The Aeneid

by Robert Fagles; Bernard Knox Virgil

  Over the brush, the quickest route, cross-country,

  armored fighters ride. Cries go up, squadrons form,

  galloping hoofbeats drum the rutted plain with thunder.

  Next to Caere’s icy river a huge grove stands,

  held in ancestral awe by people far and wide,

  on all sides cupped around by sheltering hills

  and ringed by pitch-dark pines. The story goes

  that ancient Pelasgians, first in time long past

  to settle the Latian borders, solemnized the grove

  and a festal day to Silvanus, god of fields and flocks.

  Not far from here, Tarchon and his Etruscans mustered,

  all secure, and now from the hills his entire army

  could be seen encamped on the spreading plain.

  Down come captain Aeneas and all his fighters

  picked for battle, water their horses well

  and weary troops take rest.

  But the goddess Venus,

  lustrous among the cloudbanks, bearing her gifts,

  approached and when she spotted her son alone,

  off in a glade’s recess by the frigid stream,

  she hailed him, suddenly there before him: “Look,

  just forged to perfection by all my husband’s skill:

  the gifts I promised! There’s no need now, my son,

  to flinch from fighting swaggering Latin ranks

  or challenging savage Turnus to a duel!”

  With that, Venus reached to embrace her son

  and set the brilliant armor down before him

  under a nearby oak.

  Aeneas takes delight

  in the goddess’ gifts and the honor of it all

  as he runs his eyes across them piece by piece.

  He cannot get enough of them, filled with wonder,

  turning them over, now with his hands, now his arms,

  the terrible crested helmet plumed and shooting fire,

  the sword-blade honed to kill, the breastplate, solid bronze,

  blood-red and immense, like a dark blue cloud enflamed

  by the sun’s rays and gleaming through the heavens.

  Then the burnished greaves of electrum, smelted gold,

  the spear and the shield, the workmanship of the shield,

  no words can tell its power . . .

  There is the story of Italy,

  Rome in all her triumphs. There the fire-god forged them,

  well aware of the seers and schooled in times to come,

  all in order the generations born of Ascanius’ stock

  and all the wars they waged.

  And Vulcan forged them too,

  the mother wolf stretched out in the green grotto of Mars,

  twin boys at her dugs, who hung there, frisky, suckling

  without a fear as she with her lithe neck bent back,

  stroking each in turn, licked her wolf pups

  into shape with a mother’s tongue.

  Not far from there

  he had forged Rome as well and the Sabine women brutally

  dragged from the crowded bowl when the Circus games were played

  and abruptly war broke out afresh, the sons of Romulus

  battling old King Tatius’ hardened troops from Cures.

  Then when the same chiefs had set aside their strife,

  they stood in full armor before Jove’s holy altar,

  lifting cups, and slaughtered a sow to bind their pacts.

  Nearby,

  two four-horse chariots, driven to left and right, had torn

  Mettus apart—man of Alba, you should have kept your word—

  and Tullus hauled the liar’s viscera through the brush

  as blood-drops dripped like dew from brakes of thorns.

  Porsenna,

  there, commanding Romans to welcome banished Tarquin back,

  mounted a massive siege to choke the city—Aeneas’ heirs

  rushing headlong against the steel in freedom’s name.

  See Porsenna to the life, his likeness menacing, raging,

  and why? Cocles dared to rip the bridge down, Cloelia

  burst her chains and swam the flood.

  Crowning the shield,

  guarding the fort atop the Tarpeian Rock, Manlius

  stood before the temple, held the Capitol’s heights.

  The new thatch bristled thick on Romulus’ palace roof and

  here the silver goose went ruffling through the gold arcades,

  squawking its warning—Gauls attack the gates! Gauls

  swarming the thickets, about to seize the fortress,

  shielded by shadows, gift of the pitch-dark night.

  Gold their flowing hair, their war dress gold,

  striped capes glinting, their milky necks ringed

  with golden chokers, pairs of Alpine pikes in their hands,

  flashing like fire, and long shields wrap their bodies.

  Here Vulcan pounded out the Salii, dancing priests of Mars,

  the Luperci, stripped, their peaked caps wound with wool,

  bearing their body-shields that dropped from heaven,

  and chaste matrons, riding in pillowed coaches,

  led the sacred marches through the city.

  Far apart

  on the shield, what’s more, he forged the homes of hell,

  the high Gates of Death and the torments of the doomed,

  with you, Catiline, dangling from a beetling crag,

  cringing before the Furies’ open mouths.

  And set apart,

  the virtuous souls, with Cato giving laws.

  And amidst it all

  the heaving sea ran far and wide, its likeness forged

  in gold but the blue deep foamed in a sheen of white

  and rounding it out in a huge ring swam the dolphins,

  brilliant in silver, tails sweeping the crests

  to cut the waves in two.

  And here in the heart

  of the shield: the bronze ships, the battle of Actium,

  you could see it all, the world drawn up for war,

  Leucata Headland seething, the breakers molten gold.

  On one flank, Caesar Augustus leading Italy into battle,

  the Senate and People too, the gods of hearth and home

  and the great gods themselves. High astern he stands,

  the twin flames shoot forth from his lustrous brows and

  rising from the peak of his head, his father’s star.

  On the other flank, Agrippa stands tall as he steers

  his ships in line, impelled by favoring winds and gods

  and from his forehead glitter the beaks of ships

  on the Naval Crown, proud ensign earned in war.

  And opposing them comes Antony leading on

  the riches of the Orient, troops of every stripe—

  victor over the nations of the Dawn and blood-red shores

  and in his retinue, Egypt, all the might of the East

  and Bactra, the end of the earth, and trailing

  in his wake, that outrage, that Egyptian wife!

  All launch in as one, whipping the whole sea to foam

  with tugging, thrashing oars and cleaving triple beaks

  as they make a run for open sea. You’d think the Cyclades

  ripped up by the roots, afloat on the swells, or mountains

  ramming against mountains, so immense the turrets astern

  as sailors attack them, showering flaming tow and

  hot bolts of flying steel, and the fresh blood running

  red on Neptune’s fields. And there in the thick of it all

  the queen is mustering her armada, clacking her native rattles,

  still not glimpsing the twin vipers hovering at her back,

  as Anubis barks and the queen’s chaos of monster gods

  train their spears on Neptune, Venus, and great Minerva.

  And there in the heart of battle Mars ram
pages on,

  cast in iron, with grim Furies plunging down the sky

  and Strife in triumph rushing in with her slashed robes

  and Bellona cracking her bloody lash in hot pursuit.

  And scanning the melee, high on Actium’s heights

  Apollo bent his bow and terror struck them all,

  Egypt and India, all the Arabians, all the Sabaeans

  wheeled in their tracks and fled, and the queen herself—

  you could see her calling, tempting the winds, her sails

  spreading and now, now about to let her sheets run free.

  Here in all this carnage the God of Fire forged her pale

  with imminent death, sped on by the tides and Northwest Wind.

  And rising up before her, the Nile immersed in mourning opens

  every fold of his mighty body, all his rippling robes,

  inviting into his deep blue lap and secret eddies

  all his conquered people.

  But Caesar in triple triumph,

  borne home through the walls of Rome, was paying

  eternal vows of thanks to the gods of Italy:

  three hundred imposing shrines throughout the city.

  The roads resounded with joy, revelry, clapping hands,

  with bands of matrons in every temple, altars in each

  and the ground before them strewn with slaughtered steers.

  Caesar himself, throned at brilliant Apollo’s snow-white gates,

  reviews the gifts brought on by the nations of the earth

  and he mounts them high on the lofty temple doors

  as the vanquished people move in a long slow file,

  their dress, their arms as motley as their tongues.

  Here Vulcan had forged the Nomad race, the Africans

  with their trailing robes, here the Leleges, Carians,

  Gelonian archers bearing quivers, Euphrates flowing now

  with a humbler tide, the Morini brought from the world’s end,

  the two-horned Rhine and the Dahae never conquered,

  Araxes River bridling at his bridge.

  Such vistas

  the God of Fire forged across the shield

  that Venus gives her son. He fills with wonder—

  he knows nothing of these events but takes delight

  in their likeness, lifting onto his shoulders now

  the fame and fates of all his children’s children.

  BOOK NINE

  Enemy at the Gates

  Now, while off in the distance much was under way,

  Saturnian Juno hurried Iris down from the sky

  to Turnus brash in arms, seated then by chance

  in a hallowed glen, his forebear Pilumnus’ grove.

  The messenger with her rosy lips bestirred the king:

  “Turnus, what no god would dare to promise you—

  the answer to your prayers—

  time in its rounds has brought you all unasked.

  Yes, Aeneas has quit his camp, his comrades and

  his fleet, he’s lighted out for the Palatine hill,

  Evander’s royal home. But still not satisfied,

  he’s made his way to the farthest towns of Corythus,

  arming a band of Tuscans, countryfolk he’s mustered.

  Why hold back? Now’s the time for horse and chariot.

  Away with delay! Attack their shattered camp!”

  She towered into the sky on balanced wings,

  cleaving a giant rainbow, flying beneath the clouds.

  And Turnus knew her and raised both hands to the stars,

  calling after the goddess, trailing her flight with cries:

  “Iris, pride of the sky! Who has sped you here to me,

  swooping down from the clouds to reach the earth?

  Why this sudden radiance lighting the heavens?

  I can see the clouds parting, the stars riding

  the arching skies. I follow a sign so clear,

  whoever you are who calls me into action.”

  In that spirit he went to the river’s edge,

  drew pure water up from the brimming banks

  and prayed to the gods, over and over,

  weighing down the heavens with his vows.

  And next

  his entire army was moving out across the plain,

  rich in cavalry, rich in braided cloaks, bright gold.

  Messapus heads the column, the rear’s brought up

  by the sons of Tyrrhus, Turnus commands the center:

  a force like the Ganges rising, fed by seven quiet streams

  or the life-giving Nile ebbing back from the plains

  to settle down at last in its own banks and bed.

  Suddenly, far off, a massive dust-cloud rises

  black as night, darkness sweeping across the plain.

  The Trojans spot it, and first from the landward wall

  Caicus calls out: “What’s that mass, my countrymen,

  blackness rolling toward us? Quick, take arms,

  pass out weapons, mount the walls,

  the enemy’s all but on us! Battle stations!”

  With a deafening roar the Trojans all come pouring in

  through the gates for shelter, mount the ramparts now.

  So ran his parting orders, Aeneas, best of captains:

  “If any crisis comes while I am away, don’t risk

  a pitched battle, no, don’t trust to the open field,

  just guard the camp and ramparts, safe behind the walls.”

  So, though shame and anger spur them to all-out war,

  still they bar the gates, they follow their orders,

  armed to the hilt, protected inside the turrets,

  bracing for the foe.

  But Turnus flying on ahead

  of his slower column, flanked by a picked troop

  of twenty horsemen, gains the town in no time,

  borne by a Thracian charger blazed with white,

  and helmed in his golden casque with crimson crest.

  “Who’s with me, men, who’s first to attack the enemy?

  Just watch!” he cries and hurls his javelin into the sky—

  the opening shot of war—and high in his saddle races

  down the plain as his shouting comrades speed him on,

  riding in his wake with their war cries striking terror,

  amazed at the Trojans’ bloodless hearts, and calling:

  “No trusting themselves to a level field of battle!

  No braving our infantry, grappling hand to hand,

  the cowards cling to camp!”

  Wildly, back and forth,

  Turnus gallops along the walls—a way in?—no way in.

  As a wolf prowling in wait around some crowded sheepfold,

  bearing the wind and rain in the dead of night, howls

  at chinks in the fence, and the lambs keep bleating on,

  snug beneath their dams. The wolf rages, desperate,

  how can he maul a quarry out of reach? Exhausted,

  frenzied with building hunger, starved so long,

  his jaws parched for blood.

  So wildly Turnus,

  scanning the camp and rampart, flares in anger,

  brute resentment sears him to the bone.

  What tactic to try, to make a breakthrough, how

  to shake those penned-up Trojans clear of their walls

  and strew them down the plain? The armada, there.

  Hard by the camp it lay tied up, riding at anchor,

  shielded round by the high redoubts and river currents—

  here he attacks, shouting out to his cheering comrades:

  “Bring up fire!” A man on fire, he seizes a blazing

  pine-tar torch in his fist and now, watch, his men

  pitch into the work as Turnus urges them on in person

  and whole battalions equip themselves with smoking brands.

  They’ve plundered the hearthfires, sooty torches ignite


  a murky glare, and the God of Fire hurls at the skies

  a swirl of sparks and ash.

  What god, you Muses,

  warded off such savage flames from the Trojans?

  Who drove from the ships such raging fire? Tell me.

  Trust in the tale is old, yet its fame will never die . . .

  In the early days on Phrygian Ida’s slopes when Aeneas

  first built his fleet, gearing up for the high seas,

  they say the Berecynthian Mother of Gods herself

  appealed to powerful Jove with pleading words:

  “Grant this prayer, my son, that your loving mother

  makes to you, since now you rule on Olympus’ heights.

  I had a grove on the mountain’s crest where men

  would bring me gifts, a pinewood loved for long,

  dark with pitch-pine, shady with maple timber.

  These woods I gladly gave the Dardan prince

  when the prince lacked a fleet—

  now dread and anguish have me in their grip.

  Dissolve my fears, let a mother’s prayers prevail!

  May these galleys never be wrecked on any passage out

  or overpowered by whirling storms at sea,

  let their birth on our mountains be a blessing!”

  Her son who makes the starry world go round

  replied: “Mother, what are you asking Fate to grant?

  What privilege are you begging for your ships? Think,

  should keels laid by a mortal hand enjoy an immortal’s rights?

  Should Aeneas go through scathing dangers all unscathed—

  Aeneas? What god commands such power? Nevertheless,

  one day, when their tour of duty is done at last

  and they moor in a Western haven, all the ships

  that survived the waves and bore the Trojan prince

  to Latium’s fields—I will strip them of mortal shape

  and command them all to be goddesses of the deep

  like Doto, Nereus’ daughter, and Galatea too,

  breasting high, cleaving the frothing waves.”

  Jove had spoken.

  Sealing his pledge by the Styx, his brother’s stream,

  by the banks that churn with pitch-black rapids,

  whirlpools swirling dark, he nodded his assent

  and his nod made all of Mount Olympus quake.

  And so

  the promised day had arrived and the Fates filled out

  the assigned time, when Turnus’ rampage warned the Mother

  to drive his brands from her consecrated ships. And first

  a strange radiance flashed in all eyes and a great cloud