No More Learning

. . . But thee, O mother, overworn old age,
exhausted and untrue, frets with vain distress, and amid embattled kings
mocks thy presage with false dismay. Thy charge it is to keep the divine
image and temple; war and peace shall be in the hands of men and
warriors. '

At such words Allecto's wrath blazed out. But amid his utterance a quick
shudder overruns his limbs; his eyes are fixed in horror; so thickly
hiss the snakes of the Fury, so vast her form expands. Then rolling her
fiery eyes, she thrust him back as he would stammer out more, raised two
serpents in her hair, and, sounding her whip, resumed with furious tone:

'Behold me the overworn! me whom old age, exhausted and untrue, mocks
with false dismay amid embattled kings! Look on this! I am come from the
home of the Dread Sisters: war and death are in my hand. . . . '

So speaking, she hurled her torch at him, and pierced his breast with
the lurid smoking brand.
He breaks from sleep in overpowering fear, his
limbs and body bathed in [459-494]sweat that breaks out all over him;
he shrieks madly for arms, searches for arms on his bed and in his
palace. The passion of the sword rages high, the accursed fury of war,
and wrath over all: even as when flaming sticks are heaped roaring loud
under the sides of a seething cauldron, and the boiling water leaps up;
the river of water within smokes furiously and swells high in
overflowing foam, and now the wave contains itself no longer; the dark
steam flies aloft. So, for the stain of the broken peace, he orders his
chief warriors to march on King Latinus, and bids prepare for battle, to
defend Italy and drive the foe from their borders; himself will suffice
for Trojans and Latins together. 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.