Virgil

by W. Lucas Collins

Turnus has a sister, Juturna, a river-nymph and demi-goddess, a favourite of Juno, who has warned her if possible to save her brother. She now takes the place of his charioteer, and, while she drives rapidly over the field, takes care to keep him far from Æneas, who is calling loudly on him to halt and keep his compact of personal duel. At last the Trojan leader, baffled in this object, throws all his forces suddenly on the town, which lies almost at his mercy, stripped of its defenders, and bids his captains bring torches and scaling-ladders. A horseman, sorely wounded in the face, brings word of this new danger to Turnus as he is wheeling madly over the battle-field, and implores him to come to the rescue. He looks round towards the walls, and sees the flames already mounting. Then he rallies once more the old courage which had so strangely failed him. He sees his fate as clearly as before, but he will meet it. He knows his sister now, too late, in his charioteer; but he will fly no longer—“Is death such great wretchedness, after all?” He leaps from his chariot, as he knows, to meet it, lifts his hand, and shouts to his Rutulians to stay their hands, and the ranks of both armies divide before him as he makes towards the part of the wall where Æneas is leading the attack.

“But great Æneas, when he hears
The challenge of his foe,
The leaguer of the town forbears,
Lets town and rampart go,
Steps high with exultation proud,
And thunders on his arms aloud;
Vast as majestic Athos, vast
As Eryx the divine,
Or he that roaring with the blast
Heaves his huge bulk in snow-drifts massed,
The father Apennine.”

Trojans, Latins, and Rutulians look on in awe and admiration as the two chiefs advance to try this last ordeal of battle. Each hurl their spears—without effect; then Turnus draws his sword, and they fight on hand to hand—

“Giving and taking wounds alike,
With furious impact home they strike;
Shoulder and neck are bathed in gore:
The forest depths return the roar.
So, shield on shield, together dash
Æneas and his Daunian foe;
The echo of that deafening crash
Mounts heavenward from below.”

But the faithless sword which Turnus had so carelessly girded on instead of his father’s good weapon, though it has done him fair service on the crowd of meaner enemies, breaks in his grasp when he essays it on the armour of Æneas, and thus helpless, he takes to flight, Æneas hotly pursuing.

“Five times they circle round the place,
Five times the winding course retrace;
No trivial game is here: the strife
Is waged for Turnus’ own dear life.”

A dark-plumaged bird is seen to hover round the devoted head of the Rutulian chief, half blinding him with its flapping wings. It is a Fury whom the king of the gods has sent in that shape to harass him. At length, in his flight, he finds a huge stone, which not twelve men of “to-day’s degenerate sons” could lift.

“He caught it up, and at his foe
Discharged it, rising to the throw,
And straining as he runs.
But ’wildering fears his mind unman;
Running, he knew not that he ran,
Nor throwing that he threw;
Heavily move his sinking knees;
The streams of life wax dull and freeze:
The stone, as through the void it past,
Failed of the measure of its cast,
Nor held its purpose true.
E’en as in dreams, when on the eyes
The drowsy weight of slumber lies,
In vain to ply our limbs we think,
And in the helpless effort sink;
Tongue, sinews, all, their powers bely,
And voice and speech our call defy:
So, labour Turnus as he will,
The Fury mocks the endeavour still.
Dim shapes before his senses reel:
On host and town he turns his sight:
He quails, he trembles at the steel,
Nor knows to fly, nor knows to fight:
Nor to his pleading eyes appear
The car, the sister charioteer.

“The deadly dart Æneas shakes:
His aim with stern precision takes,
Then hurls with all his frame;
Less loud from battering-engine cast
Roars the fierce stone, less loud the blast
Follows the lightning’s flame.
On rushes as with whirlwind wings
The spear that dire destruction brings,
Makes passage through the corselet’s marge,
And enters the seven-plated targe
Where the last ring runs round.
The keen point pierces through the thigh,
Down on his bent knee heavily
Comes Turnus to the ground.”

The Rutulian prince confesses his defeat, and asks his life, in no craven spirit, for the sake of his aged father—bidding Æneas think of old Anchises. The conqueror half relents, when his eyes fall upon something which makes that appeal worse than useless.