Et furiis agitatus amor, et conscia virtus. Ut primùm discussæ umbræ, et lux reddita menti est, 670 675 Turbidus, èque rotis magnam respexit ad urbem. Perque hostes, per tela ruit, moestamque sororem At pater Æneas, audito nomine Turni, 687. Improbus. That rushes on with uncontrollable force. 685 690 695 intermingled grief, and love racked with furious despair, and conscious worth. Soon as the clouds were dispelled, and light to his mind restored, towards the walls he rolled his flaming eye-balls in turbulence of soul, and from his car surveyed the spacious city. When lo, among the planks a whirling torrent of flames in rolling waves ascended to heaven, and had seized the tower; the tower which himself of jointed beams had reared, and under it wheels applied, and with stately bridges overlaid. Sister, he cries, now, now, Destiny prevails; forbear to stop me; let us follow where the god within me, and rigid fortune calls. I am resolved to enter the lists with Æneas; whatever bitterness is in death, I am resolved to bear it : nor, sister, shall you see me longer in disgrace. Permit me first, I pray, to give vent to this fury. He said, and instantly from his chariot sprang with a bound upon the plain; through foes, through darts he rushes, and leaves his mourning sister, and with rapid speed burst through the middle ranks. And as when a rock tumbles precipitately down from a mountain's top, torn by the winds, whether furious rains have washed it by degrees away, or undermining time by length of years hath loosened it; down the precipice abrupt the pertinacious fragment of the mountain with vast impulse is hurried, and bounds over the ground, sweeping away with it woods, and flocks, and men: just so through the broken troops Turnus rushes to the walls of the city, where to a vast extent the earth is drenched in effused blood, and the air hisses with javelins. With his hand he makes a sign, and at the same time thus with a loud voice begins: Now, Rutulians, forbear, and, ye Latins, withhold your darts; whatever fortune of the war remains is mine: it is more equitable that I alone expiate the violated league in your stead, and by the sword decide the strife. At this all the troops retired from between them, and made room for the combat. But father Æneas, having heard Turnus' name, forsakes the walls, and forsakes the lofty towers, and spurns at all delays: all his begun enterprises he breaks off, Lætitiâ exsultans, horrendùmque intonat armis ; 700 705 710 Atque illi, ut vacuo patuerunt æquore campi, 715 720 Concurrunt clypeis: ingens fragor æthera complet. Jupiter ipse duas æquato examine lances 725 Sustinet, et fata imponit diversa duorum ; Quem damnet labor, et quo vergat pondere lethum. Emicat hic, impunè putans, et corpore toto Altè sublatum consurgit Turnus in ensem, Et ferit. Exclamant Troës, trepidique Latini, 730 715. Sila-Taburno. Sila is a vast forest of the Apennines in Calabria; Taburnus, a mountain on the confines of Campania. 725. Equato examine. Examen is the tongue or needle of the balance, which, being exactly in equilibrio, shows the scales to be equal. 727. Quem damnet labor. This is taken in the translatation in Servius' sense, quem felix labor damnet votis, as in Ecl. v. 80. Damnabis tú quoque votis; i. e. You too shall crown our prayers with success, and so oblige us to the performance of our vows, exulting with joy, and thunders dreadful in arms; as grand and majestic as Athos, grand as Eryx, or grand as the parent mountain Apenninus himself, when with his waving oaks he roars, and glories in his snowy top, exalting himself to the skies. And now both Rutulians, and Trojans, and all the Italians eagerly turned their eyes: both those who on high guarded the battlements, and those who with the ram battered the walls below: their arms they laid down from their shoulders. Latinus himself with amazement views the mighty heroes, born in distant quarters of the globe, encountering each other, and deciding their quarrel with the sword. They, soon as the lists in the spacious plain were cleared, having with rapid onset flung their javelins from afar, rush to the combat with shields and arms of brass resounding. Earth gives a groan; then stroke on stroke they redouble. Chance and courage are blended together. And as in Sila's spacious grove, or on lofty mount Taburnus, when two bulls with butting fronts rush on the hostile combat, the shepherds in consternation have fled; all the cattle stand dumb with fear, the heifers faintly low, dubious which shall rule the herd, whom the whole drove are to obey they with prodigious force deal promiscuous wounds to each other, and struggling keenly infix their horns, and with profusion of blood lave their necks and shoulders: the whole grove rebellows with their groans. Just so impetuous the Trojan prince Eneas and the Daunian hero, with shields against each other tilting, rush forward their arms loud clashing fill the skies. Great Jove on high sustains two equally-poised scales, and puts into them the different fates of both; to show whom the toilsome combat destines to victory, and in which scale death sinks down. Here Turnus, presuming he might with safety, springs forth, and on his tiptoes rises with the force of his whole body to his uplifted sword, and discharges a blow. The Trojans and trembling Latins shriek aloud, and both armies are fixed in suspense. Others, however, understand it thus; Whom the combat devotes to ruin, etc. Arrectæque amborum acies. At perfidus ensis 740 Dum trepidat, ferrum aurigæ rapuisse Metisci : 750 Mille fugit refugitque vías: at vividus Umber Hæret hians, jam jamque tenet, similisque tenenti, Increpuit malis, morsuque elusus inani est : 755 Tum verò exoritur clamor, ripæque lacusque Nomine quemque vocans, notumque efflagitat ensem. 760 750. Pennae. This was a rope stuck with feathers to inclose and frighten the deer. |