Aeneid XI.836-915
Camilla is revenged. The battle falls to pieces.
Now Opis, Diana’s sentinel, had been seated there
on a mountain for a long time, watching the battle fearlessly.
And when she saw far off, amongst the clamour of raging armies,
that Camilla had paid the penalty of death, she sighed
and uttered these words from the depths of her heart:
“Ah, too cruel, virgin girl, too cruel the sacrifice
you have made for trying to challenge the Trojans in war!
It has not helped you that you worshipped Diana
in the lonely woods and wore our quiver on your shoulder.
Yet your queen has not left you without honour now
in the extremes of death, nor will your loss be without fame
among the people, nor will you suffer the infamy of dying
unavenged. For whoever desecrated your body with this wound
will pay the price of death.” An earthen mound covered
with shadowy holm-oak stood beneath the high mountain,
the vast tomb of Dercennus, an ancient Laurentine king;
here the loveliest of goddesses, after swift flight, first set foot
and caught sight of Arruns from the high tumulus.
When she saw him shining in armour, swollen with pride,
she cried: “Why go so far away? Turn your steps here,
come this way to destruction, and receive your reward,
worthy of Camilla. May even you not die by Diana’s weapons?”
She spoke: then the Thracian goddess took a winged arrow
from her golden quiver and stretched the bow in anger,
drawing it far back until the curving horns met,
and now with levelled arms she touched the steel tip
with her left hand, and her breast and the bow-string with her right.
At the same moment as Arruns heard the hissing dart
and the rushing air, both one, the steel was fixed in his body.
His allies, oblivious, left him on the unmemorable dust
of the plain, gasping and groaning in extremity,
while Opis winged her way to heavenly Olympus.
Camilla’s light cavalry were first to flee, their mistress lost,
the Rutulians fled in turmoil, brave Atinas fled,
scattered leaders and abandoned troops sought safety
and, wheeling their horses about, headed for the walls.
No one could check the pursuing, death-dealing
Trojans with weapons, or stand against them,
but slung their unstrung bows on bowed shoulders,
and their horses’ hooves shook the crumbling earth in flight.
A cloud of dark murky dust rolled towards the walls,
and mothers, from the watchtowers, raised the womens’
cry to the stars in heaven as they beat their breasts.
The enemy host pressed hard on those who first broke at speed
through the open gates, mixing with their lines, so they did not
escape a pitiful death but, pierced through, gasped away their lives
on the very threshold, their country’s walls around them, within
the shelter of their houses. Some closed the gates, and dared not
open a path for their friends or let them inside the walls
though they begged, and the most pitiful death followed of those
defending the entrance in arms and those rushing onto the swords.
Some driven by the rout, shut out, in front of the gaze
and the weeping faces of their parents, rolled headlong
into the ditches, others charging blindly with loose reins
battered at the gates and the tough gate-posts barring their way.
The women themselves, when they saw Camilla from the walls,
in fierce emulation (true love of country guided them)
threw weapons with their weak hands, and in their haste
used poles of tough oak and fire-hardened stakes instead of steel,
and were ablaze to die in the forefront defending the walls.1
Meanwhile in the forest, the bitterest of messages filled Turnus’s
thoughts: Acca had brought the warrior her news of the mighty rout,
the Volscian ranks annihilated, Camilla killed, the enemy
advancing fiercely, sweeping all before them
in the fortune of war, panic now reaching the city.
Maddened, he abandoned the ambush among the hills
(so Jove’s cruel will demanded) and left the wild forest.
He had scarcely passed from view in reaching the plain
when Aeneas, the leader, mounted the ridge, after entering
the unguarded gorge and emerging from the dense woods.
So they both marched quickly towards the walls
in full force and with no great distance between them;
and at that moment Aeneas saw the plain, far off,
smoking with dust, and caught sight of the Laurentine army,
and Turnus realised that fatal Aeneas was in arms,
and heard the march of feet and the sound of horses.
They would have joined battle at once and attempted combat,
but rosy Phoebus was already bathing his weary team
in the Spanish deeps and, day waning, brought back the night.
They camped before the city and strengthened their defences.
At Triviae custos iamdudum in montibus Opis
alta sedet summis spectatque interrita pugnas.
utque procul medio iuvenum in clamore furentum
prospexit tristi mulcatam morte Camillam,
ingemuitque deditque has imo pectore voces: 840
'heu nimium, virgo, nimium crudele luisti
supplicium Teucros conata lacessere bello!
nec tibi desertae in dumis coluisse Dianam
profuit aut nostras umero gessisse pharetras.
non tamen indecorem tua te regina reliquit 845
extrema iam in morte, neque hoc sine nomine letum
per gentis erit aut famam patieris inultae.
nam quicumque tuum violavit vulnere corpus
morte luet merita.' fuit ingens monte sub alto
regis Dercenni terreno ex aggere bustum 850
antiqui Laurentis opacaque ilice tectum;
hic dea se primum rapido pulcherrima nisu
sistit et Arruntem tumulo speculatur ab alto.
ut vidit fulgentem armis ac vana tumentem,
'cur' inquit 'diversus abis? huc derige gressum, 855
huc periture veni, capias ut digna Camillae
praemia. tune etiam telis moriere Dianae?'
dixit, et aurata volucrem Threissa sagittam
deprompsit pharetra cornuque infensa tetendit
et duxit longe, donec curvata coirent 860
inter se capita et manibus iam tangeret aequis,
laeva aciem ferri, dextra nervoque papillam.
extemplo teli stridorem aurasque sonantis
audiit una Arruns haesitque in corpore ferrum.
illum exspirantem socii atque extrema gementem 865
obliti ignoto camporum in pulvere linquunt;
Opis ad aetherium pennis aufertur Olympum.
Prima fugit domina amissa levis ala Camillae,
turbati fugiunt Rutuli, fugit acer Atinas,
disiectique duces desolatique manipli 870
tuta petunt et equis aversi ad moenia tendunt.
nec quisquam instantis Teucros letumque ferentis
sustentare valet telis aut sistere contra,
sed laxos referunt umeris languentibus arcus,
quadripedumque putrem cursu quatit ungula campum. 875
volvitur ad muros caligine turbidus atra
pulvis, et e speculis percussae pectora matres
femineum clamorem ad caeli sidera tollunt.
qui cursu portas primi inrupere patentis,
hos inimica super mixto premit agmine turba, 880
nec miseram effugiunt mortem, sed limine in ipso,
moenibus in patriis atque inter tuta domorum
confixi exspirant animas. pars claudere portas,
nec sociis aperire viam nec moenibus audent
accipere orantis, oriturque miserrima caedes 885
defendentum armis aditus inque arma ruentum.
exclusi ante oculos lacrimantumque ora parentum
pars in praecipitis fossas urgente ruina
volvitur, immissis pars caeca et concita frenis
arietat in portas et duros obice postis. 890
ipsae de muris summo certamine matres
(monstrat amor verus patriae, ut videre Camillam)
tela manu trepidae iaciunt ac robore duro
stipitibus ferrum sudibusque imitantur obustis
praecipites, primaeque mori pro moenibus ardent. 895
Interea Turnum in silvis saevissimus implet
nuntius et iuveni ingentem fert Acca tumultum:
deletas Volscorum acies, cecidisse Camillam,
ingruere infensos hostis et Marte secundo
omnia corripuisse, metum iam ad moenia ferri. 900
ille furens (et saeva Iovis sic numina poscunt)
deserit obsessos collis, nemora aspera linquit.
vix e conspectu exierat campumque tenebat,
cum pater Aeneas saltus ingressus apertos
exsuperatque iugum silvaque evadit opaca. 905
sic ambo ad muros rapidi totoque feruntur
agmine nec longis inter se passibus absunt;
ac simul Aeneas fumantis pulvere campos
prospexit longe Laurentiaque agmina vidit,
et saevum Aenean agnovit Turnus in armis 910
adventumque pedum flatusque audivit equorum.
continuoque ineant pugnas et proelia temptent,
ni roseus fessos iam gurgite Phoebus Hibero
tingat equos noctemque die labente reducat.
considunt castris ante urbem et moenia vallant.
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