by Virgil
Had fashioned, fitting it withal in ivory scabbard meet.
And Mnestheus unto Nisus gives a stripped-off lion’s hide
And shaggy coat; and helm for helm giveth Aletes tried.
Then forth they wend in weed of war, and they of first estate,
Young men and old, went forth with them, and leave them at the gate
With following vows; and therewithal Iulus, goodly-wrought,
Who far beyond his tender years had mind of manly thought,
Charged them with many messages unto his father’s ear, —
Vain words the night-winds bore away and gave the clouds to bear.
Forth now they wend and pass the ditch, and through the mirk night gain
The baneful camp: yet ere their death they too shall be the bane
Of many: bodies laid in sleep and wine they see strewed o’er
The herbage, and the battle-cars upreared along the shore;
And mid the reins and wheels thereof are men and weapons blent
With wine-jars: so Hyrtacides such word from tooth-hedge sent:
“Euryalus, the hand must dare, the time cries on the deed;
Here lies the way: do thou afar keep watch and have good heed,
Lest any hand aback of us arise ‘gainst thee and me:
Here will I make a waste forsooth, and wide thy way shall be.”
He speaks, and hushes all his voice, and so with naked blade
Falls on proud Rhamnes; who, as happed, on piled-up carpets laid,
Amid his sleep was blowing forth great voice from inner breast.
A king he was; king Turnus’ seer, of all belovèd best;
Yet nought availed his wizardry to drive his bane away.
Three thralls unware, as heeding nought amid the spears they lay,
He endeth: Remus’ shield-bearer withal and charioteer,
Caught ‘neath the very steeds: his sword their drooping necks doth shear;
Then from their lord he takes the head, and leaves the trunk to spout
Gushes of blood: the earth is warm with black gore all about.
The beds are wet. There Lamyrus and Lamus doth he slay,
And young Serranus fair of face, who played the night away
For many an hour, until his limbs ‘neath God’s abundance failed,
And down he lay: ah! happier ‘twere if he had still prevailed
To make the live-long night one game until the morning cold.
As famished lion Nisus fares amid the sheep-filled fold,
When ravening hunger driveth on; the soft things, dumb with dread,
He draggeth off, devouring them, and foams from mouth blood-red.
Nor less the death Euryalus hath wrought; for all aflame
He wades in wrath, and on the way slays many lacking name:
Fadus, Herbesus therewithal, Rhoetus and Abaris;
Unwary they: but Rhoetus waked, and looking on all this,
Fulfilled of fear was hiding him behind a wine-jar pressed:
The foe was on him as he rose; the sword-blade pierced his breast
Up to the hilts, and drew aback abundant stream of death.
His purple life he poureth forth, and, dying, vomiteth
Blent blood and wine. On death-stealth still onward the Trojan went,
And toward Messapus’ leaguer drew, where watch-fires well-nigh spent
He saw, and horses all about, tethered in order due,
Cropping the grass: but Nisus spake in hasty words and few,
Seeing him borne away by lust of slaughter overmuch:
“Hold we our hands, for dawn our foe hasteth the world to touch:
Deep have we drunk of death, and cut a road amid the foe.”
The gear of men full goodly-wrought of silver through and through
They leave behind, and bowls therewith, and carpets fashioned fair.
Natheless Euryalus caught up the prophet Rhamnes’ gear
And gold-bossed belt, which Cædicus, the wealthy man of old,
Sent to Tiburtine Remulus, that he his name might hold,
Though far he were; who, dying, gave his grandson their delight;
And he being dead, Rutulian men won them in war and fight
These now he takes, and all for nought does on his valorous breast,
And dons Messapus’ handy helm with goodly-fashioned crest,
Wherewith they leave the camp and gain the road that safer lay.
But horsemen from the Latin town meantime were on the way,
Sent on before to carry word to Turnus, lord and king,
While in array amid the fields the host was tarrying.
Three hundred knights, all shielded folk, ‘neath Volscens do they fare.
And now they drew anigh the camp and ‘neath its rampart were,
When from afar they saw the twain on left-hand footway lurk;
Because Euryalus’ fair helm mid glimmer of the mirk
Betrayed the heedless youth, and flashed the moonbeams back again.
Nor was the sight unheeded: straight cries Volscens midst his men:
“Stand ho! why thus afoot, and why in weapons do ye wend,
And whither go ye?”
Nought had they an answer back to send,
But speed their fleeing mid the brake, and trust them to the night;
The horsemen cast themselves before each crossway known aright,
And every outgoing there is with guard they girdle round.
Rough was the wood; a thicket-place where black holm-oaks abound,
And with the tanglement of thorns choked up on every side,
The road but glimmering faintly out from where the foot-tracks hide.
The blackness of overhanging boughs and heavy battle-prey
Hinder Euryalus, and fear beguiles him of the way.
Nisus comes out, and now had won unwitting from the foe,
And reached the place from Alba’s name called Alban Meadows now;
Where King Latinus had as then his high-built herd-houses.
So there he stands, and, looking round, his fellow nowhere sees:
“Hapless Euryalus! ah me, where have I left thy face?
Where shall I seek thee, gathering up that tangle of the ways
Through the blind wood?”
So therewithal he turns upon his track,
Noting his footsteps, and amid the hushed brake strays aback,
Hearkening the horse-hoofs and halloos and calls of following folk.
Nor had he long abided there, ere on his ears outbroke
Great clamour, and Euryalus he sees, whom all the band
Hath taken, overcome by night, and blindness of the land,
And wildering tumult: there in vain he strives in battle-play.
Ah, what to do? What force to dare, what stroke to snatch away
The youth? Or shall he cast himself amid the swords to die,
And hasten down the way of wounds to lovely death anigh?
Then swiftly, with his arm drawn back and brandishing his spear,
He looks up at the moon aloft, and thuswise poureth prayer:
“To aid, thou Goddess! Stay my toil, and let the end be good!
Latonian glory of the stars, fair watcher of the wood,
If ever any gift for me upon thine altars gave
My father Hyrtacus; if I for thee the hunting drave;
If aught I hung upon thy dome, or set upon thy roof,
Give me to break their gathered host, guide thou my steel aloof!”
He spake, and in the shafted steel set all his body’s might,
And hurled it: flying forth the spear clave through the dusk of night,
And, reaching Sulmo turned away, amidst his back it flew,
And brake there; but the splintering shaft his very heart pierced through,
And o’er he rolleth, vomiting the hot stream from his breast:
Then heave his flanks with long-drawn sobs and cold he lies at rest.
> On all sides then they peer about: but, whetted on thereby,
The quivering shaft from o’er his ear again he letteth fly.
Amid their wilderment the spear whistleth through either side
Of Tagus’ temples, and wet-hot amidst his brain doth bide.
Fierce Volscens rageth, seeing none who might the spear-shot send,
Or any man on whom his wrath and heat of heart to spend.
“But thou, at least, with thine hot blood shalt pay the due award
For both,” he cries; and therewithal, swift drawing forth the sword,
He falleth on Euryalus. Then, wild with all affright,
Nisus shrieks out, and cares no more to cloak himself with night,
And hath no heart to bear against so great a misery.
“On me, me! Here — I did the deed! turn ye the sword on me,
Rutulians! — all the guilt is mine: he might not do nor dare.
May heaven and those all-knowing stars true witness of it bear!
Only with too exceeding love he loved his hapless friend.”
Such words he poured forth, but the sword no less its way doth wend,
Piercing the flank and rending through the goodly breast of him;
And rolls Euryalus in death: in plenteous blood they swim
His lovely limbs, his drooping neck low on his shoulder lies:
As when the purple field-flower faints before the plough and dies,
Or poppies when they hang their heads on wearied stems outworn,
When haply by the rainy load their might is overborne.
Then Nisus falls amidst of them, and Volscens seeks alone
For aught that any man may do: save him he heedeth none.
About him throng the foe: all round the strokes on him are laid
To thrust him off: but on he bears, whirling his lightning blade,
Till full in Volscens’ shouting mouth he burieth it at last,
Tearing the life from out the foe, as forth his own life passed.
Then, ploughed with wounds, he cast him down upon his lifeless friend,
And so in quietness of death gat resting in the end.
O happy twain, if anywise my song-craft may avail,
From out the memory of the world no day shall blot your tale,
While on the rock-fast Capitol Æneas’ house abides,
And while the Roman Father still the might of empire guides.
The Rutuli, victorious now with spoils and prey of war,
But sorrowing still, amid the camp the perished Volscens bore.
Nor in the camp was grief the less, when they on Rhamnes came
Bloodless; and many a chief cut off by one death and the same;
Serranus dead and Numa dead: a many then they swarm
About the dead and dying men, and places wet and warm
With new-wrought death, and runnels full with plenteous foaming blood.
Then one by one the spoils they note; the glittering helm and good
Messapus owned: the gear such toil had won back from the dead.
But timely now Aurora left Tithonus’ saffron bed,
And over earth went scattering wide the light of new-born day:
The sun-flood flowed, and all the world unveiled by daylight lay.
Then Turnus, clad in arms himself, wakes up the host to arms,
And every lord to war-array bids on his brazen swarms;
And men with diverse tidings told their battle-anger whet.
Moreover (miserable sight!) on upraised spears they set
Those heads, and follow them about with most abundant noise,
Euryalus and Nisus dead.
Meanwhile Æneas’ hardy sons upon their leftward wall
Stand in array; for on the right the river girdeth all.
In woe they ward the ditches deep, and on the towers on high
Stand sorrowing; for those heads upreared touch all their hearts anigh,
Known overwell to their sad eyes mid the black flow of gore.
Therewith in wingèd fluttering haste, the trembling city o’er
Goes tell-tale Fame, and swift amidst the mother’s ears doth glide;
And changed she was, nor in her bones the life-heat would abide:
The shuttle falls from out her hand, unrolled the web doth fall,
And with a woman’s hapless shrieks she flieth to the wall:
Rending her hair, beside herself, she faced the front of fight,
Heedless of men, and haps of death, and all the weapons’ flight,
And there the very heavens she filled with wailing of her grief:
“O son, and do I see thee so? Thou rest and last relief
Of my old days! hadst thou the heart to leave me lone and spent?
O cruel! might I see thee not on such a peril sent?
Was there no time for one last word amid my misery?
A prey for Latin fowl and dogs how doth thy body lie,
On lands uncouth! Not e’en may I, thy mother, streak thee, son,
Thy body dead; or close thine eyes, or wash thy wounds well won,
Or shroud thee in the cloth I wrought for thee by night and day,
When hastening on the weaving-task I kept eld’s cares at bay?
Where shall I seek thee? What earth hides thy body, mangled sore,
And perished limbs? O son, to me bringest thou back no more
Than this? and have I followed this o’er every land and sea?
O pierce me through, if ye be kind; turn all your points on me,
Rutulians! Let me first of all with battle-steel be sped!
Father of Gods, have mercy thou! Thrust down the hated head
Beneath the House of Tartarus with thine own weapon’s stress,
Since otherwise I may not break my life-days’ bitterness.”
Their hearts were shaken with her wail, and Sorrow fain will weep,
And in all men their battle-might unbroken lay asleep.
But Actor and Idæus take that flaming misery,
As bade Ilioneus, and young Iulus, sore as he
Went weeping: back in arms therewith they bear her ‘neath the roof.
But now the trump with brazen song cast fearful sound aloof,
Chiding to war; and shouts rise up and belloweth back the heaven,
And forth the Volscians fare to speed the shield-roof timely driven.
Some men fall on to fill the ditch and pluck the ramparts down;
Some seek approach and ladders lay where daylight rends the crown
Of wall-wards, and would get them up where stands the hedge of war
Thinner of men: against their way the Teucrian warders pour
All weapon-shot: with hard-head pikes they thrust them down the steep.
Long was the war wherein they learned the battle-wall to keep.
Stones, too, of deadly weight they roll, if haply they may break
The shield-roof of the battle-rush; but sturdily those take
All chances of the play beneath their close and well-knit hold.
Yet fail they; for when hard at hand their world of war was rolled,
A mighty mass by Teucrians moved rolls on and rushes o’er,
And fells the host of Rutuli and breaks the tiles of war.
Nor longer now the Rutuli, the daring hearts, may bear
To play with Mars amid the dark, but strive the walls to clear
With storm of shaft and weapon shot.
But now Mezentius otherwhere, a fearful sight to see,
Was tossing high the Tuscan pine with smoke-wreathed fiery heart:
While Neptune’s child, the horse-tamer Messapus, played his part,
Rending the wall, and crying out for ladders to be laid.
Speak, Song-maids: thou, Calliope, give thou the singer aid
To tell what wise by Turnus’ sword the field of fight was strown;
What death he wrought; what man each man to Orcus sent adown.
Fall to
with me to roll abroad the mighty skirts of war,
Ye, Goddesses, remember all, and ye may tell it o’er.
There was a tower built high overhead, with gangways up in air,
Set well for fight, ‘gainst which the foe their utmost war-might bear,
And all Italians strive their most to work its overthrow:
Gainst whom the Trojans ward it well, casting the stones below,
And through the hollow windows speed the shot-storm thick and fast.
There Turnus first of all his folk a flaming firebrand cast,
And fixed it in the turret’s flank: wind-nursed it caught great space
Of planking, and amid the doors, consuming, kept its place.
Then they within, bewildered sore, to flee their ills are fain,
But all for nought; for while therein they huddle from the bane,
And draw aback to place yet free from ruin, suddenly
O’erweighted toppleth down the tower, and thundereth through the sky.
Half-dead the warders fall to earth by world of wrack o’erborne,
Pierced with their own shafts, and their breasts with hardened splinters torn.
Yea, Lycus and Helenor came alone of all their peers
Alive to earth: Helenor, now in spring-tide of his years:
Bond-maid Licymnia privily to that Mæonian king
Had borne the lad, and sent him forth to Troy’s beleaguering
With arms forbidden, sheathless sword and churl’s unpainted shield.
But when he saw himself amidst the thousand-sworded field
Of Turnus, Latins on each side, behind, and full in face,
E’en as a wild beast hedged about by girdle of the chase
Rages against the point and edge, and, knowing death anear,
Leaps forth, and far is borne away down on the hunter’s spear;
Not otherwise the youth falls on where thickest spear-points lie,
And in the middle of the foe he casts himself to die.
But Lycus, nimbler far of foot, betwixt the foemen slipped,
Betwixt the swords, and gained the wall, and at the coping gripped,
And strove to draw him up with hand, the friendly hands to feel;
But Turnus both with foot and spear hath followed hard at heel,
And mocks him thus in victory: “How was thy hope so grown
Of ‘scaping from my hand, O fool?”
Therewith he plucks him down
From where he hung, and space of wall tears downward with the man.
As when it chanceth that a hare or snowy-bodied swan
Jove’s shield-bearer hath borne aloft in snatching hookèd feet;