All hearts sink; Latinus goes with torn raiment, in dismay at his
wife's doom and his city's downfall, defiling his hoary hair with
soilure of sprinkled dust.
wife's doom and his city's downfall, defiling his hoary hair with
soilure of sprinkled dust.
Virgil - Aeneid
Straightway he kindles
at the view of a greater battle; he summons Mnestheus and Sergestus and
brave Serestus his captains, and mounts a hillock; there the rest of the
Teucrian army gathers thickly, still grasping shield and spear. Standing
on the high mound amid them, he speaks: 'Be there no delay to my words;
Jupiter is with us; neither let any be slower to move that the design is
sudden. This city to-day, the source of war, the royal seat of Latinus,
unless they yield them to receive our yoke and obey their conquerors,
will I raze to ground, and lay her smoking roofs level with the dust.
Must I wait forsooth till Turnus please to stoop to combat, and choose
again to face his conqueror? This, O citizens, is the fountain-head and
crown of the accursed war. Bring brands speedily, and reclaim the treaty
in fire. ' He ended; all with spirit alike emulous form a wedge and
advance in serried masses to the walls. Ladders are run [576-611]up,
and fire leaps sudden to sight. Some rush to the separate gates, and cut
down the guards of the entry, others hurl their steel and darken the sky
with weapons. Aeneas himself among the foremost, upstretching his hand
to the city walls, loudly reproaches Latinus, and takes the gods to
witness that he is again forced into battle, that twice now do the
Italians choose warfare and break a second treaty. Discord rises among
the alarmed citizens: some bid unbar the town and fling wide their gates
to the Dardanians, and pull the king himself towards the ramparts;
others bring arms and hasten to defend the walls: as when a shepherd
tracks bees to their retreat in a recessed rock, and fills it with
stinging smoke, they within run uneasily up and down their waxen
fortress, and hum louder in rising wrath; the smell rolls in darkness
along their dwelling, and a blind murmur echoes within the rock as the
smoke issues to the empty air.
This fortune likewise befell the despairing Latins, this woe shook the
whole city to her base. The queen espies from her roof the enemy's
approach, the walls scaled and firebrands flying on the houses; and
nowhere Rutulian ranks, none of Turnus' columns to meet them; alas! she
deems him destroyed in the shock of battle, and, distracted by sudden
anguish, shrieks that she is the source of guilt, the spring of ill, and
with many a mad utterance of frenzied grief rends her purple attire with
dying hand, and ties from a lofty beam the ghastly noose of death. And
when the unhappy Latin women knew this calamity, first her daughter
Lavinia tears her flower-like tresses and roseate cheeks, and all the
train around her madden in her suit; the wide palace echoes to their
wailing, and from it the sorrowful rumour spreads abroad throughout the
town.
All hearts sink; Latinus goes with torn raiment, in dismay at his
wife's doom and his city's downfall, defiling his hoary hair with
soilure of sprinkled dust.
[614-648]Meanwhile on the skirts of the field Turnus chases scattered
stragglers, ever slacker to battle, ever less and less exultant in his
coursers' victorious speed. The confused cry came to him borne in blind
terror down the breeze, and his startled ears caught the echoing tumult
and disastrous murmur of the town. 'Ah me! what agony shakes the city?
or what is this cry that fleets so loud from the distant town? ' So
speaks he, and distractedly checks the reins. And to him his sister, as
changed into his charioteer Metiscus' likeness she swayed horses and
chariot-reins, thus rejoined: 'This way, Turnus, let us pursue the brood
of Troy, where victory opens her nearest way; there are others whose
hands can protect their dwellings. Aeneas falls fiercer on the Italians,
and closes in conflict; let our hand too deal pitiless death on his
Teucrians. Neither in tale of dead nor in glory of battle shalt thou
retire outdone. ' Thereat Turnus: . . .
'Ah my sister, long ere now I knew thee, when first thine arts shattered
the treaty, and thou didst mingle in the strife; and now thy godhead
conceals itself in vain. But who hath bidden thee descend from heaven to
bear this sore travail? was it that thou mightest see thy hapless
brother cruelly slain?
at the view of a greater battle; he summons Mnestheus and Sergestus and
brave Serestus his captains, and mounts a hillock; there the rest of the
Teucrian army gathers thickly, still grasping shield and spear. Standing
on the high mound amid them, he speaks: 'Be there no delay to my words;
Jupiter is with us; neither let any be slower to move that the design is
sudden. This city to-day, the source of war, the royal seat of Latinus,
unless they yield them to receive our yoke and obey their conquerors,
will I raze to ground, and lay her smoking roofs level with the dust.
Must I wait forsooth till Turnus please to stoop to combat, and choose
again to face his conqueror? This, O citizens, is the fountain-head and
crown of the accursed war. Bring brands speedily, and reclaim the treaty
in fire. ' He ended; all with spirit alike emulous form a wedge and
advance in serried masses to the walls. Ladders are run [576-611]up,
and fire leaps sudden to sight. Some rush to the separate gates, and cut
down the guards of the entry, others hurl their steel and darken the sky
with weapons. Aeneas himself among the foremost, upstretching his hand
to the city walls, loudly reproaches Latinus, and takes the gods to
witness that he is again forced into battle, that twice now do the
Italians choose warfare and break a second treaty. Discord rises among
the alarmed citizens: some bid unbar the town and fling wide their gates
to the Dardanians, and pull the king himself towards the ramparts;
others bring arms and hasten to defend the walls: as when a shepherd
tracks bees to their retreat in a recessed rock, and fills it with
stinging smoke, they within run uneasily up and down their waxen
fortress, and hum louder in rising wrath; the smell rolls in darkness
along their dwelling, and a blind murmur echoes within the rock as the
smoke issues to the empty air.
This fortune likewise befell the despairing Latins, this woe shook the
whole city to her base. The queen espies from her roof the enemy's
approach, the walls scaled and firebrands flying on the houses; and
nowhere Rutulian ranks, none of Turnus' columns to meet them; alas! she
deems him destroyed in the shock of battle, and, distracted by sudden
anguish, shrieks that she is the source of guilt, the spring of ill, and
with many a mad utterance of frenzied grief rends her purple attire with
dying hand, and ties from a lofty beam the ghastly noose of death. And
when the unhappy Latin women knew this calamity, first her daughter
Lavinia tears her flower-like tresses and roseate cheeks, and all the
train around her madden in her suit; the wide palace echoes to their
wailing, and from it the sorrowful rumour spreads abroad throughout the
town.
All hearts sink; Latinus goes with torn raiment, in dismay at his
wife's doom and his city's downfall, defiling his hoary hair with
soilure of sprinkled dust.
[614-648]Meanwhile on the skirts of the field Turnus chases scattered
stragglers, ever slacker to battle, ever less and less exultant in his
coursers' victorious speed. The confused cry came to him borne in blind
terror down the breeze, and his startled ears caught the echoing tumult
and disastrous murmur of the town. 'Ah me! what agony shakes the city?
or what is this cry that fleets so loud from the distant town? ' So
speaks he, and distractedly checks the reins. And to him his sister, as
changed into his charioteer Metiscus' likeness she swayed horses and
chariot-reins, thus rejoined: 'This way, Turnus, let us pursue the brood
of Troy, where victory opens her nearest way; there are others whose
hands can protect their dwellings. Aeneas falls fiercer on the Italians,
and closes in conflict; let our hand too deal pitiless death on his
Teucrians. Neither in tale of dead nor in glory of battle shalt thou
retire outdone. ' Thereat Turnus: . . .
'Ah my sister, long ere now I knew thee, when first thine arts shattered
the treaty, and thou didst mingle in the strife; and now thy godhead
conceals itself in vain. But who hath bidden thee descend from heaven to
bear this sore travail? was it that thou mightest see thy hapless
brother cruelly slain?
