Aeneid X.833-908
The battle between Aeneas and Mezentius concludes.
Meanwhile the father, Mezentius, staunched his wounds
by the waters of Tiber’s river and rested his body
by leaning against a tree trunk. His bronze helmet hung
on a nearby branch, and his heavy armour lay peacefully on the grass.
The pick of his warriors stood around; he himself, weak and panting,
eased his neck, his flowing beard streaming over his chest.
Many a time he asked for Lausus, and many times sent men
to carry him a sorrowing father’s orders and recall him.
But his weeping comrades were carrying the dead Lausus
on his armour, a great man conquered by a mighty wound.
The mind prescient of evil knew their sighs from far off.
Mezentius darkened his white hair with dust and lifted
both hands to heaven, clinging to the body.
“My son, did such delight in living possess me
that I let you face the enemy force in my place,
you whom I fathered? Is this father of yours alive
through your death, saved by your wounds? Ah, now at last
my exile is wretchedly driven home: and my wound, deeply!
My son, I have also tarnished your name by my crime,
driven in hatred from my fathers’ throne and sceptre.
I have long owed reparation to my country and my people’s hatred:
I should have yielded my guilty soul to death in any form!
Now I live: I do not leave humankind yet, or the light,
but I will leave.” So saying he raised himself weakly on his thigh
and, despite all, ordered his horse to be brought, though his strength
ebbed from the deep wound. His mount was his pride,
and it was his solace, on it he had ridden victorious from every battle.
He spoke to the sorrowful creature in these words:
“Rhaebus, we have lived a long time, if anything lasts long
for mortal beings. Today you will either carry the head of Aeneas
and his blood-stained spoils in victory, and avenge Lausus’s pain
with me, or die with me, if no power opens that road to us;
I don’t think that you, the bravest of creatures, will deign
to suffer a stranger’s orders or a Trojan master.”
He spoke, then, mounting, disposed his limbs as usual
and weighted each hand with a sharp javelin,
his head gleaming with bronze, bristling with its horsehair crest.
So he launched himself quickly into the fray. In that one heart
a vast flood of shame and madness merged with grief.
And now he called to Aeneas in a great voice.
Aeneas knew him and offered up a joyous prayer:
“So let the father of the gods himself decree it, so
noble Apollo! You then begin the conflict…”
He spoke those words and moved against him with level spear.
But Mezentius replied: “How can you frighten me, most savage
of men, me, bereft of my son? That was the only way you could
destroy me: I do not shrink from death or halt for any god.
Cease, since I come here to die, and bring you, first,
these gifts.” He spoke, and hurled a spear at his enemy;
then landed another and yet another, wheeling
in a wide circle, but the gilded shield withstood them.
He rode three times round his careful enemy, widdershins,
throwing darts from his hand: three times the Trojan hero
dragged round the huge thicket of spears fixed in his bronze shield.
Then tired of all that drawn-out delay and burdened
by the unequal conflict, he thought hard and finally broke free,
hurling his spear straight between the war horse’s curved temples.
The animal reared and lashed the air with its hooves
and, throwing its rider, followed him down from above,
entangling him, collapsing headlong onto him, its shoulder thrown.
Trojans and Latins ignited the heavens with their shouts.
Aeneas ran to him, plucking his sword from its sheath,
and, standing over him, cried: “Where is fierce Mezentius now,
and the savage force of that spirit?” The Tuscan replied, as, lifting
his eyes to the sky and gulping the air, he regained his thoughts:
“Bitter enemy, why taunt or threaten me in death?
There is no sin in killing: I did not come to fight believing so,
nor did my Lausus agree any treaty between you and me.
I only ask, by whatever indulgence a fallen enemy might claim,
that my body be buried in the earth. I know that my people’s
fierce hatred surrounds me: protect me, I beg you,
from their anger, and let me share a tomb with my son.”
So he spoke, and in full awareness received the sword in his throat,
and poured out his life over his armour in a wave of blood.
Interea genitor Tiberini ad fluminis undam
vulnera siccabat lymphis corpusque levabat
arboris acclinis trunco. procul aerea ramis 835
dependet galea et prato gravia arma quiescunt.
stant lecti circum iuvenes; ipse aeger anhelans
colla fovet fusus propexam in pectore barbam;
multa super Lauso rogitat, multumque remittit
qui revocent maestique ferant mandata parentis. 840
at Lausum socii exanimem super arma ferebant
flentes, ingentem atque ingenti vulnere victum.
agnovit longe gemitum praesaga mali mens.
canitiem multo deformat pulvere et ambas
ad caelum tendit palmas et corpore inhaeret. 845
'tantane me tenuit vivendi, nate, voluptas,
ut pro me hostili paterer succedere dextrae,
quem genui? tuane haec genitor per vulnera servor
morte tua vivens? heu, nunc misero mihi demum
exitium infelix, nunc alte vulnus adactum! 850
idem ego, nate, tuum maculavi crimine nomen,
pulsus ob invidiam solio sceptrisque paternis.
debueram patriae poenas odiisque meorum:
omnis per mortis animam sontem ipse dedissem!
nunc vivo neque adhuc homines lucemque relinquo. 855
sed linquam.' simul hoc dicens attollit in aegrum
se femur et, quamquam vis alto vulnere tardat,
haud deiectus equum duci iubet. hoc decus illi,
hoc solamen erat, bellis hoc victor abibat
omnibus. adloquitur maerentem et talibus infit: 860
'Rhaebe, diu, res si qua diu mortalibus ulla est,
viximus. aut hodie victor spolia illa cruenti
et caput Aeneae referes Lausique dolorum
ultor eris mecum, aut, aperit si nulla viam vis,
occumbes pariter; neque enim, fortissime, credo, 865
iussa aliena pati et dominos dignabere Teucros.'
dixit, et exceptus tergo consueta locavit
membra manusque ambas iaculis oneravit acutis,
aere caput fulgens cristaque hirsutus equina.
sic cursum in medios rapidus dedit. aestuat ingens 870
uno in corde pudor mixtoque insania luctu.
atque hic Aenean magna ter voce vocavit. 873
Aeneas agnovit enim laetusque precatur:
'sic pater ille deum faciat, sic altus Apollo!
incipias conferre manum.'
tantum effatus et infesta subit obvius hasta.
ille autem: 'quid me erepto, saevissime, nato
terres? haec via sola fuit qua perdere posses:
nec mortem horremus nec divum parcimus ulli. 880
desine, nam venio moriturus et haec tibi porto
dona prius.' dixit, telumque intorsit in hostem;
inde aliud super atque aliud figitque volatque
ingenti gyro, sed sustinet aureus umbo.
ter circum astantem laevos equitavit in orbis 885
tela manu iaciens, ter secum Troius heros
immanem aerato circumfert tegmine silvam.
inde ubi tot traxisse moras, tot spicula taedet
vellere, et urgetur pugna congressus iniqua,
multa movens animo iam tandem erumpit et inter 890
bellatoris equi cava tempora conicit hastam.
tollit se arrectum quadripes et calcibus auras
verberat, effusumque equitem super ipse secutus
implicat eiectoque incumbit cernuus armo.
clamore incendunt caelum Troesque Latinique. 895
advolat Aeneas vaginaque eripit ensem
et super haec: 'ubi nunc Mezentius acer et illa
effera vis animi?' contra Tyrrhenus, ut auras
suspiciens hausit caelum mentemque recepit:
'hostis amare, quid increpitas mortemque minaris? 900
nullum in caede nefas, nec sic ad proelia veni,
nec tecum meus haec pepigit mihi foedera Lausus.
unum hoc per si qua est victis venia hostibus oro:
corpus humo patiare tegi. scio acerba meorum
circumstare odia: hunc, oro, defende furorem 905
et me consortem nati concede sepulcro.'
haec loquitur, iuguloque haud inscius accipit ensem
undantique animam diffundit in arma cruore.
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