Aeneid IX.717-818
Turnus has a Coriolanus moment.
At this, Mars, powerful in war, gave the Latins strength
and courage and twisted his sharp goad in their hearts,
and sent Rout and dark Fear against the Trojans.
Given the chance for action, the Latins came together
from every side, and the god of battle possessed their souls.
Pandarus, seeing his brother’s fallen corpse, and which side
fortune was on, and what fate was driving events,
pushed with a mighty heave of his broad shoulders
and swung the gate on its hinges, leaving many a comrade
locked outside the wall in the cruel conflict; but the rest
he greeted as they rushed in and shut in there with himself,
foolishly, not seeing the Rutulian king bursting through
among the mass, freely closing him inside the town
like a huge tiger among a helpless herd.
At once fresh fire flashed from Turnus’s eyes,
his weapons clashed fearfully, the blood-red plumes
on his helmet quivered, and lightning glittered from his shield.
In sudden turmoil the sons of Aeneas recognised that hated form
and those huge limbs. Then great Pandarus sprang forward,
blazing with anger at his brother’s death, shouting:
“This is not Queen Amata’s palace, given in dowry, or the heart
of Ardea, surrounding Turnus with his native walls.
You see an enemy camp: you can’t escape from here.”
Turnus, smiling, his thoughts calm, replied to him:
“Come then, if there’s courage in your heart, close with me:
you can go tell Priam that here too you found an Achilles.”
He spoke. Pandarus, straining with all his force, hurled
his spear rough with knots and un-stripped bark;
the wind took it, Saturnian Juno deflected
the imminent blow, and the spear stuck fast in the gate.
Turnus cried: “But you’ll not escape this weapon
my right arm wields with power, the source of this weapon
and wound is not such as you:” and he towered up, his sword
lifted, and with the blade cleft the forehead in two between
the temples, down to the beardless jaw, in an evil wound.
There was a crash: the ground shook under the vast weight;
Pandarus, dying, lowered his failing limbs and brain-spattered
weapons to the ground, and his skull, split in half,
hung down on either side over both his shoulders.
The Trojans turned and fled in sudden terror,
and if Turnus had thought at once to burst the bolts
by force and let in his comrades through the gates,
that would have been the end of the war and the nation.
But rage and insane desire for slaughter drove him,
passionate, against the enemy. First he caught Phaleris
and Gyges, whom he hamstrung, then flung their spears,
which he seized, at the backs of the fleeing crowd.
Juno aided him in strength and spirit. He sent
Halys and Phegeus, his shield pierced, to join them,
then Alcander and Halius, Noemon and Prytanis
unawares, as they roused those on the walls to battle.
As Lynceus, calling to his comrades, moved towards him,
he anticipated him with a stroke of his glittering sword
from the right-hand rampart, Lynceus’s head, severed
by the single blow at close quarters, fell to the ground
with the helmet some distance away. Then Amycus,
that threat to wild creatures, than whom none was better
at coating spears and arming steel with poison,
and Clytius, son of Aeolus, and Cretheus, friend to the Muses,
Cretheus the Muses’ follower, to whom song and lyre
and striking measures on the strings were always a delight,
always he sang of horses, of soldiers’ weapons and battles.
At last the Trojan leaders, Mnestheus and brave Serestus,
hearing of this slaughter of their men, arrived to see
their troops scattered and the enemy within.
Mnestheus shouted: “Where are you running to, off where?
What other walls or battlements do you have, but these?
O citizens, shall one man, hemmed in on all sides by ramparts,
cause such carnage through this our city and go unpunished?
Shall he send so many of our noblest youths to Orcus?
Cowards, have you no pity, no shame, for your wretched
country, for your ancient gods, for great Aeneas?”
Inflamed by such words, they were strengthened, and they halted,
densely packed. Turnus little by little retreated from the fight,
heading for the river and a place embraced by the waves.
The Trojans pressed towards him more fiercely, with a great clamour,
and massed together, as a crowd of hunters with levelled spears
close in on a savage lion that, fearful but fierce, glaring in anger,
gives ground, though fury and courage won’t let it turn its back,
nor will men and spears allow it to attack, despite its wish.
So Turnus, wavering, retraced his steps
cautiously, his mind seething with rage.
Even then he charged amongst the enemy twice,
and twice sent them flying a confused rabble along the walls;
but the whole army quickly gathered en masse from the camp,
and Saturnian Juno didn’t dare empower him against them,
since Jupiter sent Iris down through the air from heaven,
carrying no gentle commands for his sister if Turnus did not leave
the high Trojan ramparts. Therefore the warrior, overwhelmed
by so many missiles hurled from every side, couldn’t so much as
hold his own with shield and sword-arm. The helmet protecting
his hollow temples rang with endless noise, the solid bronze gaped
from the hail of stones, his crest was torn off, and his shield-boss
couldn’t withstand the blows; the Trojans, with deadly Mnestheus
himself, redoubled their rain of javelins. Then the sweat ran all over
Turnus’s body and flowed in a dark stream (he’d no time to breathe),
and an agonised panting shook his exhausted body.
Then finally, leaping headlong, he plunged down into the river
in full armour. The Tiber welcomed him to its yellow flood
as he fell, lifted him on its gentle waves, and, washing away
the blood, returned him, overjoyed, to his friends.
Hic Mars armipotens animum virisque Latinis
addidit et stimulos acris sub pectore vertit,
immisitque Fugam Teucris atrumque Timorem.
undique conveniunt, quoniam data copia pugnae, 720
bellatorque animo deus incidit.
Pandarus, ut fuso germanum corpore cernit
et quo sit fortuna loco, qui casus agat res,
portam vi multa converso cardine torquet
obnixus latis umeris, multosque suorum 725
moenibus exclusos duro in certamine linquit;
ast alios secum includit recipitque ruentis,
demens, qui Rutulum in medio non agmine regem
viderit inrumpentem ultroque incluserit urbi,
immanem veluti pecora inter inertia tigrim. 730
continuo nova lux oculis effulsit et arma
horrendum sonuere, tremunt in vertice cristae
sanguineae clipeoque micantia fulmina mittit.
agnoscunt faciem invisam atque immania membra
turbati subito Aeneadae. tum Pandarus ingens 735
emicat et mortis fraternae fervidus ira
effatur: 'non haec dotalis regia Amatae,
nec muris cohibet patriis media Ardea Turnum.
castra inimica vides, nulla hinc exire potestas.'
olli subridens sedato pectore Turnus: 740
'incipe, si qua animo virtus, et consere dextram,
hic etiam inventum Priamo narrabis Achillem.'
dixerat. ille rudem nodis et cortice crudo
intorquet summis adnixus viribus hastam;
excepere aurae, vulnus Saturnia Iuno 745
detorsit veniens, portaeque infigitur hasta.
'at non hoc telum, mea quod vi dextera versat,
effugies, neque enim is teli nec vulneris auctor':
sic ait, et sublatum alte consurgit in ensem
et mediam ferro gemina inter tempora frontem 750
dividit impubisque immani vulnere malas.
fit sonus, ingenti concussa est pondere tellus;
conlapsos artus atque arma cruenta cerebro
sternit humi moriens, atque illi partibus aequis
huc caput atque illuc umero ex utroque pependit. 755
Diffugiunt versi trepida formidine Troes,
et si continuo victorem ea cura subisset,
rumpere claustra manu sociosque immittere portis,
ultimus ille dies bello gentique fuisset.
sed furor ardentem caedisque insana cupido 760
egit in adversos.
principio Phalerim et succiso poplite Gygen
excipit, hinc raptas fugientibus ingerit hastas
in tergus, Iuno viris animumque ministrat.
addit Halyn comitem et confixa Phegea parma, 765
ignaros deinde in muris Martemque cientis
Alcandrumque Haliumque Noemonaque Prytanimque.
Lyncea tendentem contra sociosque vocantem
vibranti gladio conixus ab aggere dexter
occupat, huic uno deiectum comminus ictu 770
cum galea longe iacuit caput. inde ferarum
vastatorem Amycum, quo non felicior alter
unguere tela manu ferrumque armare veneno,
et Clytium Aeoliden et amicum Crethea Musis,
Crethea Musarum comitem, cui carmina semper 775
et citharae cordi numerosque intendere nervis,
semper equos atque arma virum pugnasque canebat.
Tandem ductores audita caede suorum
conveniunt Teucri, Mnestheus acerque Serestus,
palantisque vident socios hostemque receptum. 780
et Mnestheus: 'quo deinde fugam, quo tenditis?' inquit.
'quos alios muros, quaeve ultra moenia habetis?
unus homo et vestris, o cives, undique saeptus
aggeribus tantas strages impune per urbem
ediderit? iuvenum primos tot miserit Orco? 785
non infelicis patriae veterumque deorum
et magni Aeneae, segnes, miseretque pudetque?'
talibus accensi firmantur et agmine denso
consistunt. Turnus paulatim excedere pugna
et fluvium petere ac partem quae cingitur unda. 790
acrius hoc Teucri clamore incumbere magno
et glomerare manum, ceu saevum turba leonem
cum telis premit infensis; at territus ille,
asper, acerba tuens, retro redit et neque terga
ira dare aut virtus patitur, nec tendere contra 795
ille quidem hoc cupiens potis est per tela virosque.
haud aliter retro dubius vestigia Turnus
improperata refert et mens exaestuat ira.
quin etiam bis tum medios invaserat hostis,
bis confusa fuga per muros agmina vertit; 800
sed manus e castris propere coit omnis in unum
nec contra viris audet Saturnia Iuno
sufficere; aeriam caelo nam Iuppiter Irim
demisit germanae haud mollia iussa ferentem,
ni Turnus cedat Teucrorum moenibus altis. 805
ergo nec clipeo iuvenis subsistere tantum
nec dextra valet, iniectis sic undique telis
obruitur. strepit adsiduo cava tempora circum
tinnitu galea et saxis solida aera fatiscunt
discussaeque iubae, capiti nec sufficit umbo 810
ictibus; ingeminant hastis et Troes et ipse
fulmineus Mnestheus. tum toto corpore sudor
liquitur et piceum (nec respirare potestas)
flumen agit, fessos quatit aeger anhelitus artus.
tum demum praeceps saltu sese omnibus armis 815
in fluvium dedit. ille suo cum gurgite flavo
accepit venientem ac mollibus extulit undis
et laetum sociis abluta caede remisit.
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