No More Learning

When he uttered these words and called
the gods to hear his vows, the Rutulians stir one another up to arms.
One is moved by the splendour of his youthful beauty, one by his royal
ancestry, another by the noble deeds of his hand.

While Turnus fills the Rutulian minds with valour, Allecto on Stygian
wing hastens towards the Trojans. With fresh wiles she marked the spot
where beautiful Iulus was trapping and coursing game on the bank; here
the infernal maiden suddenly crosses his hounds with the maddening touch
of a familiar scent, and drives them hotly on the stag-hunt. This was
the source and spring of ill, and kindled the country-folk to war. The
stag, beautiful and high-antlered, was stolen from his mother's udder
and bred by Tyrrheus' boys and their father Tyrrheus, master of the
royal herds, and ranger of the plain. Their sister Silvia tamed him to
her rule, and lavished her care on his adornment, twining his antlers
with delicate garlands, and combed his wild coat and washed him in the
clear spring. Tame to her hand, and familiar to his master's table, he
would wander the woods, and, however late the night, return home to the
door he knew. Far astray, he floated idly down the stream, and allayed
his heat on the green bank, when Iulus' [495-528]mad hounds started him
in their hunting; and Ascanius himself, kindled with desire of the chief
honour, aimed a shaft from his bended bow. A present deity suffered not
his hand to stray, and the loud whistling reed came driven through his
belly and flanks. But the wounded beast fled within the familiar roof
and crept moaning to the courtyard, dabbled with blood, and filling all
the house with moans as of one beseeching. Sister Silvia, smiting her
arms with open hands, begins to call for aid, and gathers the hardy
rustics with her cries. They, for a fell destroyer is hidden in the
silent woodland, are there before her expectation, one armed with a
stake hardened in the fire, one with a heavy knotted trunk; what each
one searches and finds, wrath turns into a weapon. Tyrrheus cheers on
his array, panting hard, with his axe caught up in his hand, as he was
haply splitting an oaken log in four clefts with cross-driven wedges.

But the grim goddess, seizing from her watch-tower the moment of
mischief, seeks the steep farm-roof and sounds the pastoral war-note
from the ridge, straining the infernal cry on her twisted horn; it
spread shuddering over all the woodland, and echoed through the deep
forests: the lake of Trivia heard it afar; Nar river heard it with white
sulphurous water, and the springs of Velinus; and fluttered mothers
clasped their children to their breast.
Then, hurrying to the voice of
the terrible trumpet-note, on all sides the wild rustics snatch their
arms and stream in: therewithal the men of Troy pour out from their
camp's open gates to succour Ascanius. The lines are ranged; not now in
rustic strife do they fight with hard trunks or burned stakes; the
two-edged steel sways the fight, the broad cornfields bristle dark with
drawn swords, and brass flashes smitten by the sunlight, and casts a
gleam high into the cloudy air: as when the wind begins to blow and the
flood [529-560]to whiten, gradually the sea lifts his waves higher and
yet higher, then rises from the bottom right into the air. Here in the
front rank young Almo, once Tyrrheus' eldest son, is struck down by a
whistling arrow; for the wound, staying in his throat, cut off in blood
the moist voice's passage and the thin life. Around many a one lies
dead, aged Galaesus among them, slain as he throws himself between them
for a peacemaker, once incomparable in justice and wealth of Ausonian
fields; for him five flocks bleated, a five-fold herd returned from
pasture, and an hundred ploughs upturned the soil.

But while thus in even battle they fight on the broad plain, the
goddess, her promise fulfilled, when she hath dyed the war in blood, and
mingled death in the first encounter, quits Hesperia, and, glancing
through the sky, addresses Juno in exultant tone:

'Lo, discord is ripened at thy desire into baleful war: tell them now to
mix in amity and join alliance. Insomuch as I have imbued the Trojans in
Ausonian blood, this likewise will I add, if I have assurance of thy
will. With my rumours I will sweep the bordering towns into war, and
kindle their spirit with furious desire for battle, that from all
quarters help may come; I will sow the land with arms. '

Then Juno answering: 'Terror and harm is wrought abundantly. The springs
of war are aflow: they fight with arms in their grasp, the arms that
chance first supplied, that fresh blood stains. Let this be the union,
this the bridal that Venus' illustrious progeny and Latinus the King
shall celebrate. Our Lord who reigns on Olympus' summit would not have
thee stray too freely in heaven's upper air. Withdraw thy presence.
Whatsoever future remains in the struggle, that I myself will sway. '

Such accents uttered the daughter of Saturn; and the [561-594]other
raises her rustling snaky wings and darts away from the high upper air
to Cocytus her home. There is a place midmost of Italy, deep in the
hills, notable and famed of rumour in many a country, the Vale of
Amsanctus; on either hand a wooded ridge, dark with thick foliage, hems
it in, and midway a torrent in swirling eddies shivers and echoes over
the rocks. Here is shewn a ghastly pool, a breathing-hole of the grim
lord of hell, and a vast chasm breaking into Acheron yawns with
pestilential throat.