the swains the Libyan lion chase,

He makes a sour retreat, nor mends his pace;

But, if the pointed javelin pierce his side,

The lordly beast returns with double pride:

He wrenches out the steel, he roars for pain,

His sides he lashes, and erects his mane:

So Turnus fares: his eyeballs flash with fire;

Through his wide nostrils clouds of smoke expire.

Trembling with rage, around the court he ran,

At length approached the king, and thus began:—

}

{ "No more excuses or delays: I stand

{ In arms prepared to combat, hand to hand,

{ This base deserter of his native land.

The Trojan, by his word, is bound to take

The same conditions which himself did make.

Renew the truce; the solemn rites prepare,

And to my single virtue trust the war.

The Latians unconcerned shall see the fight:

This arm unaided shall assert your right:

Then, if my prostrate body press the plain,

To him the crown and beauteous bride remain."

To whom the king sedately thus replied:—

"Brave youth! the more your valour has been tried,

The more becomes it us, with due respect,

To weigh the chance of war, which you neglect.

You want not wealth, or a successive throne,

Or cities which your arms have made your own:

My towns and treasures are at your command,

And stored with blooming beauties is my land:

Laurentum more than one Lavinia sees,

Unmarried, fair, of noble families.

Now let me speak, and you with patience hear,

Things which perhaps may grate a lover's ear,

But sound advice, proceeding from a heart

Sincerely yours, and free from fraudful art.

The gods, by signs, have manifestly shown,

No prince, Italian born, should heir my throne:

Oft have our augurs, in prediction skilled,

And oft our priests, a foreign son revealed.

Yet, won by worth that cannot be withstood,

Bribed by my kindness to my kindred blood,

Urged by my wife, who would not be denied,

I promised my Lavinia for your bride:

Her from her plighted lord by force I took;

All ties of treaties, and of honour, broke:

}

{ On your account I waged an impious war—

{ With what success, 'tis needless to declare;

{ I and my subjects feel, and you have had your share.

Twice vanquished while in bloody fields we strive,

Scarce in our walls we keep our hopes alive:

The rolling flood runs warm with human gore;

The bones of Latians blanch the neighbouring shore.

Why put I not an end to this debate,

Still unresolved, and still a slave to fate?

If Turnus' death a lasting peace can give,

Why should I not procure it whilst you live?

Should I to doubtful arms your youth betray,

What would my kinsmen, the Rutulians, say?

}

{ And, should you fall in fight, (which heaven defend!)

{ How curse the cause, which hastened to his end

{ The daughter's lover, and the father's friend?

Weigh in your mind the various chance of war;

Pity your parent's age, and ease his care."

Such balmy words he poured, but all in vain:

The proffered medicine but provoked the pain.

The wrathful youth, disdaining the relief,

With intermitting sobs thus vents his grief:—

"The care, O best of fathers! which you take

For my concerns, at my desire forsake.

Permit me not to languish out my days,

But make the best exchange of life for praise.

This arm, this lance, can well dispute the prize;

And the blood follows, where the weapon flies.

His goddess mother is not near, to shrowd

The flying coward with an empty cloud."

But now the queen, who feared for Turnus' life,

And loathed the hard conditions of the strife,

Held him by force; and, dying in his death,

In these sad accents gave her sorrow breath:—

"O Turnus! I adjure thee by these tears,

And whate'er price Amata's honour bears

Within thy breast, since thou art all my hope,

My sickly mind's repose, my sinking age's prop—

Since on the safety of thy life alone

Depends Latinus, and the Latian throne—

Refuse me not this one, this only prayer,

To wave the combat, and pursue the war.

Whatever chance attends this fatal strife,

Think it includes, in thine, Amata's life.

I cannot live a slave, or see my throne

Usurped by strangers, or a Trojan son."

}

{ At this, a flood of tears Lavinia shed;

{ A crimson blush her beauteous face o'erspread,

{ Varying her cheeks by turns with white and red.[13]

The driving colours, never at a stay,

Run here and there, and flush, and fade away.

}

{ Delightful change! thus Indian ivory shows,

{ Which with the bordering paint of purple glows;

{ Or lilies damasked by the neighbouring rose.

The lover gazed, and, burning with desire,

The more he looked, the more he fed the fire:

Revenge, and jealous rage, and secret spite,

Roll in his breast, and rouse him to the fight.

Then fixing on the queen his ardent eyes,

Firm to his first intent, he thus replies:—

"O mother! do not by your tears prepare

Such boding omens, and prejudge the war.

Resolved on fight, I am no longer free

To shun my death, if heaven my death decree."—

Then turning to the herald, thus pursues:

"Go, greet the Trojan with ungrateful news;

Denounce from me, that, when to-morrow's light

Shall gild the heavens, he need not urge the fight;

The Trojan and Rutulian troops no more

Shall dye, with mutual blood, the Latian shore:

Our single swords the quarrel shall decide,

And to the victor be the beauteous bride."

He said, and, striding on with speedy pace,

He sought his coursers of the Thracian race.

At his approach, they toss their heads on high,

And, proudly neighing, promise victory.

The sires of these Orithyia sent from far,

To grace Pilumnus, when he went to war.

The drifts of Thracian snows were scarce so white,

Nor northern winds in fleetness matched their flight.

}

{ Officious grooms stand ready by his side;

{ And some with combs their flowing manes divide,

{ And others stroke their chests, and gently sooth their pride.

He sheathed his limbs in arms; a tempered mass

Of golden metal those, and mountain-brass.

Then to his head his glittering helm he tied,

And girt his faithful faulchion to his side.

In his Ætnæan forge, the god of fire

That faulchion laboured for the hero's sire,

Immortal keenness on the blade bestowed,

And plunged it hissing in the Stygian flood.

Propped on a pillar, which the cieling bore,

Was placed the lance Auruncan Actor wore;

Which with such force he brandished in his hand,

The tough ash trembled like an osier wand:

Then cried,—"O ponderous spoil of Actor slain,

And never yet by Turnus tossed in vain!

Fail not this day thy wonted force; but go,

Sent by this hand, to pierce the Trojan foe:

Give me to tear his corslet from his breast,

And from that eunuch head to rend the crest;

Dragged in the dust, his frizzled hair to soil,

Hot from the vexing iron, and smeared with fragrant oil."

Thus while he raves, from his wide nostrils flies

A fiery steam, and sparkles from his eyes.

So fares the bull in his loved female's sight:

Proudly he bellows, and preludes the fight:

He tries his goring horns against a tree,

And meditates his absent enemy:

He pushes at the winds; he digs the strand

With his black hoofs, and spurns the yellow sand.

Nor less the Trojan, in his Lemnian arms,

To future fight his manly courage warms:

He whets his fury, and with joy prepares

To terminate at once the lingering wars;

To cheer his chiefs and tender son, relates

What heaven had promised, and expounds the fates.

Then to the Latian king he sends, to cease

The rage of arms, and ratify the peace.

The morn ensuing, from the mountain's height,

Had scarcely spread the skies with rosy light;

The etherial coursers, bounding from the sea,

From out their flaming nostrils breathed the day;

When now the Trojan and Rutulian guard,

In friendly labour joined, the list prepared.

}

{ Beneath the walls, they measure out the space;

{ Then sacred altars rear, on sods of grass,

{ Where, with religious rites, their common gods they place.

In purest white, the priests their heads attire,

And living waters bear, and holy fire;

And, o'er their linen hoods and shaded hair,

Long twisted wreaths of sacred vervain wear.

In order issuing from the town, appears

The Latin legion, armed with pointed spears;

And from the fields, advancing on a line,

The Trojan and the Tuscan forces join:

Their various arms afford a pleasing sight:

A peaceful train they seem, in peace prepared for fight.

Betwixt the ranks the proud commanders ride,

Glittering with gold, and vests in purple dyed—

Here Mnestheus, author of the Memmian line,

And there Messapus, born of seed divine.

The sign is given; and, round the listed space,

Each man in order fills his proper place.

Reclining on their ample shields, they stand,

And fix their pointed lances in the sand.

Now, studious of the sight, a numerous throng

Of either sex promiscuous, old and young,

Swarm from the town: by those who rest behind,

The gates and walls, and houses' tops, are lined.

Meantime the queen of heaven beheld the sight,

With eyes unpleased, from mount Albano's height:

(Since called Albano by succeeding fame,

But then an empty hill, without a name.)

She thence surveyed the field, the Trojan powers,

The Latian squadrons, and Laurentine towers.

Then thus the goddess of the skies bespake,

With sighs and tears, the goddess of the lake,

King Turnus' sister, once a lovely maid,

Ere to the lust of lawless Jove betrayed—

Compressed by force, but, by the grateful god,

Now made the Naïs of the neighbouring flood.

"O nymph, the pride of living lakes! (said she)

O most renowned, and most beloved by me!

Long hast thou known, nor need I to record,

The wanton sallies of my wandering lord.

Of every Latian fair, whom Jove misled

To mount by stealth my violated bed,

To thee alone I grudged not his embrace,

But gave a part of heaven, and an unenvied place.

Now learn from me thy near approaching grief,

Nor think my wishes want to thy relief

While fortune favoured, nor heaven's king denied

To lend my succour to the Latian side,

I saved thy brother, and the sinking state:

But now he struggles with unequal fate,

}

{ And goes, with gods averse, o'ermatched in might,

{ To meet inevitable death in fight;

{ Nor must I break the truce, nor can sustain the sight.

Thou, if thou dar'st, thy present aid supply;

It well becomes a sister's care to try."

At this the lovely nymph, with grief oppressed,

Thrice tore her hair, and beat her comely breast.

To whom Saturnia thus:—"Thy tears are late:

Haste, snatch him, if he can be snatched, from fate:

New tumults kindle; violate the truce.

Who knows what changeful Fortune may produce?

'Tis not a crime to attempt what I decree;

Or, if it were, discharge the crime on me."

She said, and, sailing on the winged wind,

Left the sad nymph suspended in her mind.

And now in pomp the peaceful kings appear:

Four steeds the chariot of Latinus bear:

Twelve golden beams around his temples play,

To mark his lineage from the god of day.

Two snowy coursers Turnus' chariot yoke,

And in his hand two massy spears he shook:

Then issued from the camp, in arms divine,

Æneas, author of the Roman line;

And by his side Ascanius took his place,

The second hope of Rome's immortal race.

}

{ Adorned in white, a reverend priest appears,

{ And offerings to the flaming altars bears—

{ A porket, and a lamb that never suffered shears.

Then to the rising sun he turns his eyes,

And strews the beasts, designed for sacrifice,

With salt and meal: with like officious care

He marks their foreheads, and he clips their hair.

Betwixt their horns the purple wine he sheds;

With the same generous juice the flame he feeds.

Æneas then unsheathed his shining sword,

And thus with pious prayers the gods adored:—

"All-seeing sun! and thou, Ausonian soil,

For which I have sustained so long a toil,

Thou, king of heaven! and thou, the queen of air,

Propitious now, and reconciled by prayer;

Thou, god of war, whose unresisted sway

The labours and events of arms obey!

Ye living fountains, and ye running floods!

All powers of ocean, all etherial gods!

Hear, and bear record: if I fall in field,

Or, recreant in the fight, to Turnus yield,

My Trojans shall increase Evander's town;

Ascanius shall renounce the Ausonian crown:

All claims, all questions of debate, shall cease;

Nor he, nor they, with force infringe the peace.

But, if my juster arms prevail in fight,

(As sure they shall, if I divine aright,)

My Trojans shall not o'er the Italians reign;

Both equal, both unconquered, shall remain,

Joined in their laws, their lands, and their abodes;

I ask but altars for my weary gods.

The care of those religious rites be mine:

The crown to king Latinus I resign:

His be the sovereign sway. Nor will I share

His power in peace, or his command in war.

For me, my friends another town shall frame,

And bless the rising towers with fair Lavinia's name."

Thus he. Then, with erected eyes and hands,

The Latian king before his altar stands.

"By the same heaven, (said he,) and earth, and main,

And all the powers that all the three contain;

By hell below, and by that upper god,

Whose thunder signs the peace, who seals it with his nod;

So let Latona's double offspring hear,

And double-fronted Janus, what I swear:

I touch the sacred altars, touch the flames,

And all those powers attest, and all their names:

Whatever chance befal on either side,

No term of time this union shall divide:

No force, no fortune, shall my vows unbind,

Or shake the stedfast tenor of my mind;

Not, though the circling seas should break their bound,

O'erflow the shores, or sap the solid ground;

Not, though the lamps of heaven their spheres forsake,

Hurled down, and hissing in the nether lake:

Even as this royal sceptre" (for he bore

A sceptre in his hand) "shall never more

Shoot out in branches, or renew the birth—

An orphan now, cut from the mother earth

By the keen axe, dishonoured of its hair,

And cased in brass, for Latian kings to bear."

When thus in public view the peace was tied

With solemn vows, and sworn on either side,

All dues performed which holy rites require,

The victim beasts are slain before the fire,

The trembling entrails from their bodies torn,

And to the fatten'd flames in chargers borne.

Already the Rutulians deemed their man

O'ermatched in arms, before the fight began.

First rising fears are whispered through the crowd;

Then, gathering sound, they murmur more aloud.

Now, side to side, they measure with their eyes

The champions' bulk, their sinews, and their size:

The nearer they approach, the more is known

The apparent disadvantage of their own.

Turnus himself appears in public sight

Conscious of fate, desponding of the fight.

Slowly he moves, and at his altar stands

With eyes dejected, and with trembling hands:

And, while he mutters undistinguished prayers,

A livid deadness in his cheeks appears.

With anxious pleasure when Juturna viewed

The increasing fright of the mad multitude,

When their short sighs and thickening sobs she heard,

And found their ready minds for change prepared;

Dissembling her immortal form, she took

Camertes' mien, his habit, and his look—

A chief of ancient blood:—in arms well known

Was his great sire, and he his greater son.

His shape assumed, amid the ranks she ran,

And humouring their first motions, thus began:—

"For shame, Rutulians! can you bear the sight

Of one exposed for all, in single fight?

Can we, before the face of heaven, confess

Our courage colder, or our numbers less?

View all the Trojan host, the Arcadian band,

And Tuscan army; count them as they stand:

Undaunted to the battle if we go,

Scarce every second man will share a foe.

Turnus, 'tis true, in this unequal strife,

Shall lose, with honour, his devoted life,

Or change it rather for immortal fame,

Succeeding to the gods, from whence he came:

But you, a servile and inglorious band,

For foreign lords shall sow your native land,

Those fruitful fields, your fighting fathers gained,

Which have so long their lazy sons sustained."

With words like these, she carried her design.

A rising murmur runs along the line.

Then even the city troops, and Latians, tired

With tedious war, seem with new souls inspired:

Their champion's fate with pity they lament,

And of the league, so lately sworn, repent.

Nor fails the goddess to foment the rage

With lying wonders, and a false presage;

But adds a sign, which, present to their eyes,

Inspires new courage, and a glad surprise.

For, sudden, in the fiery tracts above,

Appears in pomp the imperial bird of Jove:

A plump of fowl he spies, that swim the lakes,

And o'er their heads his sounding pinions shakes;

Then, stooping on the fairest of the train,

In his strong talons trussed a silver swan.

The Italians wonder at the unusual sight:

But while he lags, and labours in his flight,

Behold, the dastard fowl return anew,

And with united force the foe pursue:

Clamorous around the royal hawk they fly,

And, thickening in a cloud, o'ershade the sky.

They cuff, they scratch, they cross his airy course;

Nor can the encumbered bird sustain their force;

But, vexed, not vanquished, drops the ponderous prey,

And, lightened of his burden, wings his way.

The Ausonian bands with shouts salute the sight,

Eager of action, and demand the fight.

Then king Tolumnius, versed in augurs' arts,

Cries out, and thus his boasted skill imparts:—

"At length 'tis granted, what I long desired!

This, this is what my frequent vows required.

Ye gods! I take your omen, and obey.—

Advance, my friends, and charge! I lead the way.

These are the foreign foes, whose impious band,

Like that rapacious bird, infest our land:

But soon, like him, they shall be forced to sea

By strength united, and forego the prey.

Your timely succour to your country bring;

Haste to the rescue, and redeem your king."

He said: and, pressing onward through the crew,

Poised in his lifted arm, his lance he threw.

The winged weapon, whistling in the wind,

Came driving on, nor missed the mark designed.

At once the cornel rattled in the skies;

At once tumultuous shouts and clamours rise.

Nine brothers in a goodly band there stood,

Born of Arcadian mixed with Tuscan blood,

Gylippus' sons; the fatal javelin flew,

Aimed at the midmost of the friendly crew.

}

{ A passage through the jointed arms it found,

{ Just where the belt was to the body bound,

{ And struck the gentle youth extended on the ground.

Then, fired with pious rage, the generous train

Run madly forward to revenge the slain.

And some with eager haste their javelins throw;

And some with sword in hand assault the foe.

The wished insult the Latine troops embrace,

And meet their ardour in the middle space.

The Trojans, Tuscans, and Arcadian line,

With equal courage obviate their design.

Peace leaves the violated fields; and hate

Both armies urges to their mutual fate.

With impious haste their altars are o'erturned,

The sacrifice half broiled, and half unburned.

Thick storms of steel from either army fly,

And clouds of clashing darts obscure the sky;

Brands from the fire are missive weapons made,

With chargers, bowls, and all the priestly trade.

Latinus, frighted, hastens from the fray,

And bears his unregarded gods away.

These on their horses vault; those yoke the car;

The rest, with swords on high, run headlong to the war.

Messapus, eager to confound the peace,

Spurred his hot courser through the fighting prease,

}

{ At king Aulestes, by his purple known

{ A Tuscan prince, and by his regal crown;

{ And, with a shock encountering, bore him down.

Backward he fell; and, as his fate designed,

The ruins of an altar were behind:

There pitching on his shoulders and his head,

Amid the scattering fires he lay supinely spread.

The beamy spear, descending from above,

His cuirass pierced, and through his body drove.

Then, with a scornful smile, the victor cries:—

"The gods have found a fitter sacrifice."

Greedy of spoils, the Italians strip the dead

Of his rich armour, and uncrown his head.

Priest Corynæus armed his better hand,

From his own altar, with a blazing brand;

And, as Ebusus with a thundering pace

Advanced to battle, dashed it on his face: