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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book XI Chapter 30: Arruns killed | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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Fair Opis, keeping guard for Trivia in patient sentry on a lofty hill, beheld unterrified the conflict's rage. Yet when, amid the frenzied shouts of soldiery, she saw from far Camilla pay the doom of piteous death, with deep-drawn voice of sight she thus complained: O virgin, woe is me! Too much, too much, this agony of thine, to expiate that thou didst lift thy spear for wounding Troy. It was no shield in war, nor any vantage to have kept thy vow to chaste Diana in the thorny wild. Our maiden arrows at thy shoulder slung availed thee not! Yet will our Queen divine not leave unhonored this thy dying day, nor shall thy people let thy death remain a thing forgot, nor thy bright name appear a glory unavenged. Whoe'er he be that marred thy body with the mortal wound shall die as he deserves. Beneath that hill an earth-built mound uprose, the tomb of king Dercennus, a Laurentine old, by sombre ilex shaded: thither hied the fair nymph at full speed, and from the mound looked round for Arruns. When his shape she saw in glittering armor vainly insolent, Whither so fast? she cried. This way, thy path! This fatal way approach, and here receive thy reward for Camilla! Thou shalt fall, vile though thou art, by Dian's shaft divine. She said; and one swift-coursing arrow took from golden quiver, like a maid of Thrace, and stretched it on her bow with hostile aim, withdrawing far, till both the tips of horn together bent, and, both hands poising well, the left outreached to touch the barb of steel, the right to her soft breast the bowstring drew: the hissing of the shaft, the sounding air, Arruns one moment heard, as to his flesh the iron point clung fast. But his last groan his comrades heeded not, and let him lie, scorned and forgotten, on the dusty field, while Opis soared to bright Olympian air. Events: The Gods interfere in the Aeneid, Acts and death of Camilla |
836-867 At Triuiae custos iamdudum in montibus Opis alta sedet summis spectatque interrita pugnas. utque procul medio iuuenum in clamore furentum prospexit tristi mulcatam morte Camillam, ingemuitque deditque has imo pectore uoces: 'heu nimium, uirgo, 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 extrema iam in morte, neque hoc sine nomine letum per gentis erit aut famam patieris inultae. nam quicumque tuum uiolauit uulnere corpus morte luet merita.' fuit ingens monte sub alto regis Dercenni terreno ex aggere bustum antiqui Laurentis opacaque ilice tectum; hic dea se primum rapido pulcherrima nisu sistit et Arruntem tumulo speculatur ab alto. ut uidit fulgentem armis ac uana tumentem, 'cur' inquit 'diuersus abis? huc derige gressum, huc periture ueni, capias ut digna Camillae praemia. tune etiam telis moriere Dianae?' dixit, et aurata uolucrem Threissa sagittam deprompsit pharetra cornuque infensa tetendit et duxit longe, donec curuata coirent inter se capita et manibus iam tangeret aequis, laeua aciem ferri, dextra neruoque papillam. extemplo teli stridorem aurasque sonantis audiit una Arruns haesitque in corpore ferrum. illum exspirantem socii atque extrema gementem obliti ignoto camporum in puluere linquunt; Opis ad aetherium pennis aufertur Olympum. |