Virgil’s Æneid | Project Gutenberg

Meantime the palace of strong Olympus is thrown open,

and the sire of gods and monarch of men summons a

council to the starry chamber, whence, throned on high,

he looks down on the length and breadth of earth, the

camp of the Dardans and the people of Latium. They 5

take their seats in the double-gated mansion; he himself

opens the court: “Mighty denizens of heaven, wherefore

is your judgment turned backward, and whence such discord

in your unkindly souls? I had forbidden that Italy

should meet the Teucrians in the shock of war. What 10

strife is this in defiance of my law? What terror has

prompted these or those to draw the sword and provoke

the fight? There shall come a rightful time for combat—no

need for you to hasten it—when fierce Carthage one

day shall launch on the hills of Rome mighty ruin and the 15

opening of Alpine barriers. Then will your rancours be

free to contend, your hands to plunder and ravage; for the

present let be, and cheerfully ratify the peace that I have

willed.”

Thus Jupiter in brief; but not brief was the answer 20

of golden Venus: “O Father! O eternal sovereignty of

man and nature! for what else can there be which is left

us to implore? Seest thou how the Rutulians insult? how

Turnus is whirled through the battle by his haughty

coursers, borne on the floodtide of war? No longer are 25

the Teucrians safe even in the shelter of their walls; within

the gates, amidst the very mounds of the ramparts combat

is waged, and the trenches overflow with carnage. Æneas

is away in his ignorance. Wilt thou never let us have

respite from siege? Once more the enemy is stooping over 30

the walls of our infant Troy, with a second army; once

more Tydeus’ son from his Ætolian Arpi is rising against

the Teucrians. Ay, my wounds, I ween, are yet in the

future, and I, thine own offspring, am delaying the destined

course of a mortal spear. If it is without your leave and 5

despite your will that the Trojans have won their way to

Italy, let them expiate the crime and withdraw from them

thine aid: but if they have but followed those many oracles

given by powers above and powers underground, how

can any now be able to reverse thine ordinance and write 10

anew the page of fate? Why should I remind thee of our

fleet consumed on Eryx’ shore? why of the monarch of the

storms and his raving winds stirred up from Æolia, or of

Iris sent down from the clouds? Now she is even rousing

the ghosts below—that portion of the world till then was 15

untried—and on a sudden Allecto is launched on upper

air, and rages through the Italian cities. It is not for

empire that I am disquieted; for that we hoped in the past,

while our star yet shone: let them conquer whom thou

wouldst have conquer. If there is no country on earth 20

which thy relentless spouse will allow the Teucrians, I adjure

thee, father, by the smoking ruins of Troy overthrown,

let me send away Ascanius safe from the war—let my

grandson survive in life. Æneas, indeed, may be tossed

on unknown waters, and follow such course as chance may 25

give him: him let me have the power to screen and withdraw

from the horrors of battle. Amathus is mine, and

lofty Paphos, and high Cythera, and the mansion of Idalia:

there let him pass his days unwarlike and inglorious. Let

it be thy will that Carthage shall bow Ausonia beneath 30

her tyrannous sway; the Tyrian cities need fear no resistance

from him. What has it advantaged him to have

escaped the plague of war and fled through the hottest of

the Argive fires, to have drained to the dregs all those

dangers by sea and on broad earth, while the Teucrians 35

are in quest of Latium and a restored Pergamus? Give

back, great sire, to our wretched nation their Xanthus and

their Simois, and let the Teucrians enact once more the old

tragedy of Ilium.” Then outspoke queenly Juno, goaded

by fierce passion: “Why force you me to break my deep

silence, and give forth in words my buried grief? Your

Æneas—was it any man or god that compelled him to

draw the sword, and come down as a foe on the Latian 5

king? Grant that he went to Italy at the instance of fate,

at the impulse, in truth, of mad Cassandra; was it our

counsel that he should leave his camp and place his life

at the mercy of the winds? that he should trust the control

of battle and his city to a boy—should tamper with 10

Tyrrhenian loyalty and stir up a quiet nation? What

god, what cruel tyranny of ours, drove him thither to his

hurt? is there a trace of Juno here, or of Iris sent down from

the clouds? Ay, it is foul shame that the Italians should

throw a belt of flame round the infant Troy—that Turnus 15

should plant a foot on the soil of his fathers, Turnus, whose

grandsire was Pilumnus, whose mother the goddess

Venilia. How call you it for the Trojans to invade

Latium with their smoking torches, to put their yoke on a

country that is none of theirs, and harry away its plunder—to 20

choose at will those whose daughters they would wed,

and drag the plighted bride from the bosom—to bear

suppliant tokens in the hand and arm their vessels to the

teeth? You have power to withdraw Æneas from the

hands of the Greeks, and offer them clouds and thin winds 25

for the man they seek—power to turn a fleet of ships into

a bevy of Nymphs; and is it utterly monstrous for us to

give the Rutulians a measure of aid in return? Æneas

is away in ignorance, and in ignorance let him bide away.

You have your Paphos, your Idalium, your lofty Cythera: 30

why meddle with a city brimming with war and with ungentle

hearts? Is it we that are labouring to overturn

from the foundation your feeble Phrygian fortunes?

We? or the gallant who brought Greece down on the

wretched Trojans? What reason was there that Europe 35

and Asia should stand up to fight, and a league be broken

by treachery? Did I lead your Dardan leman to take

Sparta by storm? did I put weapons in his hand, or fan the

flame of war with the gales of love? Then had there been

decency in your fears for your friends; now you are rising

too late with unjust complaints, and flinging idly the language

of quarrel.”

Such was the appeal of Juno: and the whole body of immortals 5

murmured assent on this side or on that, like new-born

gales when they murmur, caught in the forest, and

roll about mysterious sounds, disclosing to the sailor a

coming storm. Then begins the almighty sire, whose is

the chief sovereignty of the universe: at opening of his 10

mouth the lofty palace of the gods grows still, and earth

shakes to her foundations; silent is the height of ether; the

Zephyrs are sunk to rest, and Ocean subdues its waves to

repose. “Take then to your hearts and engrave there

these my words: since it may not be that Ausonian and 15

Teucrian should be united by treaty, and your wranglings

brook no conclusion, be each man’s fortune to-day what

it may, be the span of each man’s hope long or short,

Trojan or Rutulian, I will show favour to neither, whether

it be by destiny that the Italian leaguer encompasses the 20

camp, or by Troy’s baneful error and the warnings of hostile

intelligence. Nor leave I the Rutulians free. Each man’s

own endeavours shall yield him the harvest of labour or

fortune. Jove, as king, is alike to all. Destiny shall find

her own way.” By the river of his Stygian brother, by the 25

banks that seethe with pitch and are washed by the

murky torrent, he nodded confirmation, and with his nod

made all Olympus tremble. So ended their debate.

Then from his golden throne rises Jove, and the immortals

gathering round him usher him to his chamber. 30

Meantime the Rutulians press round each and all of the

gates, eager to slaughter the soldiery and belt the ramparts

with flame. But Æneas’ army is hemmed within the

leaguered encampment, without hope of escape. In unavailing

wretchedness they stand guarding the turret’s 35

height, and form a thin circle round the walls. Asius son

of Imbrasus, and Hicetaon’s child Thymœtes, and the two

Assaraci, and Castor and aged Thymbris are their front

rank, by their side the two brethren of Sarpedon, Clarus

and Themon both, come from noble Lycia. There is one

carrying with the whole strain of his body a mighty rock,

no small portion of a mountain, Acmon of Lyrnessus, a

worthy peer of his father Clytius and his brother Menestheus. 5

Some repel the foe with javelins, some with stones:

they launch the firebrand, they fit the arrow to the string.

In the midst is he, Venus’ most rightful care, the royal boy

of Dardany, his beauteous head uncovered: see him shine

like a jewel islanded in yellow gold, an ornament for neck 10

or head, or as gleams ivory set by artist skill in box-wood or

Orician terebinth[273]: his flowing hair streams over a neck of

milky white and is gathered up by a ring of ductile gold.

Thou, too, Ismarus, wast seen by tribes of warriors dealing

wounds abroad and arming thy arrows with venom, gallant 15

branch of a Lydian house, from the land whose rich

soil is broken up by the husbandmen and washed by

Pactolus’ golden stream. Mnestheus, too, was there, whom

yesterday’s triumph over Turnus repulsed from the rampart

exalts to the stars, and Capys, who gives his name to 20

Campania’s mother city.

So they on this side and on that had waged all day the

conflict of stubborn war; and now at midnight Æneas

was ploughing the main. For soon as, leaving Evander,

he entered the Etruscan camp, accosted the king, and told 25

him of his name and his race, for what he sues and what

he offers, explains what arms Mezentius musters on his

side, and what the excess of Turnus’ violence, warns him

how little faith man can place in fortune, and seconds

reasoning by entreaty, without a moment’s pause Tarchon 30

combines his forces and strikes a truce; and at once, freed

from the spell of destiny, the Lydian race embarks according

to heaven’s ordinance, under the charge of a foreign

leader. First sails the vessel of Æneas, Phrygian lions

harnessed on the prow; above them Ida spreads her shade, 35

of happiest augury to exiled Troy. There sits great Æneas

brooding over the doubtful future of the war: and Pallas,

close cleaving to his left side, keeps questioning him,

now of the stars, the road-marks of the shadowy night,

and now of all that he has borne by land and by sea.

Now, ye goddesses, open wide your Helicon,[274] and stir up

the powers of song, to tell us what the army now following

Æneas from the Tuscan shores, equipping its ships for 5

adventure, and sailing over the sea.

First comes Massicus, cleaving the waters in his brass-sheathed

Tiger: in his train a band of a thousand warriors,

who have left the walls of Clusium and the city Cosæ;

their weapons a sheaf of arrows, light quivers for the 10

shoulder, and a bow of deadly aim. With him grim

Abas: his whole band ablaze with gleaming armour,

his vessel shining with a gilded Apollo. Populonia had

sent him six hundred of her sons, all versed in war: Ilva

three hundred, an island rich in the Chalybes’ unexhausted 15

mines. Third comes Asilas, the great interpreter

’tween gods and men, at whose bidding are the

victims’ entrails, the stars of the sky, the tongues of augurial

birds, and the flame of the prophetic lightning. With

him hurry a thousand in close array, bristling with spears—subjected 20

to his command by the town of Pisa, which,

sprung from Alpheus, took root on Etruscan soil. After

these is Astur, fairest of form, Astur, proud of his steed

and his glancing armour. Three hundred follow him, all

with one loyal soul, from those who dwell in Cære and in 25

the plains of Minio, in ancient Pyrgi, and Gravisca’s

tainted air.

I would not leave thee unsung, bravest chief of the Ligurians,

Cinyras, or Cupavo with scanty retinue, whose helmet

is surmounted by plumage of the swan: love was your 30

joint crime; for love you wear the cognizance of your

father’s form. For legend tells that Cycnus, all for grief

over his darling Phaethon, while in the poplar shade and

the leafage of the brotherless sisters he keeps singing and

consoling his sad passion by the Muses’ aid, drew over his 35

form the soft plumage of downy eld, mounting up from

earth and sending his voice before him to the stars. His

son, with a band of martial peers sailing at his side,

propels with his oars the enormous Centaur: the monster

stands lowering over the water, and threatens the billows

with a huge rock from his towering eminence, as he ploughs

the deep sea with the length of his keel.

Great Ocnus too is leading an army from the coasts of his 5

fathers, Ocnus, son of Manto the prophetess and the Etruscan

river, who bestowed on thee, Mantua, thy city walls

and the name of his mother, Mantua rich in ancestral

glories: but not all her sons of the same blood; three

races are there, and under each race range four nations: 10

herself the queen of the nations, her strength from Etruscan

blood. Hence, too, Mezentius draws against his life

five hundred unfriendly swords—Mincius, child of Benacus,

with his gray covering of reeds, ushers into the deep

their hostile bark. 15

On moves strong Aulestes, lashing the water as he rises

with the stroke of a hundred oars: the sea spouts foam

from its upturned surface. His bearer is a huge Triton,

whose shell strikes terror into the green billows; his

shaggy front, breasting the water, down to the side bespeaks 20

the man: the belly ends in a sea monster: under

the half bestial bosom the wave froths and roars.

So many chosen chiefs were journeying in thirty

vessels to the succour of Troy, and ploughing with brazen

beak the expanse of brine. 25

And now the day had withdrawn from the sky, and

gracious Dian was trampling over the cope of heaven with

her night-flying steeds: Æneas the while, for care refuses

slumber to his frame, is seated at his post, himself guiding

the rudder and trimming the sail—when lo! in the middle 30

of his voyage he is met by a fair bevy of comrades of his

own: the Nymphs whom gracious Cybele had invested

with the deity of the sea, and changed from ships to goddesses,

were swimming abreast and cleaving the billow,

a Nymph for each of the brazen prows that erst had 35

lined the shore. Far off they recognize their king, and

come dancing round him in state: Cymodoce, their skilfullest

in speech, swimming up behind, lays her right hand on

the stern, herself lifted breast high above the water,

while with her left she paddles in the noiseless wave.

Then thus she breaks on his wondering ear: “Wake you,

Æneas, seed of the gods? be wakeful still, and let the sail-ropes

go. We it is you see, pines of Ida from the sacred 5

summit, Sea-nymphs now, your sometime fleet. When

the false Rutulian was hot at our backs with fire and sword,

reluctantly we burst your bonds, and are now in full quest

of you over the sea. This new shape the great mother gave

us in her pity, and granted us the state of goddesses and 10

lives to lead beneath the water. Meantime young Ascanius

is hemmed in by rampart and trench, with serried

weapons all around him, and Latians bristling with battle.

Already the Arcadian horse mixed with the brave Etruscan

has gained the appointed spot: to bar their way with an 15

intervening host and cut them off from the camp is

Turnus’ fixed intent. Rise, and with the earliest approach

of dawn bid your allies be summoned to arms, and take in

hand that shield which the Fire-god himself made to

be invincible and bordered with a marge of gold. The 20

morrow’s sun, if you will but give credence to my words,

shall survey mighty heaps of Rutulian carnage.” Her

speech was done: and as she parted she gave with her

hand an impulse to the lofty stern, well knowing the due

measure of force: on it speeds over the wave, fleeter than 25

dart and wind-swift arrow both. The rest in order mend

their speed. Wondering he pauses, the great Trojan of

Anchises’ line, yet cheers his soul with the omen. Then,

looking to the vault above, he prays in brief: “Gracious

mother of the gods, lady of Ida, whose joy is in Dindymus, 30

and in turreted cities and harnessed lions at thy

bridle-rein, be thou now to me the controller of the fight,

do thou bring the presage nigh, and walk beside the

Phrygians, mighty goddess, with favouring step.” Thus

much he said: and meanwhile day was returning at speed, 35

with its light grown to full strength, and night had vanished

before it.

First he gives orders to his comrades to obey the

heavenly token, and nerve their souls for combat, and

make ready for the fight. And now at last from his

station on the tall stern he has the Teucrians and his

camp in view, when on the instant his blazing shield is

raised high on his left arm. Up goes a shout to heaven 5

from the Dardans on their ramparts; the gleam of hope

quickens wrath to fury; they hurl a shower of javelins:

even as amid dark clouds cranes from Strymon give token,

sweeping sonorously over the sky, and flying from the

southern gale with sequacious clamour. But the Rutulian 10

king and the Ausonian generals wonder at the sight, till,

looking back, they behold the stems bearing to the shore,

and the whole water floating on with vessels. There is a

blaze on that helmet’s summit, and from the crest on

high streams the flame, and the shield’s golden boss disgorges 15

mighty fires, even as when on a clear night blood-hued

comets glare with gloomy red, or as the Sirian blaze,

that harbinger of drought and sickness to weak mortality,

breaks into birth and saddens heaven with its ill-boding

rays. 20

Yet pause was none in bold Turnus’ confidence to forestall

the landing-place, and beat off the comers from the

shore. His words are ready at the moment to encourage

and upbraid: “See here the occasion you longed for, to

break through them at the sword’s point. A brave man’s 25

hand is the War-god’s chosen seat. Now let each remember

wife and home, recall the mighty deeds that made

your fathers great. Let us meet them at once at the

water’s edge, while they are in the hurry of landing, and

the foot falters in its first tread on shore. Valour has 30

Fortune for its friend:” So saying, he ponders with himself

whom to lead to the attack, and to whom he may

trust the leaguer of the walls.

Meanwhile Æneas is landing his comrades from the tall

ship-sides by help of bridges. Many of them watch for 35

the ebb of the failing sea and venture a leap among the

shallows; others resort to the oars. Tarchon, spying out

a place on the beach where the waters seethe not nor the

broken billows roar, but ocean without let glides gently

up the shore as the tide advances, suddenly turns his

prows thither, and exhorts his crew: “Now, ye chosen

band, ply your stout oars, lift the vessels and carry them

home: cleave with your beaks this land that hates you; 5

let the keel plough its own furrow. Even from shipwreck

in a roadstead like this I would not shrink, could I once

get hold of the soil.” Tarchon having thus said, his crew

rise on their oars and bear down on the Latian plains with

vessels all foam, till the beaks have gained the dry land, 10

and every keel has come scatheless to its rest. Not so

thy ship, Tarchon: for while dashed on a sandbank it

totters on the unequal ridge, poised in suspense awhile,

and buffeting the waves, its sides give way, and its men

are set down in the midst of the water: broken oars and 15

floating benches entangle them, and their feet are carried

back by the ebb of the wave.

No sluggish delay holds Turnus from his work: with

fiery speed he sweeps his whole army against the Teucrians,

and plants them in the foe’s face on the shore. The 20

clarions sound: first dashed Æneas on the rustic ranks, a

presage of the fight’s fortune, and disarrayed the Latians,

slaying Theron, who in his giant strength is assailing

Æneas: piercing through quilted brass and tunic stiff

with gold the sword devours his unguarded side. Next 25

he strikes Lycus, who was cut from the womb of his

dead mother and consecrated to thee, Apollo, because his

baby life had been suffered to scape the peril of the steel.

Hard by, as iron Cisseus and gigantic Gyas were laying

low his host with their clubs, he casts them down in 30

death: nought availed them; the weapons of Hercules or

strong hands to wield them, or Melampus their sire,

Alicides’ constant follower, long as earth found for him

those grievous tasks. See there, as Pharus is hurling

forth words without deeds, he flings at him his javelin 35

and plants it in the bawler’s mouth. Thou, too, Cydon,

while following with ill-starred quest the blooming Clytius,

thy latest joy, hadst lain stretched on the ground by the

Dardan hand, a piteous spectacle, at rest from the passions

that were ever in thy heart; but thy brethren met

the foe in close band, the progeny of Phorcus: seven their

number, seven the darts they throw; some rebound idly

from shield and helm, some as they grazed the frame were 5

turned aside by Venus’ gentle power. Quick spoke

Æneas to true Achates: “Give me store of weapons; not

one shall my hand hurl in vain against the Rutulians, of

all that have quivered in Grecian flesh on the plains of

Troy.” With that he seizes his mighty spear and launches 10

it: flying on it crashes through the brass of Mæon’s shield

and rends breastplate and breast at once. Swift comes

his brother Alcanor and props with his hand the falling

man: piercing the arm the spear flies onward and holds

its bloody course, and the dying hand dangles by the 15

sinews from the shoulder-blade. Then Numitor, snatching

the javelin from his brother’s body, assails Æneas;

yet it might not lodge in the enemy’s front, but just

grazed the thigh of mighty Achates.

Now comes Clausus of Cures in the pride of his youthful 20

frame, and strikes Dryops from a distance under the

chin with the strong impact of his stark spear, and piercing

his throat, robs him even as he speaks of life and

breath alike: the wounded man strikes the earth with

his forehead and vomits from his lips clotted blood. 25

Three, too, from Thrace, of Boreas’ noblest lineage, and

three sent to battle by Idas their sire and Ismarus their

country, he lays low by this chance or that. To his side

runs Halesus and the Auruncan bands; comes to his aid,

too, the seed of Neptune, steed-famed Messapus. Now 30

these, now those, strain to win the ground: the struggle is

on Ausonia’s very threshold. As in the spacious heaven

jarring winds meet in battle, alike in spirit and in strength,

winds, storm-clouds, and ocean, neither yields to the

other: long doubtful hangs the fight; all stand in death 35

grips, front to front: even such the meeting of the army

of Troy and the army of Latium: foot is set close to foot,

and man massed with man.

But in another part of the field, where a torrent had

scattered wide whirling stones and trees uprooted from its

banks, soon as Pallas saw his Arcadians, unused to wage

war on foot, flying before the chase of Latium, in that the

cragginess of the soil had driven them to discard their 5

steeds, he tries the one remedy in sore distress, and now

with prayers, now with bitter speeches, inflames their

valour: “Whither fly ye, mates? By your gallant deeds

I conjure you—by your chief Evander’s name and victories

won at his bidding—by my own promise, now 10

shooting up in rivalry with my father’s glory—trust not

to your feet. It is the sword that must hew us a way

through the foe. Where yonder host of men presses in

thickest mass is the path by which our noble country is

calling you and your general Pallas back to her arms. 15

No deities sit heavy on us: by a mortal foe we are pressed,

mortals ourselves: we have as many lives, as many hands

as they. Lo there! the sea hems us in with mighty

ocean-barrier; earth is closed to our flight: shall the sea

or Troy be our goal?” This said, he dashes at the midst 20

of the hostile throng. The first that meets him is Lagus,

brought to the spot by fates unkind; him, while tugging

a stone of enormous weight, he pierces with his whirled

javelin, just where the spine running down the back was

parting the ribs, and recovers the weapon from its lodgment 25

among the bones. Nor can Hisbo surprise him in

the fact, spite of his hopes; for Pallas catches him rushing

on in blind fury for the pain of his comrade’s death,

and buries the sword in his distended lungs. Next his

blow lights on Sthenelus, and Anchemolus of Rhœtus’ 30

ancient line, who dared pollute his stepdame’s couch.

You, too, twin brethren, fell on those Rutulian plains,

Larides and Thymber, Daucus’ resemblant offspring, undistinguished

even by your kin, a sweet perplexity to

those who bore you: but now Pallas has marked you with 35

a cruel difference; for you, poor Thymber, have your

head shorn off by the Evandrian sword; your hand,

Larides, severed from the arm, is looking in vain for you

its master; the fingers, half alive, are quivering yet and

closing again on the steel.

Arcadia’s sons, stung by their chief’s rebuke and gazing

on his glorious deeds, rush on the foe, strong in the

armour of mingled rage and shame. Then Pallas strikes 5

through Rhœtus as he flies past him on his car. So

much space and respite from his end did Ilus gain; for

’twas at Ilus he had launched from the distance his stalwart

spear: Rhœtus comes between and catches it, flying

from thee, noble Teuthras, and Tyres thy brother; and 10

tumbled from his car he beats with his dying heel the

Rutulian plains. Even as when the winds have risen at

his wish on a summer’s day, a shepherd lets loose his

scattered flames among the woods, in a moment catching

all that comes between, the Fire-god’s army in one bristling 15

line stretches over the broad plains: he from his seat

beholds the triumphant blaze with a conqueror’s pride:

even so the valour of thy friends musters from all sides on

one point to aid thee, Pallas. But Halesus, that fiery

warrior, moves against their opposing ranks, gathering 20

himself up into his arms. Ladon he massacres, and

Pheres, and Demodocus: Strymonius’ right hand, raised

against his throat, he lops away with his gleaming sword;

with a stone he strikes the front of Thoas, and has crushed

the bones mixed with gory brain. Halesus had been 25

hidden in the woods by his prophetic sire; when the

old man closed his whitening eyes in death, the Fates

claimed their victim, and devoted him to Evander’s darts.

And now Pallas aims at him, after these words of prayer:

“Grant, Father Tiber, to the flying steel poised in my 30

hand a prosperous passage through Halesus’ hardy breast;

thine oak shall have his arms and his warrior spoils.”

The god gave ear: while Halesus shielded Imaon, he gives

his own breast in evil hour unarmed to the Arcadian

lance. 35

But Lausus, himself a mighty portion of the war, suffers

not his troops to be dismayed by the hero’s dreadful

carnage: first he slays Abas, who had met him front to

front, the breakwater and barrier of fight. Down go the

sons of Arcadia, down go the Etruscans, and ye, too

Teucrians, whose frames Greece could not destroy. The

armies clash, their leaders and their powers the same.

The rear ranks close up the battle; nor weapon nor hand 5

can be moved for the crowd. Here is Pallas pushing and

pressing, there Lausus over against him: their years

scarcely differ; each has a comely form; but Fortune had

already written that neither should return to his home.

Yet were they not suffered to meet man to man by great 10

Olympus’ lord: each has his fate assigned him ere long at

the hand of a mightier enemy.