Aeneid IX.621-716
Ascanius has a victory. Turnus has a string of victories.
Ascanius did not tolerate such boastful words and dire warnings
but, facing him, fitted an arrow to the horsehair string and,
straining his arms apart, paused and first prayed humbly to Jove,
making these vows: “All-powerful Jupiter, assent to my bold attempt.
I myself will bring gifts each year to your temple,
and I’ll place before your altar a snow-white bullock
with gilded forehead, carrying his head as high as his mother,
already butting with his horns and scattering sand with his hooves.”
The Father heard, and thundered on the left
from a clear sky as one the fatal bow twanged.
The taut arrow sped onwards with a dreadful hiss
and passed through Remulus’s brow and split the hollow
temples with its steel. “Go on, mock at virtue with proud words!
This is the reply the twice-conquered Phrygians send the Rutulians:”
Ascanius said nothing more. The Trojans followed this
with cheers, shouted for joy, and raised their spirits to the skies.
Now by chance long-haired Apollo, seated in the cloudy
skies, looked down on the Italian ranks and the town,
and spoke to the victorious Iulus as follows:
“Blessings on your fresh courage, boy, scion of gods
and ancestor of gods yet to be, so it is man rises
to the stars. All the wars that destiny might bring
will rightly cease under the rule of Assaracus’s house,
Troy does not limit you.” With this he launched himself
from high heaven, parted the living air, and found
Ascanius; then changed the form of his features
to old Butes. He was once armour-bearer to Trojan
Anchises, and faithful guardian of the threshold:
then Ascanius’s father made him the boy’s companion.
As he walked Apollo was like the old man in every way,
in voice and colouring, white hair and clanging of harsh
weapons, and he spoke these words to the ardent Iulus:
“Enough, son of Aeneas, that Numanus has fallen to your bow
and is un-avenged. Mighty Apollo grants you this first glory,
and does not begrudge you your like weapons;
but avoid the rest of the battle, boy.” So Apollo
spoke and in mid-speech left mortal sight
and vanished far from men’s eyes into clear air.
The Trojan princes recognised the god and his celestial
weapons and heard his quiver rattling as he flew.
So, given the god’s words and his divine will, they stopped
Ascanius, eager for the fight, while themselves returning
to the battle and openly putting their lives at risk.
The clamour rang through the towers along the whole wall,
they bent their bows quickly and whirled their slings.
The whole earth was strewn with spears, shields and hollow
helmets clanged as they clashed together, the battle grew fierce;
vast as a rainstorm from the west lashing the ground
beneath watery Auriga,1 and dense as the hail the clouds hurl
into the waves when Jupiter, bristling with southerlies,
twirls the watery tempest and bursts the sky’s cavernous vapours.
Pandarus and Bitias, sons of Alcanor from Ida, whom Iaera
the wood-nymph bore in Jupiter’s grove, youths tall
as the pine-trees on their native hills, threw open the gate
entrusted to them by their leader’s command and, relying on
their weapons, drew the Rutulian enemy within the walls.
They themselves stood in the gate in front of the towers to right
and left, steel armoured, with plumes waving on their noble heads:
just as twin oaks rise up into the air by flowing rivers,
on the banks of the Po or by delightful Athesis,2 lifting
their shaggy heads to the sky and nodding their tall crowns.
When they saw the entrance clear the Rutulians rushed through:
at once Quercens and Aquicolus, handsome in his armour,
Tmarus, impulsive at heart, and Haemon, a son of Mars,
were routed with all their Rutulian ranks and took to their heels,
or laid down their lives on the very threshold of the gate.
Then the anger grew fiercer in their fighting spirits,
and soon the Trojans gathering massed in the same place
and dared to fight hand to hand and advance further outside.
The news reached Turnus, the Rutulian leader, as he raged
and troubled the lines in a distant part of the field, that the enemy,
hot with fresh slaughter, were laying their doors wide open.
He left what he had begun and, roused to savage fury,
he ran towards the Trojan gate and the proud brothers.
And first he brought Antiphates down with a spear throw
(since he was first to advance), bastard son of noble Sarpedon
by a Theban mother: the Italian cornel-wood shaft flew through
the clear air and, fixing in his belly, ran deep up into his chest;
the hollow of the dark wound released a foaming flow,
and the metal became warm in the pierced lung.
Then he overthrew Meropes and Erymas with his hand,
and then Aphidnus, then Bitias, fire in his eyes, clamour
in his heart, not to a spear (he would never have lost his life
to a spear) but a javelin arrived with a great hiss, hurled
and driven like a thunderbolt, that neither two bulls’ hides
nor the faithful breastplate with double scales of gold
could resist; the mighty limbs collapsed and fell,
earth groaned and the huge shield clanged above him.
So a rock pile sometimes falls on Baiae’s Euboean shore,
first constructed of huge blocks, then toppled into the sea;
as it falls it trails havoc behind, tumbles into the shallows
and settles in the depths; the sea swirls in confusion
and the dark sand rises upwards, then Procida’s
lofty island trembles at the sound and Ischia’s isle’s
harsh floor,3 laid down over Typhoeus at Jove’s command.
Talia iactantem dictis ac dira canentem
non tulit Ascanius, nervoque obversus equino
contendit telum diversaque bracchia ducens
constitit, ante Iovem supplex per vota precatus:
'Iuppiter omnipotens, audacibus adnve coeptis. 625
ipse tibi ad tua templa feram sollemnia dona,
et statuam ante aras aurata fronte iuvencum
candentem pariterque caput cum matre ferentem,
iam cornu petat et pedibus qui spargat harenam.'
audiit et caeli genitor de parte serena 630
intonuit laevum, sonat una fatifer arcus.
effugit horrendum stridens adducta sagitta
perque caput Remuli venit et cava tempora ferro
traicit. 'i, verbis virtutem inlude superbis!
bis capti Phryges haec Rutulis responsa remittunt': 635
hoc tantum Ascanius. Teucri clamore sequuntur
laetitiaque fremunt animosque ad sidera tollunt.
Aetheria tum forte plaga crinitus Apollo
desuper Ausonias acies urbemque videbat
nube sedens, atque his victorem adfatur Iulum: 640
'macte nova virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra,
dis genite et geniture deos. iure omnia bella
gente sub Assaraci fato ventura resident,
nec te Troia capit.' simul haec effatus ab alto
aethere se mittit, spirantis dimovet auras 645
Ascaniumque petit; forma tum vertitur oris
antiquum in Buten. hic Dardanio Anchisae
armiger ante fuit fidusque ad limina custos;
tum comitem Ascanio pater addidit. ibat Apollo
omnia longaevo similis vocemque coloremque 650
et crinis albos et saeva sonoribus arma,
atque his ardentem dictis adfatur Iulum:
'sit satis, Aenide, telis impune Numanum
oppetiisse tuis. primam hanc tibi magnus Apollo
concedit laudem et paribus non invidet armis; 655
cetera parce, puer, bello.' sic orsus Apollo
mortalis medio aspectus sermone reliquit
et procul in tenuem ex oculis evanuit auram.
agnovere deum proceres divinaque tela
Dardanidae pharetramque fuga sensere sonantem. 660
ergo avidum pugnae dictis ac numine Phoebi
Ascanium prohibent, ipsi in certamina rursus
succedunt animasque in aperta pericula mittunt.
it clamor totis per propugnacula muris,
intendunt acris arcus amentaque torquent. 665
sternitur omne solum telis, tum scuta cavaeque
dant sonitum flictu galeae, pugna aspera surgit:
quantus ab occasu veniens pluvialibus Haedis
verberat imber humum, quam multa grandine nimbi
in vada praecipitant, cum Iuppiter horridus Austris 670
torquet aquosam hiemem et caelo cava nubila rumpit.
Pandarus et Bitias, Idaeo Alcanore creti,
quos Iovis eduxit luco silvestris Iaera
abietibus iuvenes patriis et montibus aequos,
portam, quae ducis imperio commissa, recludunt 675
freti armis, ultroque invitant moenibus hostem.
ipsi intus dextra ac laeva pro turribus astant
armati ferro et cristis capita alta corusci:
quales aeriae liquentia flumina circum
sive Padi ripis Athesim seu propter amoenum 680
consurgunt geminae quercus intonsaque caelo
attollunt capita et sublimi vertice nutant.
inrumpunt aditus Rutuli ut videre patentis:
continuo Quercens et pulcher Aquiculus armis
et praeceps animi Tmarus et Mavortius Haemon 685
agminibus totis aut versi terga dedere
aut ipso portae posuere in limine vitam.
tum magis increscunt animis discordibus irae,
et iam collecti Troes glomerantur eodem
et conferre manum et procurrere longius audent. 690
Ductori Turno diversa in parte furenti
turbantique viros perfertur nuntius, hostem
fervere caede nova et portas praebere patentis.
deserit inceptum atque immani concitus ira
Dardaniam ruit ad portam fratresque superbos. 695
et primum Antiphaten (is enim se primus agebat),
Thebana de matre nothum Sarpedonis alti,
coniecto sternit iaculo: volat Itala cornus
aera per tenerum stomachoque infixa sub altum
pectus abit; reddit specus atri vulneris undam 700
spumantem, et fixo ferrum in pulmone tepescit.
tum Meropem atque Erymanta manu, tum sternit Aphidnum,
tum Bitian ardentem oculis animisque frementem,
non iaculo (neque enim iaculo vitam ille dedisset),
sed magnum stridens contorta phalarica venit 705
fulminis acta modo, quam nec duo taurea terga
nec duplici squama lorica fidelis et auro
sustinuit; conlapsa ruunt immania membra,
dat tellus gemitum et clipeum super intonat ingens.
talis in Euboico Baiarum litore quondam 710
saxea pila cadit, magnis quam molibus ante
constructam ponto iaciunt, sic illa ruinam
prona trahit penitusque vadis inlisa recumbit;
miscent se maria et nigrae attolluntur harenae,
tum sonitu Prochyta alta tremit durumque cubile 715
Inarime Iovis imperiis imposta Typhoeo.
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