The Aeneid
Page 20
So strong, this Dares, first to cock his head for combat,
flaunting his broad shoulders, sparring, lefts and rights,
beating the air with blows.
Who will take him on?
Not one in the whole crowd would dare go up against him,
strap the gloves on. So, certain that all contenders
had withdrawn, the trophy his alone, he strode up
to Aeneas now and never pausing, full of swagger,
grasps the bull’s horn with his left hand and boasts:
“Son of Venus, since no one dares to face me in the ring,
how long do I have to stand here? How long’s right?
Just say the word—I’ll lead my prize away.”
With one accord the Trojans roared assent:
Give the man the prize that he’d been promised.
But now Acestes rebukes Entellus sharply,
sitting side by side on a grassy rise of ground:
“Entellus, once our bravest hero, where’s it gone?
Look at this prize! How can you just sit back,
feckless, and let them cart it off without a fight?
Where’s that god of ours, that Eryx, tell me—
our teacher once, renowned for nothing now?
Where’s your fame that thrilled all Sicily once?
What of the trophies hanging from your rafters?”
Entellus returns: “My love of glory, my pride
still holds strong, not beaten down by fear.
It’s slow old age, that’s what dogs me now.
My blood runs cold, my body’s chill, played out.
But if I were now the man I was, full of the youth
that spurs that bantam there, cocksure and strutting so—
I’d need no bribe of a prize bull to bring me out.
I have no use for trophies.”
Fighting words.
Down in the ring he threw his pair of gauntlets,
massive weights that violent Eryx used to sport,
binding his fists to fight with rawhide taut and tough.
The crowd was dazed—seven welted plies of enormous oxhide
stitched in ridges of lead and iron to make them stiff.
Dares, dazed the most, shrinks back from the bout.
But the hearty son of Anchises tests their heft,
turning over and over the heavy coiling straps.
Now old Entellus’ voice comes rising from his chest:
“What if you’d seen the gloves of Hercules himself
and the grim fight he fought on these very sands?
This is the gear your brother Eryx used to wield,
look, still crusted with blood and spattered brains—
with these he stood up against great Hercules,
and I used to wear them too,
when the blood ran warmer in me, made me strong
before old age, my rival, flecked my brows with gray.
But if this Trojan, Dares, cringes before my weapons,
if good Aeneas decides and Acestes my promoter nods,
we’ll fight as equals here. These gloves of Eryx,
I’ll give them up for your sake, Dares. Come,
nothing to fear, pull off your Trojan gauntlets!”
With that challenge Entellus stripped his pleated cloak
from his shoulders, baring his great sinewy limbs,
his great bones and joints, and stood gigantic
in the center of the ring.
Officiating, Aeneas
produced two pairs of gauntlets matched in weight
and bound both fighters’ hands with equal weapons.
At once each struck his stance, up on his toes,
fists raised high—not a twinge of fear now—
heads rearing back, out of range of the fists,
they mix punches, left, right, probe for openings,
Dares trusting to young blood and fancy footwork,
Entellus to brawn, to brute force, but his knees quake,
his huge, lumbering frame is racked with labored breathing.
Wasting blow after blow at each other, thrown but missed
then blow, blow upon hollow ribs, landing fast and furious,
pounding chestbones, flurry of blows to head and ears,
jaws cracking under the crush of hammering jabs—
massive Entellus, stock-still in his tracks, merely
rolls to avoid the salvos, eyes fixed on his rival.
Dares like some captain assaulting a steep city wall
or laying siege to a mountain stronghold under arms,
now this approach, now that, exploring the whole fort
with skill, with every kind of assault, and all no use.
Entellus towers up for a stunning roundhouse right
and Dares seeing it coming,
ducks, quick,
he’s gone—
but the giant’s full force poured in the crashing blow
lands on empty air and his own weight brings him down,
a colossal man, a colossal fall, he slammed the earth,
toppled, as often a hollow pine, ripped up by the roots
on steep Mount Ida or Erymanthus, topples down to ground.
The crowd springs up, Sicilians, Trojans, rival outcries
hit the sky. Acestes, first to rush to his aged friend,
pities Entellus, hoists him off the ground.
The champion,
never slowed by a fall, unshaken, goes back to fight
and all the fiercer, anger fueling his power now,
shame fires him up, and a sense of his own strength.
So in a blaze of fury he pummels Dares headlong over
the whole wide ring, lefts and rights, doubling blows,
no lull, no letup, thick and fast as the hailstones
pelting down from a stormcloud, rattling roofs,
so dense the champion’s blows, both fists pounding
over and over, battering Dares reeling round—
Enough.
Aeneas, the good captain, could not permit the fury,
the blind rage of Entellus to rampage any longer.
He stopped the fight, pulled the battle-weary Dares
out of the bout and consoled him with these words:
“Poor man, what insanity’s got you in its grip?
You’re up against superhuman power, can’t you see?
The will of God’s against you. Bow to God.”
With that command he parted both contenders.
Trusty friends conducted Dares back to the ships,
dragging his wobbly knees, his head lolling side to side,
spitting clots from his mouth, blood mixed with teeth.
His mates, called back, receive his sword and helmet,
leaving the bull and the victor’s palm to Entellus.
Overflowing with pride, glorying over his bull
the old champion shouts: “Son of the goddess,
see, you Trojans too,
what power I had when I was in my prime,
and from what a death you rescue Dares now!”
With that,
standing over against the bull’s head steadied there,
the battle’s prize, he drew the iron gauntlet back
and rearing up for the blow, swings it square between
both horns, crushing the skull and dashing out the brains,
and dying, quivering, down on the ground the great beast sprawls.
And rising over it now the champion’s voice comes
pouring from his heart: “Here, Eryx,
I pay your spirit a better life than Dares’!
Here, in victory, I lay down my gloves, my skill.”
At once Aeneas invites all those who wish
to contend with winging shafts and names the prizes.
With powerful hands he steps the mast from Serestus’ ship
and tethers atop it, looped by a cord, a fluttering
dove,
a mark for steel-shod arrows. The archers gather now,
cast lots in a bronze helmet, and first to leap out,
to partisan shouts, is Hippocoön, son of Hyrtacus.
Next, Mnestheus, flushed with victory in the ships,
his brow still crowned with an olive wreath of green.
Third, Eurytion—your brother, famous Pandarus,
archer who once under orders broke that truce,
the first to whip an arrow into the Argive ranks.
The last lot, deep in the helm, was Acestes’ own,
who dared to try his hand at young men’s work.
Now
as they flex their bows to a curve with all their force,
all each man can muster, drawing shafts from quivers,
young Hippocoön shot first, his bowstring twanged,
his whizzing arrow ripped through the swift air
and struck home, fixed deep in the timber mast.
The mast shuddered, the dove fluttered in fright
and the whole arena round rang out with cheers.
And next, keen Mnestheus took his stand, bow drawn,
aiming higher, his eye and shaft both trained on the mark
but he had no luck, he missed the bird itself, his shaft
just slit a knot in the hempen cord that tied her foot
as the dove dangled high from the soaring mast and
off she flew to the South and the dark clouds.
Quick as a wink Eurytion, bow long bent and arrow
set for release, prayed to his archer brother,
aimed at the dove that reveled in open sky,
winging under a black cloud—
and struck—
and down
she dropped, dead weight, leaving her life in the stars
and bringing home the shaft that shot her through.
Now Acestes alone remained, and his prize lost.
Still he whipped an arrow high in the lofting air
to display his seasoned art and make his bow ring out.
Suddenly, right before their eyes, look, a potent marvel
destined to shape the future! So the outcome proved
when the awestruck prophets sang the signs to later ages.
Flying up to the swirling clouds the arrow shot into flames,
blazing its way in fire, burning out into thin air,
lost like the shooting stars that often break loose,
trailing a mane of flames to sweep across the sky.
Transfixed, the men of Troy and Sicily froze and
prayed the gods on high. Nor did Prince Aeneas
hold back from the omen. He embraced Acestes
in all his glory, heaping splendid gifts
on the old king and urging: “Take them, father!
By this sign the great lord of Olympus has decreed
that you should bear off honors far from all the rest.
Here, you’ll have a gift from old Anchises himself.
A mixing-bowl, richly engraved, the proud trophy
that Thracian Cisseus one day gave my father.
A memento of his host, a pledge of his affection.”
With that, he crowns his brows with laurel leaves
and declares Acestes first, the winner over all.
Good Eurytion never grudged him this distinction,
though he alone shot down the dove from the high sky.
Next in the prizes comes the one who slit the cord
and last the man whose shaft had drilled the mast.
Even before the contest ended, great Aeneas calls
Epytides over, friend and bodyguard of the young Iulus,
and whispers in his trusted ear: “Go, and if Ascanius
has his troupe of boys prepared, their horses mustered
to ride through their maneuvers, have him parade
his squadrons now, to honor Anchises here
and display himself in arms.”
Aeneas commands
the flooding crowds to clear the whole broad arena,
leave the field wide open. Then in ride the boys,
trim in their ranks before their parents’ eyes,
mounted on bridled steeds and glittering in the light
and as they pass, the men of Troy and Sicily
murmur a hum of admiration. All the riders,
following custom, wear their hair bound tight
with close-cut wreaths, each bearing a pair of lances,
cornel, tipped with steel. Some sling burnished quivers
over their shoulders, high on their necks the torques
of flexible, braided gold encircle each boy’s neck.
Three squadrons with three captains weave their ways,
each leading a column of twelve, six boys in double file,
a trainer beside each troupe, all shining in the sun.
The first young squadron parades along in triumph
led by little Priam, who bore his forebear’s name—
your noble son, Polites, destined to sire Italians—
riding a Thracian stallion dappled white, his pasterns
white and prancing, high brow flashing a blaze of white.
Next comes Atys, soon the source of the Latin Atians,
little Atys, a boy the boy Prince Iulus loved.
Last, handsomest captain of them all, comes Iulus
riding a mount from Sidon, radiant Dido’s gift,
a memento of the queen, a pledge of her affection.
The rest of the youngsters ride Sicilian horses,
old Acestes’ gifts, the riders awed by applause
the Dardans give their fine dressage, delighted
to see in their looks their own lost parents’ faces.
Now, once they’d paraded past the assembled crowd,
triumphant on horseback, bright in the eyes of kinsmen,
all riders took their places and Epytides from afar
called out
“Get set”—
a crack of his whip, and watch,
the long column, split into three equal squads,
splits into rows of six, in bands dancing away,
then recalled at the next command they wheeled
and charged each other, lances tense for attack,
wheeling charge into countercharge, return and turn
through the whole arena, enemies circling, swerving back
in their armor, acting out a mock display of war,
now baring their backs in flight, now turning spears
for attack, now making peace and riding file by file.
So complex the labyrinth once in hilly Crete, they say,
where the passage wove between blind walls and wavered on
in numberless cunning paths that broke down every clue,
with nothing to trace and no way back—a baffling maze.
Complex as the course the sons of Troy now follow, weaving
their way through mock escapes and clashes all in sport
as swiftly as frisky dolphins skim the rolling surf,
cleaving the Libyan or Carpathian seas in play.
This tradition of drill and these mock battles:
Ascanius was the first to revive the Ride
when he girded Alba Longa round with ramparts,
teaching the early Latins to keep these rites,
just as he and his fellow Trojan boys had done,
and the Albans taught their sons, and in her turn
great Rome received the rites and preserved our fathers’ fame.
The boys are now called Troy, their troupe the Trojan Corps.
Here came to an end the games in honor of Aeneas’
hallowed father.
But here for the first time Fortune
veered in its course and turned against the Trojans.
While they consecrated the tomb with various games,
Saturnian Juno hurries Iris down from the sky
; to the Trojan fleet, breathing gusts at her back
to wing her on her way. Juno brooding, scheming,
her old inveterate rancor never sated. Iris flies,
arcing down on her rainbow showering iridescence,
and no one sees the virgin glide along the shore,
past the huge assembly, catching sight of the harbor
all deserted now, and the fleet they left unguarded.
But there, far off on a lonely stretch of beach
the Trojan women wept for the lost Anchises.
Gazing out on the deep dark swells they wept
and wailed: “How many reefs, how many sea-miles
more that we must cross! Heart-weary as we are!”
They cried with one voice. A city is what they pray for.
All were sick of struggling with the sea.
So down
in their midst speeds Iris—no stranger to mischief—
putting aside the looks and gown of a goddess,
turning into Beroë, aged wife of Doryclus
the Tmarian, a woman of fine, noble birth
who once had fame and sons. Like Beroë now,
Iris mingles in among all the Trojan mothers.
“How wretched we are,” she cries, “that no Greek soldier
dragged us off to die in the war beneath our country’s walls.
Oh, my poor doomed people! What is Fortune saving you for,
what death-blow? Seven summers gone since Troy went down
and still we’re swept along, measuring out each land, each sea—
how many hostile rocks and stars?—scanning an endless ocean,
chasing an Italy fading still as the waves roll us on.
Here is our brother Eryx’ land. Acestes is our host.
What prevents us from building walls right here,
presenting our citizens with a city? Oh, my country,
gods of the hearth we tore from enemies, all for nothing,
will no walls ever again be called the walls of Troy?
We’re never again to see the rivers Hector loved,
the Simois and the Xanthus? No, come, action!
Help me burn these accursed ships to ashes.
The ghost of Cassandra came to me in dreams,
the prophetess gave me flaming brands and said:
‘Look for Troy right here, your own home here!’
Act now. No delay in the face of signs like these.
You see? Four altars to Neptune. The god himself
is giving us torches, building our courage, too.”
Spurring them on and first to seize a deadly brand,