No happy chance on art attends,
No patron god the leech befriends:
And wilder grows the fierce alarm,
And nearer yet the deadly harm:
The thick dust props the skies:
The tramp of cavalry they hear,
And ’mid the encampment dart and spear
Rain down before their eyes:
And dismal rings the mingled cry
Of those that fight and those that die.
Then Venus, all a mother’s heart
Touched by her son’s unworthy smart,
Plucks dittany, a simple rare,
From Ida’s summit brown,
With flower of purple, bright and fair,
And leaf of softest down:
Well known that plant to mountain goat,
Should arrow pierce its shaggy coat.
There as they toil, she brings the cure,
Her bright face wrapped in cloudy hood,
And drops it where in shining ewer
The crystal water stood,
With juices of ambrosia blent
And panace of fragrant scent.
So with the medicated flood
The sage unknowing stanched the blood:
When all at once the anguish fled,
And the torn flesh no longer bled.
Now at a touch, no violence used,
Drops out the barbed dart,
And strength by heavenly aid infused
Revives the fainting heart.
‘Arms for the valiant chief!’ exclaims
Iapis: ‘why so slow?’
The gentle leech the first inflames
The warrior ’gainst the foe.
‘Not human help, nor sovereign art,
Nor old Iapis healed that smart:
’Tis Heaven that interferes, to save
For greater deeds the strength it gave.’
The chief, impatient of delays,
His legs in pliant gold arrays,
And to and fro his javelin sways.
And now, his corslet round his breast,
In his mailed arms his child he pressed,
Kissed through his helm, and thus addressed:
‘Learn of your father to be great,
Of others to be fortunate,
This hand awhile shall be your shield
And lead you safe from field to field:
When grown yourself to manhood’s prime,
Remember those of former time,
Recall each venerable name,
And catch heroic fire
From Hector’s and Æneas’ fame,
Your uncle and your sire.’
A godlike chief, of stature vast,
Shaking his ashen beam:
Mnestheus and Antheus and their train
With kindred speed o’er all the plain
From trench and rampart stream.
Thick blinding dust the champaign fills,
And earth with trampling throbs and thrills.
Pale Turnus saw them leave the height:
The Ausonians saw, and chilly fright
Through all their senses ran:
Foremost of all the Latian crew
Juturna heard the sound and knew,
And left the battle’s van.
Onward he flies, and whirls along
Through the wide plain his blackening throng.
As, burst from heaven, with headlong sweep
A storm comes landward from the deep:
Through rustic hearts faint terrors creep
As coming ill they taste:
Ah yes! ’twill lay the standing corn,
Will scatter trees from earth uptorn,
And make the land a waste:
The winds, its couriers, fly before,
And waft its muttering to the shore:
So the dread Trojan sweeps along
Down on the hostile swarm;
In close battalions, firm and strong,
His followers round him form.
Osiris feels Thymbræus’ blow,
At Mnestheus’ feet Anchetius lies.
Achates slaughters Epulo,
By Gyas Ufens dies:
E’en proud Tolumnius falls, the seer
Who ’gainst the foe first hurled his spear.
Upsoars to heaven a mingled shout:
In turn the Rutules yield,
And huddled thick in dusty rout
Fly wildly o’er the field.
But he, he stoops him not to smite
The craven backs that turn to flight,
Nor chases those who stand and fight,
Intent on other aims:
Turnus alone he cares to track
Through dust and darkness, blinding black,
Turnus alone he claims.
Juturna, agonised with fear,
Metiscus, Turnus’ charioteer,
Flings from his seat on high,
And leaves him fallen at distance far:
Herself succeeds him, guides the car,
And bids the coursers fly;
In voice, in form, in dress complete,
The hapless driver’s counterfeit.
As swallow through some mansion flies
With courts and stately galleries,
Flaps noisy wing, gives clamorous tongue,
Still catering for her callow young,
Makes cloisters echo to the sound,
And tank and cistern circles round,
So whirls the dame her glowing car,
So flashes through the maze of war;
Now here, now there, in conquering pride
Her brother she displays,
Yet lets him not the encounter bide,
But winds through devious ways.
Nor less Æneas shifts and wheels,
Pursues and tracks him out,
And clamouring to his faith appeals
Across the weltering rout:
Oft as he marks the foe, and tries
To match the chariot as it flies,
So oft her scourge Juturna plies,
And turns her steeds about.
What should he do? he undulates
With aimless ebb and flow:
His bosom’s passionate debates
Distract him to and fro.
Messapus then, who chanced to wield
Two quivering darts, for battle steeled,
Takes one, and levels with his eye,
And bids it at Æneas fly.
The Trojan halts, and making pause
His arms around him closer draws,
On bended knee firm stayed:
The javelin struck the helmet’s cone,
And razed the plume that, tossed and blown,
High on its summit played.
Then surges fury high, to know
The baseness of the treacherous foe,
As horse and car he sees afar
Careering o’er the plain:
To the just Gods appeal he makes
Who watch the league that Turnus breaks:
Then charges resolute to kill,
Lets reckless slaughter rage her fill,
And gives his wrath the rein.
And all those horrors tell,
What gallant chiefs throughout the plain
By Turnus now, pursued and slain,
Now by Æneas fell!
Was it thy will, almighty Jove,
To such extreme of conflict drove
Two nations, doomed in peace and love
Through after years to dwell?
First of the Rutules
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