Still spinning night and day!
Where shall I seek you? how reclaim
Those headless limbs, that mangled frame?
This all? and was it this, ah me,
I followed over land and sea?
O slay me, Rutules! if ye know
A mother’s love, on me bestow
The tempest of your spears!
Or thou, great Thunderer, pity take,
And whelm me ’neath the Stygian lake,
Since otherwise I may not break
This life of bitter tears!’
That wail the hearts of Troy congealed;
From rank to rank the infection ran;
Each sickens of the battle-field,
And feels no longer man.
Still raves the miserable dame,
Still higher piles grief’s frantic flame:
Iulus, shedding tears like rain,
And old Ilioneus call their train,
And Actor and Idæus come
And bear her from the rampart home.
At once the warriors cry to arms:
Heaven thunders back the note.
The Volscian host a penthouse form,
And strive the palisade to storm
And choke the gaping moat:
Some try the approach, and ladders plant
Where most the battle-line looks scant,
And the dark ring that crowns the wall
Presents a glimmering interval.
With equal zeal the sons of Troy
Stout poles and missile darts employ,
Taught by experience long and hard
How best a leaguered wall to guard.
Stones too with cruel weight they throw
In hope to break the shielded foe:
O, vainly sure all storms that blow
Will rattle on that roof!
See, see, at length it yields, it yields!
Where threats the densest mass of shields
A block the Trojans topple o’er:
Down on the Rutule host it bore,
Dashed wide their ranks behind, before,
And burst their fence of proof.
Cowed by the shock, the Rutules bold
No more engage in fight blindfold,
But with a missile tempest strive
The foeman from his wall to drive.
Elsewhere Mezentius, grim to see,
Wields Tuscan pine-stock, tall as he,
And heads the desperate attack
With torch-fire vapours, pitchy black:
While bold Messapus, Neptune’s seed,
Imperious tamer of the steed,
Tears down the palisade, and calls
For ladders to ascend the walls.
Ye Muses, prompt my lay
To tell what havoc Turnus made
On that too bloody day,
What gallant chiefs were hurled below
And what the hands that dealt the blow.
Be near, and help me to unroll
In length and breadth the martial scroll.
There rose a lofty tower:
Italia’s warriors, one and all,
Assail it, bent to work its fall,
With utmost strain of power:
The sons of Troy with stones defend,
And through the narrowed eyelets send
A furious steely shower.
Fierce Turnus first a firebrand flings:
It strikes the side, takes hold, and clings:
The freshening breezes spread the blaze,
And soon on plank and beam it preys.
The inmates flutter in dismay
And vainly wish to fly:
There as they huddle and retire
Back to the part which ’scapes the fire,
Sudden the o’erweighted mass gives way,
And falling, shakes the sky.
Heavily to the ground they come
In piteous ruin trailed,
Some pierced with falling fragments, some
On their own darts impaled.
Unhurt, Helenor, sole of all,
And Lycus issue from the fall:
Helenor, whom Licymnia bare
To Lydia’s king, a captive fair,
And sent herself her blooming boy
In interdicted arms to Troy,
Trained up a naked sword to wield
And bear a blank unblazoned shield.
Soon as the Rutule hosts he found
And Turnus’ squadrons close him round,
As beast by hunter crowds beset
Makes furious war on dart and net,
Full at the throat of danger flies,
And spiked on serried javelins dies,
So leaps the warrior on the foe
Where storms of iron deadliest blow.
Not so young Lycus: swifter far
He threads the windings of the war,
Gripes the high wall with talon clutch,
And strives his comrades’ hands to touch.
With speed of foot and javelin’s throw
Fierce Turnus follows on the foe:
‘Poor fool! couldst hope,’ the conqueror cries,
‘To baffle Turnus of his prize?’
Then grasps him hanging, and withal
Plucks down a bulwark from the wall:
So Jove’s fell bird bears off in air
A snow-white swan or timorous hare:
So from its vainly bleating dam
Tears the gaunt wolf the folded lamb.
Loud clamours rise: they charge once more,
Break down the mound, the trench bridge o’er,
Or to the topmost rampart throw
Their brands of pine-wood all aglow.
There as Lucetius nears the gate
And waves aloft the hostile flame,
Ilioneus whelms him ’neath the weight
Of rock that from a mountain came:
Stout Liger brings Emathion low;
Asilas Corynæus slays;
That skilled the warlike lance to throw,
This wings the arrow from the bow
Through unsuspected ways.
Ortygius lies by Cæneus slain:
The victor yields to Turnus’ hands;
And Sagaris, Itys, Clonius fall,
With Promolus, by Turnus all,
And Idas, tumbled to the plain
As on the wall he stands.
Privernus finds from Capys death:
Themilla’s spear had grazed him first:
He flings his buckler on the ground,
And claps his hand upon the wound:
Fond wretch! the arrow wings the wind,
And to his side his hand is pinned,
And through the vital springs of breath
A deadly passage burst.
There Arcens’ son stood, richly dight
In broidered scarf with purple bright,
Sent by his father to the fight,
A youth of glorious
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