No time shall make the treaty vain,
Whate’er to-day’s event;
No violence shall my will constrain,
Though earth were scattered in the main
And Styx with ether blent:
E’en as this sceptre’ (as he swore
A sceptre in his hand he bore)
‘Shall ne’er put forth or leaf or gem,
Since severed from its parent stem
Foliage and branch it lost;
’Twas once a tree; now workman’s care
Has given it Latium’s kings to bear,
With seemly bronze embossed.’
Thus chief and chief in open sight
With solemn words the treaty plight;
Then o’er the flame they slay
The hallowed victims, strip the flesh
Yet quick with life, and warm and fresh
On loaded altars lay.
Unequal seems the chance of fight,
Ill matched the champions twain,
And fitfully their bosoms heave
As near and nearer they perceive
The encounter on the plain.
Compassion deepening into dread,
They note young Turnus’ quiet tread,
The downcast meekness of his eyes
Turned to the hearth in suppliant guise.
Cheeks whence the bloom of health is gone,
And that young frame so ghastly wan.
Juturna saw their whispers grow,
And marked them wavering to and fro:
Then, like to Camers’ form and face—
A warrior he of noblest race,
Long by his father’s exploits known
And long by valour of his own—
She joins their ranks, each heart to read,
And sows in all dissension’s seed:
‘Shame, shame, ye Rutules, thus to try
The coward hazard of the die!
A myriad warrior lives to shun
The deadly risk reserved for one!
Compute the numbers and the powers:
Say whose the vantage, theirs or ours?
Behold them all, in arms allied,
Troy and Arcadia, side by side,
And all Etruria, leagued in hate
Of him, our chief, the men of fate!
Take half our force, we scarce should know
Each for himself to find a foe.
Ay, Turnus’ name to heaven shall rise,
Devoted to whose shrines he dies,
On lips of thousands borne:
We, as in listless ease we sit,
To foreign tyrants shall submit,
And our lost country mourn.’
By whisper thus and chance-dropped word
Their hearts to further rage are stirred:
From band to band the murmur runs:
Changed are Laurentum’s fickle sons,
Changed is the Latin throng:
Who late were hoping war to cease,
Now yearn for arms, abhor the peace,
And pity Turnus’ wrong.
Now, heaping fuel on the flame,
With new resource the crafty dame
Displays in heaven a sign:
No evidence more strongly wrought
On Italy’s deluded thought,
As ’twere indeed divine.
Jove’s royal bird in pride of place
Was putting river-fowl in chase
And all the feathery crew,
When swooping from the ruddy sky,
Off from the flood he bears on high
A swan of dazzling hue.
The Italians gaze, when lo! the rout
Turn from their flight and face about,
In blackening mass obscure the skies,
And clustering close with shrill sharp cries
Their mighty foe pursue,
Till he, by force and weight o’erborne,
Dropped river-ward his prey untorn
And off to distance flew.
With loud acclaim the Rutule bands
Salute the portent of the skies:
Aloft they raise their eager hands,
And first the seer Tolumnius cries:
‘For this, for this my prayers have striven:
I hail, I seize the omen given;
Draw, draw with me the sword,
Poor Rutules, whom the pirate base
Puts like unwarlike birds in chase,
And spoils your river-board.
Yes, he will fly if you pursue,
And vanish in the distant blue.
Close firm your ranks, and bring relief
And rescue to your ravished chief,
All, all with one accord.’
He said, and hurled, as forth he ran,
His javelin at the foeman’s van.
The hurtling cornel cuts the skies:
Loud clamours follow as it flies:
The assembly starts in wild alarm,
And hearts beat high with tumult warm.
There as nine brothers of one blood,
Gylippus’ Arcad offspring, stood,
One, with bright arms and beauty graced,
Receives the javelin in his waist,
Where chafes the belt against the groin
And ’neath the ribs the buckles join;
Pierced through and through he falls amain,
And lies extended on the plain.
His gallant brethren feel the smart;
With falchion drawn or brandished dart
They charge, struck blind with rage.
Laurentum’s host the stock withstand:
Like deluge bursting o’er the land
The Trojan force, the Agyllan band,
The Arcad troop engage.
Each burns alike with frantic zeal
To end the quarrel by the steel:
Stripped are the hearths; o’er all the sky
Dense iron showers in volleys fly:
With eager haste they run
To snatch the bowls and altar- sods:
Latinus takes his outraged gods
And leaves the league undone.
Those yoke again the battle-car,
These vault into the selle,
And wave their falchions, drawn for war,
To challenge or repel.
The king Aulestes, richly dressed
In robe and regal crown;
Spurning the truce, his horse he pressed,
And fiercely rides him down.
He with a backward spring retires,
And headlong falls ’mid altar-fires
That meet him in the rear:
Up spurs Messapus, hot with speed,
And as the pale lips vainly plead
Drives through him, towering on his steed,
His massy beam-like spear.
‘He has his death,’ the victor cries:
‘Heaven gains a worthier sacrifice.’
Around the corpse the Italians swarm,
And strip the limbs, yet reeking warm.
From blazing altar close at hand
Bold Corynæus seized a brand:
As Ebysus a death- wound aims,
Full in his face he dashed the flames.
The bushy beard that instant flares
And wafts a scent of burning hairs.
The conqueror rushes on his prize,
Wreathes in his hair his hand,
To his broad breast
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