Ye Latian ranks! not you, but I
Must meet whate’er betide:
Far better this my arm alone
For broken treaty should atone,
And battle’s chance decide.’
The armies right and left give place,
And yield him clear and open space.
The challenge of his foe,
The leaguer of the town forbears,
Lets tower and rampart go,
Steps high with exultation proud,
And thunders on his arms aloud;
Vast as majestic Athos, vast
As Eryx the divine,
Or he that roaring with the blast
Heaves his huge bulk in snowdrifts massed,
The father Apennine.
Italian, Trojan, Rutule, all
One way direct the eye,—
Who man the summit of the wall,
Who storm the base to work its fall,—
And lay their bucklers by.
Latinus marvels at the sight,
Two mighty chiefs, who first saw light
In realms apart, met here in fight
The steel’s award to try.
Soon as the space between is clear,
Each, rushing forward, hurls his spear,
And bucklers clashed with brazen din
The overture of fight begin.
Earth groans: fierce strokes their falchions deal:
Chance joins with force to guide the steel.
As when two bulls engage in fight
On Sila’s or Taburnus’ height
And horns with horns are crossed:
Long since the trembling hinds have fled;
The whole herd stands in silent dread;
The heifers ponder in dismay,
Who now the country-side will sway,
The monarch of the host:
Giving and taking wounds alike,
With furious impact home they strike;
Shoulder and neck are bathed in gore:
The forest depths return the roar.
So, shield on shield, together dash
Æneas and his Daunian foe;
The echo of that deafening crash
Mounts heavenward from below.
Great Jove with steadfast hand on high
His balance poises in the sky,
Lays in each scale each rival’s fate,
And nicely ponders weight with weight,
To see whom war to doom consigns,
And which the side that death inclines.
Young Turnus rises from the ground,
And, following on the sword he sways,
Comes down with deadly aim:
Latium and Troy intently gaze,
And swell the loud acclaim.
When lo! the faithless weapon breaks,
And ’mid the stroke its lord forsakes:
Flight, flight alone can aid:
Swifter than wings of wind he flees,
Soon as an unknown hilt he sees
Disfurnished of its blade.
’Tis said, when with impatience blind
He first the battle sought,
Leaving his father’s sword behind
Metiscus’ steel he caught;
While routed Troy before him fled,
That sword full well his need bested:
Soon as ’twas tried on arms divine,
It snapped like ice in twain,
The mortal blade; the fragments shine,
Strewed on the yellow plain.
So Turnus traverses the ground,
Doubling and circling round and round
In purposeless career,
For all about him stand his foes,
And here high walls the scene enclose,
And there a spacious mere.
Slacked by his wound, their work refuse,
Æneas follows as he flees
And step with step the foe pursues.
As tracks a hound with noise and din
A deer by river deep hemmed in
Or plume of crimson grain:
The straight steep bank, the threatening snare
The hunted beast from progress scare:
She winds and winds again:
The Umbrian keen forbids escape,
Hangs on her flank with jaws agape,
Snaps his vain teeth that close on nought,
He catching still, she still uncaught.
Turnus flies on, and as he flies
To every Rutule loudly cries,
Calls each by name, invokes their aid,
And clamours for his well-known blade.
Æneas in imperious tone
Denounces death should help be shown,
Threats the doomed town with sword and flame,
And, wounded, follows on the same.
Five times they circle round the place,
Five times the winding course retrace:
No trivial game is here: the strife
Is waged for Turnus’ own dear life.
A wilding olive on the sward,
Sacred to Faunus, late had stood:
The seaman’s dutiful regard
Preserved that venerable wood:
There hung they, rescued from the wave,
The weeds they doffed, the gifts they gave.
When for the fight the ground was traced,
The Trojans felled it in their haste,
Reckless of sacred or profane,
That nought might break the level plain.
Here lodged Æneas’ javelin: here
It lighted, borne in fierce career,
And in the stump stood fast:
He strives the weapon to unroot,
And whom he cannot catch on foot
O’ertake by lance’s cast.
Then out cries Turnus, wild with fear:
‘Great Faunus, of thy pity hear!
Sweet Earth, hold fast the steel,
If Turnus still has held divine
Those sanctities which Troy’s rude line
Treads down ’neath battle’s heel!’
So prayed he: nor his prayers were vain:
Long o’er the stump Æneas hangs,
And tugs with many a fruitless strain
To make the hard-wood loose its fangs:
When lo! impatient as he strives,
Changed to Metiscus’ shape once more
Forth runs the Daunian fair, and gives
Her brother back the sword he wore.
Then Venus, filled with ire to see
A Nymph assume so bold a part,
Approached, and from the stubborn tree
Tore out the long-imprisoned dart.
Again the haughty chiefs advance,
Their strength repaired, their arms restored,
That
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