BOOK XII

WHEN Turnus sees that the War-god's enmity has broken the spirit of Latium, that men are beginning to claim his promise, and make him the mark of their eyes, he bursts at once into fury unappeasable, and swells his pride to the height. As in Punic land, when the hunters 5 have wounded him deep in the breast, the lion at last rouses himself to fight, tosses with fierce joy his mane from his neck, snaps fearlessly the brigand's spear in the wound, and roars from his gory mouth: even so, Turnus once kindled, his vehemence grows each moment. Then he 10 addresses the king, and dashes hotly into speech: "Turnus stops not the way: Eneas and his cowards have no plea for retracting their challenge or disowning their plighted word; I meet the combat; bring the sacred things, good father, and solemnize the truce. Either will I with my own 15 right hand send the Dardan down to Tartarus, the runaway from Asia - let the Latians sit by and see - and with my single weapon refute the slander of a nation; or let the vanquished own their master and Lavinia be the conqueror's bride."

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With calm dignity of soul the king makes answer: "Gallant youth, the greater your impetuous valour, the more watchful must needs be my foresight, the more anxious my scrutiny of all that may happen. You have your father Daunus' kingdom, you have many a town 25 won by your own sword: I that speak have gold and a heart to give it; in Latium and Laurentum's land are other unwedded maidens, of no unworthy lineage. Suffer me without disguise to give voice to these unwelcome sayings, and take home what I speak further: I was forbidden by 30

Fate to give my daughter to any of her early suitors: so sang gods and men alike. Conquered by my love for you, conquered by the ties of kindred and the sorrow of my weeping queen, I set all pledges at naught, I snatched 5 the bride from her plighted husband. I drew the unhallowed sword. From that fatal day you see what troubles, what wars are let loose upon me; you know the weight of the sufferings which you are the first to feel. Twice var quished in a mighty conflict, we scarce protect by our bulIo warks the hopes of Italy: Tiber's waters are yet steaming with our blood, and the spacious plains are whitened by our bones. Whither am I drifting again and again? what madness turns my brain? If on the death of Turnus I am ready to welcome these new allies, why should I not 15 end the strife while he lives and is safe? What will our

Rutulian kinsmen say, what the rest of Italy, if - may Fortune forefend the omen!-I give you up to death, you, a suitor for my alliance, for my daughter's hand? Think of the uncertainties of war; have pity on your aged 20 sire, now biding forlornly far away in his Ardean home!"

These words abate not Turnus' vehemence a whit: it starts up fiercer, more virulent for the healing hand. Soon as he can find utterance, he thus begins: "The care you take for my sake, best of fathers, lay down for my 25 sake, I beg, and suffer me to pledge my life for my honour. My hand, too, can scatter darts and fling steel with no feeble force; my blows, too, fetch blood. He will not have his goddess-mother within call, to hide her craven son in an unmanly cloud, and conceal herself by help of treacherous 30 shadows."

But the queen, appalled by the new hazard of the combat, was all in tears, clinging to her fiery son-in-law with the convulsive grasp of death: "Turnus, by these my tears, by any regard you cherish for Amata you are 35 now our only hope, our only solace in our forlorn old age

the honour and power of the king are in your hands; on you, its one pillar, the whole house leans. I ask but this forbear to cross swords with the Teucrians. What

ever chance waits on you in this unhappy combat, waits on me, too, my Turnus; along with you I shall leave the hated light, nor see in Æneas my son-in-law and my conqueror.'

As Lavinia heard her mother's voice, her glowing cheeks 5 were bathed in tears; a deep blush kindled a fire, and shot over her flushing face. As when a man has stained Indian ivory with blood-red purple, or like a bed of lilies and roses mixed such hues were seen on the maiden's countenance. He, bewildered with passion, fixes his eyes upon her: the 10 sight makes him burn the more for battle, and thus he addresses Amata in brief: "Let me not have tears nor aught so ominous, dear mother, as my escort to the iron battle; Turnus is not free to postpone the call of death. Go, Idmon, and bear the Phrygian despot a message that 15 will like him not: Soon as the goddess of to-morrow's dawn shall fire the sky with the glow of her chariot, let him not spur the Teucrians against the Rutulians; let Teucrian and Rutulian sheath their swords, while we twain with our own life-blood decide the war. Let 20 Lavinia's hand be sought and won in yonder field."

So he spoke, and rushed back within doors: he calls for his steeds, and joys to look on them snorting and neighing

the steeds which Orithyia gave as a present to Pilumnus, to surpass the snows in whiteness, the winds in speed. 25 Round them stand the bustling charioteers, patting their chests with hollow palms and combing their maned necks. Next he throws round his shoulders his hauberk, stiff with scales of gold and dazzling orichalc, and adjusts to his wear the sword, the shield, and the cones of the crimson 30 crest that sword the Fire-god's own hand had made for his father Daunus, and tempered it glowing in the Stygian wave. Lastly, the spear which was standing in the palace-hall, propped by a mighty column, the spoil of Auruncan Actor, he seizes forcefully, sturdy as it is, 35 and shakes till it quivers, crying aloud: "Now, my good spear, that hast never failed my call, now is the time; once wast thou swayed by giant Actor, now by Turnus:

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grant that I may lay low the emasculate Phrygian, strip and rend his hauberk by strength of hand, and soil in the dust those ringlets curled with hot iron and moist with myrrh." So he rages, fury-driven sparks flash from the 5 furnace of his countenance, lightnings dart from his fiery eyes; as when a bull in view of a fight raises fearful bellowing, and calls up rage into his horns by butting against a tree's trunk, challenges the wind with his blows, and spurns the flying sand in prelude for the fray.

With equal fierceness Eneas, clad in his mother's armour, sharpens valour's edge, and lashes his heart with wrath, joying that proffered truce should end the war. Then he calms his comrades' fear and the grief of Iulus, talking of destiny, and sends envoys with an answer to the Latian king, to name the conditions of peace.

Scarce had the next morrow begun to sprinkle the mountain-tops with light, at the time when the sun's steeds first come up from the deep and breathe flakes of radiance from their upturned nostrils, when Rutulians 20 and Teucrians were at work, measuring out lists for combat under the ramparts of the mighty town, with hearths in the midst, and altars of turf for their common gods. Others were carrying fire and spring water, begirt with aprons, vervain° wreaths on their brows. Forth moves 25 the Ausonian army, bands with lifted javelins issuing from the crowded gates. From yonder quarters pours the Trojan and Tuscan force, with the arms of their several countries, harnessed as if summoned by the War-god's bloody fray. In the midst of either squadrons the gen30 erals flash along, glorious in gold and purple, Mnestheus, Assaracus' seed, and Asilas the brave, and Messapus, tamer of horses, the progeny of Neptune. At a given signal each army retreats within its confines; spears are fixed in the ground, and bucklers rested at ease. Matrons 35 in yearning eagerness, and unarmed masses, and tottering old men, fill turret and roof, or stand by the lofty portals. But Juno, from the top of the mount now styled Alban in those days it had no name, nor glory, nor honour

was looking in prospect on the plain, the two armies, Trojan and Laurentine, and the Latian town. At once she addressed Turnus' sister, a goddess herself, who presides over the pool and the brawling stream such dignity Jove, the king of heaven, solemnly made hers in return for 5 violated maidenhood: "Sweet Nymph, glory of the rivers, favourite of my heart, you know how I have preferred you to all Latium's daughters who have climbed the odious bed of our great Master and have gladly given you a seat in the sky; and now, Juturna, learn from me your sorrow, for 10 which I am not to blame. So long as Fortune seemed favourable and Fate allowed Latium to prosper, I spread my shield over Turnus and these your walls: now I see the youth engaged with a destiny mightier than his own, and the day of doom and the power of the enemy are at 15 hand. I cannot look on the combat, nor on the league that ushers it in. If you have the nerve to dare aught for your brother, go on; it is a sister's part: perhaps the downtrodden have a better lot in store." Ere she had well ended Juturna's tears sprang forth, and thrice and again 20 her hand smote on her lovely breast. "No time for tears," cries Saturn's daughter: "quick, and if any way there be, snatch your brother from death: or at least revive the warand mar the treaty while yet on their lips. Remember, I warrant the attempt." With such advice she left her 25 wavering in purpose and staggering under the cruel blow.

Meantime the monarchs appear, the stately form of the Latian king riding in a four-horse car, his brows gleaming with a circle of twelve gilded rays, the cognizance of the Sun his grandsire: Turnus is drawn by a snow-white pair, two 30 spears with broad iron points quivering in his hands. Then comes father Æneas, the parent stock of the Roman tree, blazing with his starry shield and celestial armour, and at his side Ascanius, the second hope of mighty Rome, both issuing from their camp: while a priest in stainless robe 35 has brought the young of a bristly boar and an unclipped sheep of two years old, and placed the victims by the blazing altar. They, turning their eyes to the rising sun,