BOOK XII.

Breach of the truce: how Eneas is wounded and healed oy his mother: Final encounter of champions: Turnus is slain by Eneas.

TURNUS, as soon as he sees that the Latins are utterly worsted,
Shattered by adverse Mars; that his promises now are remanded,
Sees he is marked by their eyes, self-prompted implacably kindling,
Rouses his wrath. As a lion at bay in the fields of the Punics,
Gored in his breast by a grievous wound at the hands of the hunters,
Musters his armor at length, and rejoices in shaking his shaggy
Mane on his neck, and unshrinkingly shivers the shaft of the spoiler
Fixed in his bosom, and roars with his mouth all reekingly gory:
Just like his is the violence growing in fiery Turnus.

Then he so speaks to the monarch, and thus he excited commences:
"No more halting in Turnus! There's naught that the dastard Æneans
Need to retract in their words, or recall what they lately have plighted.
Yes, I engage him! Bring sacrifice, father, and draw up the contract:
Either with this right hand yon Dardan deserter from Asia
I will to Tartarus send-let the Latins sit still and observe it-
Yea, and alone will refute with the sabre their common aspersion,
Or he shall hold us as slaves, and Lavinia own him as husband.”
Mildly to him, and with heart imperturbable answers Latinus:
"Chieftain of chivalrous spirit, the more to excess in ferocious
Valor thou risest, the more it behooves me in turn to consider
Calmly the issues, and all the contingencies dreading to ponder.
Daunus, thy father's dominions are thine, as is many a stronghold
Won by thy hand, and Latinus has gold and a soul to assist thee.
Surely in Latium's bounds, and Laurentian fields, there are other
Virgins of no mean birth. Though unpleasant to utter, permit me,

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Doffing disguises, to broach this, and drink it at once in thy spirit:
Proper it was that I marry my daughter to none of her former
Suitors, and all, both gods and men, were forewarning me of it.
Swayed by attachment to thee, and induced by the tenure of kindred
Blood, and the tears of my sorrowing spouse, I have, breaking all fetters,
Snatched from a son his betrothed, and embarked in an infamous warfare.
Turnus, thou seest from thence what disasters and battles pursue me,
Yea, and thou seest how great are the hardships thou chiefly endurest:
Twice in a mighty engagement defeated, we scarce in the city
Succor Italia's hopes: nay, still are the streams of the Tiber

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Warm with our blood, and the vast plains blanch with the bones of our kinsmen.. Where am I drifting so often? What madness is swaying my purpose?

If then, were Turnus extinct, I were ready to court this alliance,

Why, while he yet is unharmed, do I rather not yet finish the contests?
What will my kin, the Rutulians, what will the rest of Italia
Say, if I-fortune belie the expression-should basely betray thee
Over to death, while seeking our daughter and marriage relations?
Look at the various issues of battles, and pity thine aged
Sire, whom his native Ardeä now in his loneliness widely
Separates." Never a whit by these words is the raving of Turnus
Curbed; it o'ercomes him the more, and he sickens by efforts to cure him.
Soon, though, as able to speak, in his utterance thus he insisted:
Highness, what cares thou assumest for my sake, I pray thee for my sake
Lay now aside, and permit me to barter my death for my honor!
Father, we also do weapons and no mean steel in our right hand
Scatter, and blood flows free from the wounds we inflict on a foeman.
Far will his goddess mother be from him to shelter her fleeing
Son in a feminine cloak, and conceal herself in the vanishing shadows."
Meanwhile the queen was, shocked by the singular turn of the warfare,
Weeping, and fast to her fiery son-in-law desperate holding:

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"O by these tears, and respect, if aught touches thy soul, for Amata,
Turnus, I pray thee, thou only hope to me now, thou reliance
Sole of my pitiful dotage, the glory and sway of Latinus
Pivots on thee; on thee rests all of our tottering household,
Only I beg thee refrain from engaging a hand with the Teucrans.
Turnus, in that dread contest whatever disasters await thee
Thence, are awaiting me, too: I at once will abandon this hated
Light, and a captive I never will look as my son on Æneas."
Lovely Lavinia, catching the voice of her sorrowing mother,
Drenches her burning cheeks with tears, and her plentiful blushes

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Kindled a fire in her heart, and it glowingly mantled her features:
Just as if one should the Indian ivory stain with a blood-rea
Rouge, or when snow-white lilies may seemingly redden by many
Roses immingled; such hues in her face did the maiden exhibit.
Love is confusing him quite, and he, fixing his eyes on the maiden,
Blazes the more in his armor, and briefly addresses Amata:

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"Do not I beg thee, my mother, O do not with tears, nor with such sad

Omen attend me, when marching away to the contests of ruthless
Mars; for delay of his death is not at the disposal of Turnus.
Idmon, go bear to the Phrygian tyrant my doubtless unwelcome
Terms, that he, soon as the morrow's Aurora, upwafted on purple
Chariot, reddens in heaven, against the Rutulians do not
Marshal the Teucrans; but let the Rutulians all, and the Teucrans
Rest on their armor, and we with our blood will determine the warfare:
On yon plain be Lavinia won as the conqueror's consort!"

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When he has uttered these words, and has rapid retired to his mansions, Seeks he his steeds, and rejoices in seeing them prancing before himSteeds which Orithyia gave herself as a prize to Pilumnus,

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Which could in whiteness outrival the snows, and in races the breezes.
Bustling hostlers are standing around them, and patting with hollow
Hands their resounding breasts, and combing their gracefully flowing
Manes. Then around his shoulders he places his corselet of scaly
Gold, and of white orichalcum: at once he attaches for wearing
Sword and shield, and the cones of his deep-red plumage-the very
Sword the Ignipotent god had himself for Daunus his parent
Fashioned, and plunged at a white heat into the Stygian billow.
Then, as amid his apartments, against a magnificent column
Leaned, it was standing, with vigor he seizes his powerful war-spear,
Spoil of Auruncan Actor, and tosses it quivering o'er him,

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Shouting out: "Now, O spear, that hast never dishonored my summons,
Now is the time! Once wielded thee mightiest Actor, and Turnus'
Right hand wieldeth thee now: O grant that I level his carcass
Low; that I rend with my powerful hand the enveloping breast-plate
Wrenched from the Phrygian eunuch, and draggle in ordure the ringlets
Frizzled with heated iron, and dripping with myrrh in profusion."
Thus is he driven by furies, and, blazing from all of his features,
Sparkles are starting, and fire in his keen eye flashes defiance:
Just as a bull, when enraged at the onset of battle, terrific
Bellowings rouses, and strives in his horns to embody his anger,
Butting the trunk of a tree, and assails the winds with his wrathful

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Lunges, or paws up the scattering sand, as a challenge to combat.
Meanwhile Æneas no less, in the armor bestowed by his mother,
Savagely whets up Mars, and enkindles himself in his choler,
Glad that the war is to close on the base of his offered proposal.
Then does he solace his comrades and fear of the saddened Iülus,
Citing the fates, and he orders the herald to carry his definite answers
Back to the monarch Latinus, and tell him the terms of agreement.

Scarce was the following day, as it rose, bestrewing the mountain
Tops with its light, when as soon as the steeds of the sun are emerging
Out of the fathomless surges, and sniffing the air with distended
Nostrils, Rutulian nobles and Trojan were under the mighty
City's defences preparing to measure the ground for the contest,
Right in the midst of the hearths, and the grass-grown altars of common
Deities. Others were bringing the font and the fire for the service,
Decked with the apron, and having their temples enwreathed in verbena.
Forth the Ausonian legion advances, and halberted squadrons
Stream from the crowded portals; and yonder in various armor
Rushes the Trojan battalion and all the Tyrrhenian army,

Just as completely accoutred in steel, as if summons the roughest

Battle of Mars. The commanders themselves in the midst of the thousands 125
Proudly are flitting about in their gold and purple equipments:
Mnestheus, Assaracus' offspring, is there, and the valiant Asilas;
There is the tamer of horses Messapus, descendant of Neptune.
Each, when the signal was given, retired to his separate station;

Fix they their spears in the ground, and recline on their bucklers in waiting. 130
Then in their eagerness issued the matrons and weaponless rabble;

Old and decrepit men on the turrets and roofs of the houses

Clustered, while others are standing alert at the towering gateways.

But from the top of the mound which at present is known as the AlbanThen to the mountain was neither a name, nor an honor, nor glory— Juno was gazing aloof on the plain, and on both of the armies, Trojan as well as Laurentian, watching the town of Latinus. Presently thus has the goddess accosted the sister of Turnus,

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Deified now as a goddess, who rules o'er the stagnant and roaring

Rivers: this dignity Jupiter, sovereign exalted of æther,

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Sacredly settled in lieu of her ravished virginity on her:

"Pride of the streams, O nymph to my soul most grateful, thou knowest How, that of all the Latian maidens, thou art the only

One to ascend to magnanimous Jupiter's couch of unkindness,

Whom I have favored, and cheerfully placed in a portion of heaven;

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Learn now-lest thou accuse me-Juturna, the cause of thy troubles.
Wherever fortune appeared to allow, and were destinies letting
Latium's interests prosper, I shielded thy city and Turnus;
Now I the champion see about to engage with unequal

Fates, and his day, and the destinies' hostile might are approaching.

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I cannot bear to behold with my eyes this fight and the treaties;
If thou darest resort to aught else in behalf of thy brother,

On, it becometh thee. Possibly luck may accrue to the luckless."

Scarce were these said, when Juturna shed tears from her eyes, and convulsive

Thrice, yea, and four times smote with her hand on her generous bosom.

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"This is no time for thy tears," exclaims the Saturnian Juno,

"Hasten, if means can achieve it, and rescue thy brother from ruin,

Otherwise rally the battles, and baffle the inchoate treaty:

I am thy patron in venturing." Thus she exhorted and left her,

Dazed, and disturbed by the grievous wound of her mind as she pondered. 160 Meanwhile the monarchs-Latinus of corpulent stature

Rides in his four-horsed chariot; twice six radiant golden

Spangles encircle his glittering temples around, the resplendent
Type of the sun his progenitor: Turnus proceeds on his white span,
Grasping in hand with their broad steel mountings a couple of lances:
Following father Æneas, the source of the Roman descendence
Blazing in starry shield, and accoutred in armor celestial;
Near him Ascanius, too, the successional hope of imperial Roma-
Onward advance to the camps. In immaculate vesture the high-priest
Forward the young of a bristly sow, and a ewe that was unshorn
Brought, and the cattle arranged by the blazing altars in waiting.
Turning their eyes to the rising sun they religiously offer
Salted fruits in their hands, and the temple-tips of the victims
Mark with a knife, and pour out libations from bowls on the altars.
Then does the pious Æneas, unsheathing his falchion, pray thus:
"Be now my witness, O Sun, and this land of my solemn invoking,
Thou for whose sake I have such sore trials been able to suffer;
Thou, too, omnipotent Father, and thou his Saturnian Consort-
Kinder now goddess, now kinder I pray thee-and notable Mavors,
Thou who, O Father, all battles beneath thy divinity swayest,
Fountains, and Rivers I summon, and all that is worshipped in lofty
Æther, and all the divinities shrined in cerulean ocean,
If it should happen that victory side with Ausonian Turnus,
It is agreed that the conquered retire to the town of Evander,

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Youthful Iülus withdraw from the fields, and Æneans no longer

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