from a cloudless sky—the instant the lethal bow sings out
and the taut shaft flies through Remulus’ head with a vicious hiss
and rends his empty temples with its steel. “Go on,
now mock our courage with high and mighty talk!
Here’s the reply the Phrygians, twice enslaved,
return to you Rutulians!”
That’s all he says.
The Trojans echo back with a roar of joy,
their spirits sky-high.
By chance Apollo,
god of the flowing hair enthroned on a cloud
in the broad sweeping sky, was glancing down
at Ausonia’s troops and camp and calls to Iulus
flushed with triumph now: “Bravo, my boy, bravo,
your newborn courage! That’s the path to the stars—
son of the gods, you’ll father gods to come!
All fated wars to come will end in peace,
justly, under Assaracus’ future sons—
Troy can never hold you!”
In the same breath
the god Apollo dives from the vaulting skies and
cleaving the gusty winds searches for Ascanius.
He assumes the form and features of old Butes,
armor-bearer, once, to Dardan Anchises,
trusty guard of his gates until Aeneas
made him Ascanius’ aide. So Apollo approached
like Butes head to foot—the man’s age, his voice,
the shade of his skin, white hair, weapons clanging grimly,
and counsels Iulus now in his full glow of triumph:
“Son of Aeneas, stop! Enough that Numanus fell
to your flying shafts and you’ve not paid a price.
Apollo has granted this, your first flush of glory,
he never envied your arrows, a match for the Archer’s own.
For the battles to come, hold back for now, dear boy!”
This order still on his lips, Apollo vanished
from sight into empty air.
But the Trojan captains
recognized the god, his immortal arms, and heard
his arrows rustling in his quiver as he flew.
So they restrain Ascanius blazing for battle,
pressing on him Apollo’s will and last commands
but they themselves go rushing back to fight
and expose their lives to peril.
Cries rock the ramparts, up and down the walls—
they’re tensing murderous bows, whipping spear-straps,
weapons strewing the ground, shields and hollow helmets
ringing out under impact—fighting surges, raging strong
as a tempest out of the West when the Kids are rising great
with rain that lashes the earth, and thick and fast as the hail
that stormclouds shower, pelting headlong down on the waves
when Jupiter fierce with Southwinds spins a whirlwind,
thunderheads exploding down the sky.
Pandarus and Bitias—
Alcanor of Ida’s offspring born by the nymph Iaera
once in Jupiter’s grove—men like pines and peaks
of their native land, who trusted so to their swords
they fling wide the gate their captain entrusted to them,
all on their own inviting enemy ranks to breach the walls.
There they loom in the gateway, left and right like towers,
armored in iron, crests on their high heads flaring—
tall as a pair of oaks along a stream in spate,
by the Po’s banks or the Adige’s lovely waters,
rearing their uncropped heads to the high sky,
their twin crowns waving tall.
But in they charge,
the Rutulian forces seeing the way wide open now.
In an instant Quercens, Aquiculus striking in armor,
Tmarus—daredevil heart—and Haemon, son of Mars,
with all their squadrons routed, turn tail and run
or throw their lives down right at the gateway’s mouth.
And the more they fight, the hotter their battle fury grows
and now the Trojans mass, regrouping to storm the site,
clashing man to man, daring to foray farther out.
Turnus,
the great captain, is blazing on in another zone,
stampeding the Trojan ranks when the news arrives:
The enemy flushed with the latest carnage offers up
their gates flung open now. And Turnus wheels,
dropping the task at hand and full of fury, speeds
to the Trojan gate to face the headstrong brothers.
But first Antiphates, he was the first to charge,
Sarpedon’s bastard son by a mother born in Thebes—
but Turnus cuts him down, his Italian cornel spearshaft
wings through the melting air and piercing the man’s stomach
thrusts up into his chest, and froth from the wound’s black pit
comes bubbling up as the steel heats in the lung it struck.
Then Merops and Erymas die at his hands, then Aphidnus,
even Bitias, eyes ablaze, all rage at heart, and not
by a spear—he’d never give up his life to a spear—
a massive pike with a giant blade comes hurtling, roaring
into him, driven home like a lightning bolt and neither
the two bull’s-hides of his shield nor trusty breastplate,
double-mailed with its scales of gold, can block its force.
His immense limbs collapse, and earth groans as his giant shield
thunders down on his body.
Huge as a masoned pier that
falls at times on the shore of Euboean Baiae—first
they build it of massive blocks, then send it crashing over,
dragging all in its wake and it crushes down on the ocean floor
as the waves roil and black sand goes heaving into the air
and Prochyta Island quakes to its depths and the craggy bed
of Inarime weighting Typhoeus down by Jove’s command.
Here,
Mars, power of war, injects new heart and force in the Latins,
twisting his sharp spurs in their chests and loosing Flight
and dark Fear at the Trojan ranks, and the Latins swarm in
from all directions, seize the moment for all-out assault
as the war-god strikes their spirits. Pandarus, seeing his brother’s
body spread on the ground and sensing how Fortune falls—
disaster rules the day—with all his might he rams
his massive shoulder into the gate and wheels it
shut on its hinges, shuts out many comrades now
outside the ramparts, facing an uphill battle,
and shuts in many others, ushering fighters home
as in they rush, along with himself, the crazy fool—
not to have spotted Turnus charging in with the crowds
and all unwittingly shut him up inside the walls
like a claw-mad tiger among some helpless flock.
Suddenly strange light flares from Turnus’ eyes
and his armor clangs, horrific, the blood-red plumes
shake on his head and his shield shoots bolts of lightning.
They know him at once, his hated face, his immense frame,
and Aeneas’ troops are stunned.
But enormous Pandarus
breaks ranks, afire with rage at his brother’s death,
and shouts: “No palace here, your dowry from Amata!
Look, no Fortress Ardea hugging her native Turnus!
What you see is your enemy’s camp—you can’t escape!”
And Turnus replied with a cool, collected smile:
“On with it now, if you have the backbone in you,
let’s trade blows. You’ll tell the ghost of Priam
you found an Achilles—even here!”
No more talk.
Putting all his strength behind it, Pandarus hurls
his spear, unpolished, knotted, bark still rough
but the breezes whisk it away, Saturnian Juno flicks
aside the approaching wound and the weapon stabs the gate.
“But you won’t escape my blade, whirling in my right hand,”
cries Turnus. “No, this sword and the man who wields it,
the wounds they deal are fatal!” Rearing to full height,
sword high, the steel hacks the brows, splitting the temples—
gruesome wound—and it cleaves the soft unshaven cheeks.
A great crash! Under his huge weight the earth quakes,
his limbs fall limp, his armor splattered with brains,
he sprawls on the ground in death—in perfect halves
over both his shoulders, right and left, his head
goes lolling free.
The Trojans swerve and scatter
in panic and if the conquering hero had thought at once
of smashing the gate-bolts, letting his cohorts in,
this day would have been the last day of the war,
the last of the Trojans too. But Turnus’ hot fury,
his mad lust for carnage drives him against his foes.
First he seizes Phaleris, cuts the knees from under Gyges—
snatching their spears he whips them into the backs of men
who break and run as Juno builds his courage, his war-lust.
Halys next, he sends him packing along with comrades,
Phegeus too, as a spear impales him through his shield,
then men on the ramparts keen for combat, blind to Turnus
who picks them off, Alcander and Halius, Prytanis and Noëmon.
Lynceus swings to attack, shouting his comrades on—but first
from the right-hand rampart Turnus spins with one stroke
of his dazzling sword, close-up, that brings down Lynceus,
slashes his head off, head and helmet tumbling far away.
Next he brings down Amycus, gifted killer of wild game—
no hand more skilled at dipping an arrow’s point or
capping a lance with poison—then Clytius, Aeolus’ son,
then Cretheus, friend of the Muses, the Muses’ comrade,
Cretheus, always dear to his heart the song and lyre,
tuning a verse to the taut string, always singing
of cavalry, weapons, wars and the men who fight them.
At last
the Trojan captains hear of the massacre of their troops.
Mnestheus, fierce Serestus, both come rushing in and
seeing their ranks in panic, ranks of enemies
lodged inside the gates, Mnestheus shouts out:
“Where are you heading? Where are you flying now—
what other walls, what other ramparts have you got?
My countrymen, can one man, penned up in your fortress
on all sides, spread such slaughter through the city?
Send such a rout of first-rate fighters down to death
and never pay the price?
You feckless, craven—have you no pity? No shame
for your wretched land, your gods of old? For great Aeneas?”
That ignites them, stiffens their spines and closing ranks
they halt . . . as Turnus pulls back from the melee, heading
step by step for the banks where the river rings the camp.
All the more fiercely Trojans swarm him, war cries breaking,
ranks packed tight as a band of huntsmen bristling spears,
attacking a savage lion. Terrified, true, but glaring still,
ferocious still as he backs away, but his heart, his fury
keep him from turning tail, yet for all his wild desire
he still can’t claw his way through spears and huntsmen.
Just so torn, so slowly but surely Turnus backs away,
his spirit churning with anger. Twice he charged
the thick of his foes, twice he broke their lines,
stampeding the Trojans down their walls at speed.
But a whole battalion marching out of the camp
comes massing hard against him—not even Juno
dares reinforce his power to counterattack.
No, Jove sped Iris down from the high heavens,
winging strict commands for his sister, Juno,
if Turnus did not quit the Trojans’ looming walls.
So now no shield, no sword-arm helps the fighter
stand up under the onslaught, overpowering salvos
battering down on him left and right. Over and over
the helmet casing his hollow temples rings out shrill,
the solid bronze of it splits wide open under the rocks,
the plumes are ripped from his head, the boss of his shield
caves in to the hammering blows. And the Trojan ranks,
with lightning-bolt Mnestheus out in the lead, unleash
an immense barrage of spears, and sweat goes rippling over
Turnus’ entire body, rivering down, black with filth—
can’t catch his breath, gasping, weak knees quaking,
bone-tired until at last he dives headfirst,
plunging into the river, armor and all, and Tiber
swept him into its yellow tide, catching him as he came,
then bore him up in its soothing waves and bathing away
the carnage, gave the elated fighter back to friends.
BOOK TEN
Captains Fight and Die
Now the gates of mighty Olympus’ house are flung wide open.
The Father of Gods and King of Men convenes a council
high in his starry home, as throned aloft he gazes
down on the earth, the Trojan camp and Latian ranks.
The gods take seats in the mansion, entering there
through doors to East and West, and Jove starts in:
“You great gods of the sky,
why have you turned against your own resolve?
Why do you battle so? Such warring hearts!
I ordered Italy not to fight with Troy.
What’s this conflict flouting my command?
What terror has driven one or the other side
to rush to arms and rouse their enemies’ swords?
The right time for war will come—don’t rush it now—
one day when savage Carthage will loose enormous ruin
down on the Roman strongholds, breach and unleash
the Alps against her walls. Then is the time
to clash in hatred, then to ravage each other.
Be at peace for now. Spirits high, consent
to the pact I have decreed.”
Jove is just that brief, but golden Venus
is far from brief as she replies: “Oh Father,
everlasting king over men and all the world,
what other force could we implore to save us now?
You see the Rutulians on the rampage? Turnus amidst them,
proud in his chariot, puffed up with his new success,
spurring the war-lust on! Their thick armored walls
no longer can shield the Trojans. Now they are even
fighting inside their gates, it’s combat cut-and-thrust,
right on their own ramparts, trenches bathed in blood!
And Aeneas knows nothing, the man is miles away . . .
When will you ever let them lift the siege?
Once more a new force, a new army threatens the walls
of newborn Troy. Once more he springs from Arpi,
that Aetolian, Diomedes. So once again, I see,
some wounds are in store for me, your daughter,
and I must block the mortals hurling spears!
“If without your assent, against your will
the Trojans have reached Italy, let them pay
for their latest out
rage, never grant them rescue.
But if they have followed the oracles laid down
by the gods on high and the great shades below,
how can anyone overturn your edicts now
and plant the Fates anew? Why recall it all,
the armada burned to ash on the shores of Eryx?
The storm-king lashing gales from Aeolia into fury?
Iris swooping down from the clouds? Now she even
stirs the dead, the one realm in the world still left
untested, yes, and Allecto, suddenly loosed on earth,
tears like a Maenad through the heart of Italian cities.
Empire stirs me no longer now. That was our hope
while Fortune still smiled. Now let those win out . . .
the ones you want to win. If there is no patch of earth
that your ruthless queen could grant the Trojans now,
I beg you, Father, by the smoking wreck of Troy,
let Ascanius have safe passage out of battle,
spare my grandson’s life!
“As for Aeneas,
let the man be tossed on strange new seas,
follow the course where Fortune leads the way.
Just give me the strength to shield my grandson,
bear him quite unscathed from the raw clash of arms.
Why, I have Amathus, Paphus’ heights, and Cythera too,
an Idalian mansion—there with his weapons laid away,
let him live his life out, all unsung. And so,
give the command for Carthage to crush Italy,
overwhelm her with force. From Italy comes
no barrier posed against the towns of Tyre.
What good has it been to flee the plague of war,
to slip through the thick of fires set by the Greeks?
Drain to the lees the perils at sea and the whole wide earth
while the Trojans hunt for Latium, hunt for Troy reborn!
Better, no, to settle down on their country’s dying ashes,
the ground where Troy once stood? I beg you, Father,
give them back their Xanthus and their Simois
if these luckless Trojans must, once more,
relive the fall of Troy!”
At that, Queen Juno
looses her fury, bursting out: “Why drive me
to break my deep silence, to open up my wounds,
long scarred over, and bruit them to the world?
How could anyone—man or god—force your Aeneas
to pitch on war, to harry King Latinus as his foe?
So, he sought out Italy under the Fates’ command?
The Fates? Cassandra’s raving spurred him on! Did I
The Aeneid Page 34