No More Learning

why have I forfeited a mortal's lot? Now assuredly could I make all this
pain cease, and go with my unhappy brother side by side into the dark.
Alas mine immortality! will aught of mine be sweet to me without thee,
my brother? Ah, how may Earth yawn deep enough for me, and plunge my
godhead in the under world! '

So spoke she, and wrapping her head in her gray vesture, the goddess
moaning sore sank in the river depth.

But Aeneas presses on, brandishing his vast tree-like spear, and
fiercely speaks thus: 'What more delay is there [889-924]now? or why,
Turnus, dost thou yet shrink away? Not in speed of foot, in grim arms,
hand to hand, must be the conflict. Transform thyself as thou wilt, and
collect what strength of courage or skill is thine; pray that thou
mayest wing thy flight to the stars on high, or that sheltering earth
may shut thee in. ' The other, shaking his head: 'Thy fierce words dismay
me not, insolent! the gods dismay me, and Jupiter's enmity. ' And no more
said, his eyes light on a vast stone, a stone ancient and vast that
haply lay upon the plain, set for a landmark to divide contested fields:
scarcely might twelve chosen men lift it on their shoulders, of such
frame as now earth brings to birth: then the hero caught it up with
trembling hand and whirled it at the foe, rising higher and quickening
his speed. But he knows not his own self running nor going nor lifting
his hands or moving the mighty stone; his knees totter, his blood
freezes cold; the very stone he hurls, spinning through the empty void,
neither wholly reached its distance nor carried its blow home. And as in
sleep, when nightly rest weighs down our languorous eyes, we seem vainly
to will to run eagerly on, and sink faint amidst our struggles; the
tongue is powerless, the familiar strength fails the body, nor will
words or utterance follow: so the disastrous goddess brings to naught
all Turnus' valour as he presses on.
His heart wavers in shifting
emotion; he gazes on his Rutulians and on the city, and falters in
terror, and shudders at the imminent spear; neither sees he whither he
may escape nor how rush violently on the enemy, and nowhere his chariot
or his sister at the reins. As he wavers Aeneas poises the deadly
weapon, and, marking his chance, hurls it in from afar with all his
strength of body. Never with such a roar are stones hurled from some
engine on ramparts, nor does the thunder burst in so loud a peal.
Carrying grim death with it, the spear flies in fashion of some dark
whirlwind, and [925-952]opens the rim of the corslet and the utmost
circles of the sevenfold shield. Right through the thigh it passes
hurtling on; under the blow Turnus falls huge to earth with his leg
doubled under him. The Rutulians start up with a groan, and all the hill
echoes round about, and the width of high woodland returns their cry.
Lifting up beseechingly his humbled eyes and suppliant hand: 'I have
deserved it,' he says, 'nor do I ask for mercy; use thy fortune. If an
unhappy parent's distress may at all touch thee, this I pray; even such
a father was Anchises to thee; pity Daunus' old age, and restore to my
kindred which thou wilt, me or my body bereft of day. Thou art
conqueror, and Ausonia hath seen me stretch conquered hands. Lavinia is
thine in marriage; press not thy hatred farther. '

Aeneas stood wrathful in arms, with rolling eyes, and lowered his hand;
and now and now yet more the speech began to bend him to waver: when
high on his shoulder appeared the sword-belt with the shining bosses
that he knew, the luckless belt of the boy Pallas, whom Turnus had
struck down with mastering wound, and wore on his shoulders the fatal
ornament. The other, as his eyes drank in the plundered record of his
fierce grief, kindles to fury, and cries terrible in anger: 'Mayest
thou, thou clad in the spoils of my dearest, escape mine hands? Pallas
it is, Pallas who now strikes the sacrifice, and exacts vengeance in thy
guilty blood. ' So saying, he fiercely plunges the steel full in his
breast. But his limbs grow slack and chill, and the life with a moan
flies indignantly into the dark.


THE END.