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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book XII Chapter 20: More deaths | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
What voice divine such horror can make known? What song declare the bloodshed manifold, the princes slain, or flying o'er the field from Turnus' blade, or from the Trojan king? Did Jove ordain so vast a shock of arms should interpose 'twixt nations destined to perpetual bond? Aeneas met the Rutule Sucro -- thus staying the Trojan charge -- and with swift blow struck at him sidewise, where the way of death is quickest, cleaving ribs and rounded side with reeking sword. Turnus met Amycus, unhorsed him, though himself afoot, and slew Diores, his fair brother (one was pierced fronting the spear, the other felled to earth by strike of sword), and both their severed heads he hung all dripping to his chariot's rim. But Talon, Tanais, and Cethegus brave, three in one onset, unto death went down at great Aeneas' hand; and he dispatched ill-starred Onites of Echion's line, fair Peridia's child. Then Turnus slew two Lycian brothers unto Phoebus dear, and young Menoetes, an Arcadian, who hated war (though vainly) when he plied his native fisher-craft in Lerna's streams, where from his mean abode he ne'er went forth to wait at great men's doors, but with his sire reaped the scant harvest of a rented glebe. as from two sides two conflagrations sweep dry woodlands or full copse of crackling bay, or as, swift-leaping from the mountain-vales, two flooded, foaming rivers seaward roar, each on its path of death, not less uproused, speed Turnus and Aeneas o'er the field; now storms their martial rage; now fiercely swells either indomitable heart; and now each hero's full strength to the slaughter moves. Event: Renewal of the war. |
500-528 Quis mihi nunc tot acerba deus, quis carmine caedes diuersas obitumque ducum, quos aequore toto inque uicem nunc Turnus agit, nunc Troius heros, expediat? tanton placuit concurrere motu, Iuppiter, aeterna gentis in pace futuras? Aeneas Rutulum Sucronem (ea prima ruentis pugna loco statuit Teucros) haud multa morantem excipit in latus et, qua fata celerrima, crudum transadigit costas et cratis pectoris ensem. Turnus equo deiectum Amycum fratremque Dioren, congressus pedes, hunc uenientem cuspide longa, hunc mucrone ferit, curruque abscisa duorum suspendit capita et rorantia sanguine portat. ille Talon Tanaimque neci fortemque Cethegum, tris uno congressu, et maestum mittit Oniten, nomen Echionium matrisque genus Peridiae; hic fratres Lycia missos et Apollinis agris et iuuenem exosum nequiquam bella Menoeten, Arcada, piscosae cui circum flumina Lernae ars fuerat pauperque domus nec nota potentum munera, conductaque pater tellure serebat. ac uelut immissi diuersis partibus ignes arentem in siluam et uirgulta sonantia lauro, aut ubi decursu rapido de montibus altis dant sonitum spumosi amnes et in aequora currunt quisque suum populatus iter: non segnius ambo Aeneas Turnusque ruunt per proelia; nunc, nunc fluctuat ira intus, rumpuntur nescia uinci pectora, nunc totis in uulnera uiribus itur. |