Stand off, nor rob me of my due;
Would Heaven his sire were here to view!’
He spoke; his mates obedient hear,
And parting, leave the champaign clear.
Thence as the yielding crowd retires,
The brave youth pauses and admires,
Much marvels at his haughty phrase,
And scans his form with eager gaze;
Then, rolling round undaunted eyes,
With speech as resolute replies:
‘Or goodly spoils shall make me great,
Or honourable death;
My sire is nerved for either fate:
Loud vaunts are empty breath.’
He spoke, and marched into the field;
Chill fear the Arcadian hearts congealed.
Down plunges Turnus from his car,
Prepared on foot to fight:
As when a lion from afar
Beholds a bull intending war,
Headlong he comes with furious bound;
So, bounding onward o’er the ground,
Looks Turnus to the sight.
Within the cover of his lance,
He steps in front, in hope that chance
His ill-matched powers may aid,
And thus with upraised countenance
To highest heaven he prayed:
‘Now by the board whose homely fare,
A stranger, thou wast fain to share,
Assist me, Hercules, I pray,
In this my all too bold essay:
Let Turnus’ eyes in dying brook
Upon a conqueror’s face to look,
The while I spoil him as he lies
Of his stained arms, my gory prize.’
His votary’s prayer Alcides hears;
His cheeks are bathed in fruitless tears,
And deep, within his labouring breast
He heavens a stifled groan;
Whom thus the Almighty Sire addressed
In grave and soothing tone:
‘Each has his destined time: a span
Is all the heritage of man:
’Tis virtue’s part by deeds of praise
To lengthen fame through after days.
Full many a godhead’s son, beside
The walls of Troy, in combat died;
Nay, he, my own authentic seed,
Sarpedon, he was doomed to bleed.
Death waits for Turnus too: e’en now
He nears the bound his fates allow.’
So speaking, he averts his mien,
And turns him from the deathful scene.
His spear, and bares his falchion bright.
Where, rising high, the brazen coat
The shoulder guards, the javelin smote,
Pierced the broad shield with well-meant aim,
And grazed e’en Turnus’ mighty frame.
Then, poising long the shaft, at last
His steel-tipped javelin Turnus cast,
And ‘Let it now,’ he cries, ‘be seen
If this my dart be not more keen.’
So he: through all the metal plates,
The hides of bullocks dressed
That wrapped the sheet in folds on folds,
The fatal point its passage holds,
The corslet’s barrier penetrates
And cleaves his manly breast.
From the wide wound he plucks in vain
The reeking weapon out;
The lifeblood and the life amain
In mingled torrent spout.
He sinks collapsing on the wound;
About his limbs the arms resound;
And as he writhes in deadly pain
His fierce teeth bite the hostile plain.
‘Arcadians, hear me,’ Turnus cried:
‘Say to your monarch I remit
His Pallas, handled as was fit.
The solace of a tomb, the meed
Of burial, freely I concede.
E’en so, methinks, the sumptuous cheer
He gave to Troy will cost him dear.’
Then with his foot the corpse he pressed,
And stripped the belt from off the breast,
The ponderous belt, whose sculptured gold
A tale of crime and bloodshed told,
Those fifty bridegrooms, slain in bed
E’en on the very night they wed:
Once Clonus’ work: now proudly worn
By Turnus in his hour of scorn.
O impotence of man’s frail mind
To fate and to the future blind,
Presumptuous and o’erweening still
When Fortune follows at its will!
Full soon shall Turnus wish in vain
That life untouched, those spoils unta’en,
And think it cheap to spend his all,
Could gold that bloody deed recall!
But Pallas lifeless on his shield
His weeping comrades bear from field.
O sad, proud thought, that thus a son
Should reach a father’s door!
This day beheld your wars begun:
This day beholds them o’er,
While yet you leave on yonder plain
Vast heaps of Rutule warriors slain!
But surer messenger of fate
To brave Æneas hies;
Tells him the day is well- nigh lost;
’Tis time to aid the routed host,
E’en while the moment flies.
With brandished sword he storms along,
And hews a passage through the throng,
Still seeking Turnus, newly red
With slaughter of the mighty dead.
Pallas, Evander, all, they stand
Like life before his sight,
The board that welcomed him, the hand
In warm affiance plight.
Four hapless youths of Sulmo’s breed
And four who Ufens call their sire
He takes alive, condemned to bleed
To Pallas’ shade on Pallas’ pyre.
At Magus then his spear he threw;
But Magus from the death withdrew,
Came crouching up, while o’er his head
The quivering lance through ether sped,
And clasped the victor’s knees and said:
‘By your great father’s shade I pray,
By young Iulus’ dawning day,
In pity deign my life to spare
For my grey sire, my youthful heir.
A lofty house in mine: a hoard
Of silver in its vaults is stored,
And piles of wrought and unwrought gold
Are treasured there, of weight untold.
Not here the crisis of the strife,
Nor victory hangs on one poor life.’
He ceased: immovable and stern
Æneas thus
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