No More Learning

BOOK TWELFTH

THE SLAYING OF TURNUS


When Turnus sees the Latins broken and fainting in the thwart issue of
war, his promise claimed for fulfilment, and men's eyes pointed on him,
his own spirit rises in unappeasable flame. As the lion in Phoenician
fields, his breast heavily wounded by the huntsmen, at last starts into
arms, and shakes out the shaggy masses from his exultant neck, and
undismayed snaps the brigand's planted weapon, roaring with
blood-stained mouth; even so Turnus kindles and swells in passion. Then
he thus addresses the king, and so furiously begins:

'Turnus stops not the way; there is no excuse for the coward Aeneadae to
take back their words or renounce their compact. I join battle; bring
the holy things, my lord, and swear the treaty. Either this hand shall
hurl to hell the Dardanian who skulks from Asia, and the Latins sit and
see my single sword wipe out the nation's reproach; or let him rule his
conquest, and Lavinia pass to his espousal. '

To him Latinus calmly replied: 'O excellent young man! the more thy hot
valour abounds, the more intently must I counsel, and weigh fearfully
what may befall. Thou hast thy father Daunus' realm, hast many towns
taken by [23-55]thine hand, nor is Latinus lacking in gold and
goodwill. There are other maidens unwedded in Latium and Laurentine
fields, and of no mean birth. Let me unfold this hard saying in all
sincerity: and do thou drink it into thy soul. I might not ally my
daughter to any of her old wooers; such was the universal oracle of gods
and men. Overborne by love for thee, overborne by kinship of blood and
my weeping wife's complaint, I broke all fetters, I severed the maiden
from her promised husband, I took up unrighteous arms. Since then,
Turnus, thou seest what calamities, what wars pursue me, what woes
thyself before all dost suffer. Twice vanquished in pitched battle, we
scarce guard in our city walls the hopes of Italy: the streams of Tiber
yet run warm with our blood, and our bones whiten the boundless plain.
Why fall I away again and again?
what madness bends my purpose? if I am
ready to take them into alliance after Turnus' destruction, why do I not
rather bar the strife while he lives? What will thy Rutulian kinsmen,
will all Italy say, if thy death--Fortune make void the word! --comes by
my betrayal, while thou suest for our daughter in marriage? Cast a
glance on war's changing fortune; pity thine aged father, who now far
away sits sad in his native Ardea. '

In nowise do the words bend Turnus' passion: he rages the more fiercely,
and sickens of the cure. So soon as he found speech he thus made
utterance:

'The care thou hast for me, most gracious lord, for me lay down, I
implore thee, and let me purchase honour with death. Our hand too rains
weapons, our steel is strong; and our wounds too draw blood. The goddess
his mother will be far from him to cover his flight, woman-like, in a
cloud and an empty phantom's hiding. '

But the queen, dismayed by the new terms of battle, wept, and clung to
her fiery son as one ready to die: [56-89]'Turnus, by these tears, by
Amata's regard, if that touches thee at all--thou art now the one hope,
the repose of mine unhappy age; in thine hand is Latinus' honour and
empire, on thee is the weight of all our sinking house--one thing I
beseech thee; forbear to join battle with the Teucrians. What fate
soever awaits thee in the strife thou seekest, it awaits me, Turnus,
too: with thee will I leave the hateful light, nor shall my captive eyes
see Aeneas my daughter's lord. ' Lavinia tearfully heard her mother's
words with cheeks all aflame, as deep blushes set her face on fire and
ran hotly over it. Even as Indian ivory, if one stain it with sanguine
dye, or where white lilies are red with many a rose amid: such colour
came on the maiden's face. Love throws him into tumult, and stays his
countenance on the girl: he burns fiercer for arms, and briefly answers
Amata:

'Do not, I pray thee, do not weep for me, neither pursue me thus
ominously as I go to the stern shock of war. Turnus is not free to dally
with death. Thou, Idmon, bear my message to the Phrygian monarch in this
harsh wording: So soon as to-morrow's Dawn rises in the sky blushing on
her crimson wheels, let him not loose Teucrian or Rutulian: let Teucrian
and Rutulian arms have rest, and our blood decide the war; on that field
let Lavinia be sought in marriage.