the thyrsus twined with ivy, dancing in your honor,
letting her hair grow long, your sacred locks!”
Rumor flies, and the hearts of Latian mothers
flare up with the same fury, the same frenzy
spurs them to seek new homes. Old homes deserted,
baring their necks, they loose their hair to the winds;
some fill the air with their high-pitched, trilling wails,
decked in fawnskins, brandishing lances wound with vines.
And Amata mid them all, shaking a flaming brand of pine,
breaks into a marriage hymn for Turnus and her daughter—
rolling her bloodshot eyes she suddenly bursts out,
wildly: “Mothers of Latium, listen, wherever you are,
if any love for unlucky Amata still stirs your hearts,
your loyal hearts—if any care for a mother’s rights
still cuts you to the quick, loose your headbands,
seize on the orgies with me!”
Mad—while through the woods and deserted lairs
of wild beasts Allecto whips Amata on
with the lash that whips her Maenads.
Once Allecto
saw her first arrows of madness piercing home
and Latinus’ plans and his whole house overwhelmed,
the grim goddess takes flight on her black wings and
heads straight for the walls of bold Rutulian Turnus.
Danaë once, they say, swept ashore by a Southern gale,
built that town for her father’s settlers, King Acrisius.
Ardea, our forebears called the place in the old days,
and the mighty name of Ardea still stands firm
but its glory is gone forever.
Here, under steep roofs in the dark night,
Turnus, dead to the world, lay fast asleep . . .
and Allecto strips away her ghastly features,
her fury’s writhing limbs—transforms herself,
her face like an old crone’s, she furrows her brow
with hideous wrinkles now and takes on snowy hair,
binds it with ribbons, braids it with sprays of olive.
Now she’s Calybe, aged priestess of Juno’s temple,
so she appears in the young king’s eyes and urges:
“Turnus, how can you lie back and let your labors
come to nothing? Your own scepter’s handed over
to settlers fresh from Troy! The king denies you
your bride, denies you your dowry earned in blood,
he seeks a stranger as heir to his royal throne.
Now go and offer yourself to thankless dangers,
you, you laughingstock! Go mow the Tuscans down,
armor your Latins well with pacts of peace!
This message mighty Juno in person ordered me
to give you here, asleep in the dead of night.
Action! In high spirits alert your men and arm them,
move them out through the gates to the field of battle!
Burn them to ash, those Phrygian chiefs encamped at ease
along our lovely river, and all their painted ships!
The great gods on high decree it so.
King Latinus—if he won’t yield your bride
and keep his word, then he must learn his lesson,
taste, at last, the force of Turnus’ sword!”
Laughing,
ready with his reply, the prince mocks the prophet:
“So, a fleet’s sailed into the Tiber. The tale’s
not failed—as you imagine—to reach my ears.
Stop concocting this panic for me, please.
Queen Juno has hardly wiped me from her mind.
It’s your dotage, mother—you, you doddering wreck
too spent to see the truth—that shakes you with anguish
all for nothing now. You and your warring kings,
your false alarms, you mockery of a prophet!
See to your own chores,
go tend the shrines and statues of the gods.
Men will make war and peace. War’s their work.”
Enough—
Allecto ignited in rage. The challenge still on his lips,
a sudden shuddering seized him, eyes fixed in terror,
the Fury was looming up with so many serpents hissing,
so monstrous her features now revealed. Rolling
her eyes, fiery as he faltered, struggling
to say more, she hurled the man back and
reared twin snakes from her coiling hair and
cracked her whips and raved in her rabid words:
“So, I’m in my dotage, am I? A doddering wreck
too spent to see the truth? I and my warring kings—
a mockery of a prophet, am I? False alarms?
Well, look at these alarms!
I come to you from the nightmare Furies’ den,
I brandish war and death in my right hand!”
With that
she flung a torch at the prince and drove it home
in his chest to smoke with a hellish black glare.
A nightmare broke his sleep and the sweat poured
from all over his body, drenched him to the bone.
He shouts for armor, frenzied, cries for his armor,
rifling through his bed and the whole house to find it.
He burns with lust for the sword, the cursed madness of war
and rage to top it off. He roars like blazing brush
piled under the ribs of a billowing bronze cauldron—
the water seethes in the heat and a river boils inside it,
bubbling up in spume—the bowl can’t hold it, it overflows
and a thick cloud of steam goes shooting into the air.
So, violating the peace, he tells his captains:
“March on King Latinus—gear up for war!
Defend Italy! Hurl the enemy from the borders!
Turnus comes, a match for Trojans and Latins both!”
Commands given, he called the gods to witness.
His keen Rutulians spur each other to arms,
some moved by his matchless build and youth,
some by his royal bloodline,
some by his sword-arm’s shining work in war.
While Turnus
fills his Rutulian troops with headlong daring,
Allecto flies to the Trojan camp on Stygian wings—
a fresh plot in the air—to scout out the place
where handsome Iulus was hunting along the shore,
coursing, netting game. Here the infernal Fury throws
an instant frenzy into the hounds, she daubs their nostrils
wet with a well-known scent, and they burn to chase a stag.
This was the first cause of all the pain and struggle,
this first kindled the country people’s lust for war.
There was a stag, a rare beauty, antlers branching,
torn from his mother’s dugs. And the sons of Tyrrhus
nursed it with father Tyrrhus, who kept the royal herds,
charged with tending the broad, spreading pastures.
Their sister, Silvia, trained the stag to take
the commands she gave with love,
wreathed its horns with tender, fresh-cut garlands,
curried the wild creature, bathed it in running springs.
Tame to the touch, it liked to frequent its master’s table.
Roving the forests, home to the well-known door it came,
all on its own, even at dead of night.
This fine beast,
straying from home, chanced to be floating down a stream,
cooling off on a grassy bank when the frenzied hounds
of the hunter Iulus started it—Iulus himself, fired
with a love of glory, aimed a shaft from his tensed bow
and Allecto steadied his trembling hand and the arrow shot
with a whirring rush and p
ierced through womb and loins.
Back to its well-known home the wounded creature fled,
struggled into its stall and groaning, bleeding,
filling the long halls with cries of pain,
it seemed to plead for help.
The sister,
Silvia, she is the first to call for rescue,
hands beating her arms, summoning hardy rustics.
Unexpectedly in they come, for savage Allecto stalks
the silent forests—some with torches charred to a point,
some with heavy knotted clubs, whatever they find to hand
their anger hones to weapons. Tyrrhus rallies his troops,
he’s just been splitting an oak in four with wedges;
now, breathing fury, he seizes a woodsman’s axe.
Savage Allecto, high on a lookout, spots her chance
to wreak some havoc. Winging up to the stable’s steep roof,
she lights on the highest peak and sounds the herdsman’s
call to arms, a hellish blast from her twisted horn,
and straightway all the copses shiver, all the woods
resound to their darkest depths. Far in the distance
Trivia’s lake could hear it, the glistening sulfur stream
of the Nar could hear it, so could the springs of Lake Velinus
and anxious mothers clutched their babies to their breasts.
Then, quick to the call that cursed trumpet gave,
the wild herdsmen gather from every quarter,
snatching arms in haste. Young Trojans too,
their camp gates spread wide, come pouring out
to help Ascanius now. The battle lines form up.
No rustic free-for-all with clubs and charred stakes—
they’ll fight to the finish now with two-edged swords.
A black harvest of naked steel bristles far and wide,
and the bronze struck by the sun gleams bright
and hurls its light to the clouds
like a billow whitening under the wind’s first gust as
crest on crest the ocean rises, its breakers rearing higher
until it surges up from its depths to hit the skies.
Here
a youngster breaks from the front—
and an arrow whizzes in
and down he goes, Almo, the eldest son of Tyrrhus—the point
lodges deep in his throat and chokes off the moist path
for his voice and his faint life breath with blood.
Around him, heaps of dead, and among them old Galaesus
killed as he set himself in their midst to beg for peace,
the most righteous man in all the Italian fields,
long ago, the richest too. Five flocks of cattle
he had in tow and five came home from pasture,
a hundred plowshares made his topsoil churn.
As the battle draws dead even across the plain
the Fury’s power has lived up to her promise.
She’s fleshed the war in blood, inaugurated
the slaughter with a kill and now she leaves
Hesperia, wheeling round in the heavens to report
success to Juno—the Fury’s voice triumphant:
“Look, I’ve done your bidding,
perfected a work of strife with ghastly war!
Go tell them to join in friendship, seal their pacts,
now I’ve spattered the Trojans red with Italian blood.
I’ll add this too, if I can depend on your good will:
With rumors I will draw the border towns into war,
ignite their hearts with a maddening lust for battle.
They’ll rush to the rescue now from every side—
I’ll sow their fields with swords!”
“Enough terror,” Juno counters, “treachery too.
The causes of war stand firm. Man to man they fight
and the weapons luck first brought are dyed with fresh blood now.
Let them sing of such an alliance, such a wedding hymn,
the matchless son of Venus and that grand King Latinus!
You’re roving far too freely, high on the heavens’ winds,
and the Father, king of steep Olympus, won’t allow it.
You must give way. Whatever struggle is still to come,
I’ll manage it myself.”
Quick to Juno’s command,
she lifts her wings, hissing with snakes, and quitting
the airy heights of heaven, seeks her home in hell.
Deep in Italy’s heart beneath high mountains
lies a famous place renowned in many lands:
the Valley of Amsanctus. A dark wooded hillside
thick with foliage closes around it right and left,
with a crashing torrent amidst it roaring over boulders,
rapids roiling white. And here they display a cavern,
an awesome breathing-vent for the savage God of Death,
and a vast swirling gorge spreads wide its lethal jaws
where the Acheron bursts through, and here the Fury
hid her hateful power, releasing earth and sky.
But no letup yet. Saturn’s queenly daughter
is just now putting the final touches to the war.
Out of the field of battle, streaming into town
whole troops of herdsmen are bringing home the dead—
Almo the young boy, Galaesus with his butchered face—
and they beg the gods for rescue, pleading with Latinus.
But there stands Turnus now, and amid their hot fury
and rising cries of murder, he fires up their fears:
“Trojans are called to share our realm! Phrygian blood
will corrupt our own, and I, I’m driven from the doors!”
And all whose mothers, maddened by Bacchus, dance in frenzy
through the trackless woods—Amata’s name has no lightweight—
swarm in from all sides, wearying Mars with war cries.
Suddenly all are demanding this accursed war,
against all omens, against the divine power of Fate,
they’re spurred by a wicked impulse. They rush to ring
the palace of King Latinus round, but he stands fast
like a rock at sea, a seabound rock that won’t give way:
when a big surge hits and the howling breakers pound it hard,
its bulk stands fast though its foaming reefs and spurs roar on,
all for nothing, as seaweed dashing against its flanks
swirls away in the backwash.
But finding he lacks
the power to quash their blind fanatic will,
and the world rolls on at a nod from brutal Juno,
time and again he calls the gods and empty winds
to witness: “Crushed by Fate,” the father cries,
“we’re wrenched away by the tempest! My poor people,
you will pay for your outrage with your blood. You,
Turnus, the guilt is yours, and a dreadful end awaits you—
you will implore the gods with prayers that come too late!
Myself, now that I’ve reached my peaceful haven, here
at the harbor’s mouth I’m robbed of a happy death.”
He said no more. He sealed himself in his house
and dropped the reins of power.
There was a custom in Latium, Land of the West,
and ever after revered in Alban towns and now
great Rome that rules the world reveres it too,
when men first rouse the war-god into action,
whether bent on bringing the griefs of war
to the Getae, the Hyrcanians, or the Arabs
or marching on India, out to stalk the Dawn
and reclaim the standards taken by the Parthians.
There are twin Gates of War—so they are called—
consecrated by awe and the dread of savage Mars,
closed f
ast by a hundred brazen bolts and iron
strong forever, nor does Janus the watchman
ever leave the threshold. And here it is,
when the fathers’ will is set on all-out war,
the consul himself, decked out in Romulus’ garb,
his toga girt up in the ceremonial Gabine way,
will unbar the screeching gates and cry for war.
The entire army answers his call to arms and
brazen trumpets blast their harsh assent.
Then too
Latinus was pressed to declare war on Aeneas’ sons
with the same custom, to unbar the deadly gates.
But the father of his people refused to touch them,
cringed at the horrid duty, locked himself from sight
in his shadowed palace. So the Queen of the Gods,
Saturn’s daughter swooping down from the heavens,
struck the unyielding doors with her own hand,
swinging them on their hinges, bursting open
the iron Gates of War. All Italy blazed—
until that instant all unstirred, inert. Now
some gear up to cross the plains on foot, some,
riding high on their horses, wildly churn the dust
and all shout out “To arms!”—polishing shields smooth,
burnishing lances bright with thick rich grease,
honing their axes keen on grindstones.
Ah what joy
to advance the banners, hear the trumpets blare!
Five great cities, in fact, plant their anvils,
forge new weapons: staunch Atina, lofty Tibur,
Ardea, Crustumerium, Antemnae proud with towers.
They beat the helmets hollow to guard the head,
they weave the wicker tight to rib their shields,
others are pounding breastplates out of bronze,
hammering lightweight greaves from pliant silver.
So it has given way to this, this: all their pride
in the scythe and harrow, all their love of the plow.
They reforge in the furnace all their fathers’ swords.
Now the trumpets blare. The watchword’s out for war.
One warrior wildly tears a helmet from his house,
one yokes his panting, stamping team to a chariot,
donning his shield and mail, triple-meshed in gold
and he straps a trusty sword around his waist.
Now throw Helicon open, Muses, launch your song!
What kings were fired for war, what armies at their orders
thronged the plains? What heroes sprang into bloom,
what weapons blazed, even in those days long ago,
The Aeneid Page 27