BOOK NINTH
THE SIEGE OF THE TROJAN CAMP
And while thus things pass far in the distance, Juno daughter of Saturn sent Iris down the sky to gallant Turnus, then haply seated in his forefather Pilumnus' holy forest dell. To him the child of Thaumas spoke thus with roseate lips:
'Turnus, what no god had dared promise to thy prayer, behold, is brought unasked by the circling day. Aeneas hath quitted town and comrades and fleet to seek Evander's throne and Palatine dwelling-place. Nor is it enough; he hath pierced to Corythus' utmost cities, and is mustering in arms a troop of Lydian rustics. Why hesitate? now, now is the time to call for chariot and horses. Break through all hindrance and seize the bewildered camp.'
She spoke, and rose into the sky on poised wings, and flashed under the clouds in a long flying bow. He knew her, and lifting either hand to heaven, with this cry pursued her flight: 'Iris, grace of the sky, who hath driven thee down the clouds to me and borne thee to earth? Whence is this sudden sheen of weather? I see the sky parting asunder, and the wandering stars in the firmament. I follow the high omen, whoso thou art that callest me to arms.' And with these words he drew nigh the wave, and caught up water from its brimming eddy, making many prayers to the gods and burdening the air with vows.
And now all the army was advancing on the open plain, rich in horses, rich in raiment of broidered gold. Messapus rules the foremost ranks, the sons of Tyrrheus the rear. Turnus commands the centre: even as Ganges rising high in silence when his seven streams are still, or the rich flood of Nile when he ebbs from the plains, and is now sunk into his channel. On this the Teucrians descry a sudden cloud of dark dust gathering, and the blackness rising on the plain. Caïcus raises a cry from the mound in front: 'What mass of misty gloom, O citizens, is rolling hitherward? to arms in haste! serve out weapons, climb the walls. The enemy approaches, ho!' With mighty clamour the Teucrians pour in through all the gates and fill the works. For so at his departure Aeneas the great captain had enjoined; were aught to chance meanwhile, they should not venture to range their line or trust the plain, but keep their camp and the safety of the entrenched walls. So, though shame and wrath beckon them on to battle, they yet bar the gates and do his bidding, and await the foe armed and in shelter of the towers. Turnus, who had flown forward in advance of his tardy column, comes up suddenly to the town with a train of twenty chosen cavalry, borne on a Thracian horse dappled with white, and covered by a golden helmet with scarlet plume. 'Who will be with me, my men, to be first on the foe? See!' he cries; and sends a javelin spinning into the air to open battle, and advances towering on the plain. His comrades take up the cry, and follow with dreadful din, wondering at the Teucrians' coward hearts, that they issue not on even field nor face them in arms, but keep in shelter of the camp. Hither and thither he rides furiously, tracing the walls, and seeking entrance where way is none. And as a wolf prowling about some crowded sheepfold, when, beaten sore of winds and rains, he howls at the pens by midnight; safe beneath their mothers the lambs keep bleating on; he, savage and insatiate, rages in anger against the flock he cannot reach, tired by the long-gathering madness for food, and the throat unslaked with blood: even so the Rutulian, as he gazes on the walled camp, kindles in anger, and indignation is hot in his iron frame. By what means may he essay entrance? by what passage hurl the imprisoned Trojans from the rampart and fling them on the plain? Close under the flanking camp lay the fleet, fenced about with mounds and the waters of the river; it he attacks, and calls for fire to his exultant comrades, and eagerly catches a blazing pine-torch in his hand. Then indeed they press on, quickened by Turnus' presence, and all the band arm them with black faggots. The hearth-fires are plundered; the smoky brand trails a resinous glare, and the Fire-god sends clouds of glowing ashes upward.
What god, O Muses, guarded the Trojans from the rage of the fire? who repelled the fierce flame from their ships? Tell it; ancient is the assurance thereof, but the fame everlasting. What time Aeneas began to shape his fleet on Phrygian Ida, and prepared to seek the high seas, the Berecyntian, they say, the very Mother of gods, spoke to high Jove in these words: 'Grant, O son, to my prayer, what her dearness claims who bore thee and laid Olympus under thy feet. My pine forest beloved of me these many years, my grove was on the mountain's crown, whither men bore my holy things, dim with dusky pine and pillared maples. These, when he required a fleet, I gave gladly to the Dardanian; now fear wrings me with sharp distress. Relieve my terrors, and grant a mother's prayers such power that they may yield to no stress of voyaging or of stormy gust: be birth on our hills their avail.'
Thus her son in answer, who wheels the starry worlds: 'O mother, whither callest thou fate? or what dost thou seek for these of thine? May hulls have the right of immortality that were fashioned by mortal hand? and may Aeneas traverse perils secure in insecurity? To what god is power so great given? Nay, but when, their duty done, they shall lie at last in their Ausonian haven, from all that have outgone the waves and borne their Dardanian captain to the fields of Laurentum, will I take their mortal body, and bid them be goddesses of the mighty deep, even as Doto the Nereïd and Galatea, when they cut the sea that falls away from their breasts in foam.' He ended; and by his brother's Stygian streams, by the banks of the pitchy black-boiling chasm he nodded confirmation, and shook all Olympus with his nod.
So the promised day was come, and the destinies had fulfilled their due time, when Turnus' injury stirred the Mother to ward the brands from her holy ships. First then a strange light flashed on all eyes, and a great glory from the Dawn seemed to dart over the sky, with the choirs of Ida; then an awful voice fell through air, filling the Trojan and Rutulian ranks: 'Disquiet not yourselves, O Teucrians, to guard ships of mine, neither arm your hands: sooner shall Turnus burn the seas than these holy pines. You, go free; go, goddesses of the sea; the Mother bids it.' And immediately each ship breaks the bond that held it, as with dipping prows they plunge like dolphins deep into the water: from it again (O wonderful and strange!) they rise with maidens' faces in like number, and bear out to sea.
The Rutulians stood dumb: Messapus himself is terror-stricken among his disordered cavalry; even the stream of Tiber pauses with hoarse murmur, and recoils from sea. But bold Turnus fails not a whit in confidence; nay, he raises their courage with words, nay, he chides them: 'On the Trojans are these portents aimed; Jupiter himself hath bereft them of their wonted succour; nor do they abide Rutulian sword and fire. So are the seas pathless for the Teucrians, nor is there any hope in flight; they have lost half their world. And we hold the land: in all their thousands the nations of Italy are under arms. In no wise am I dismayed by those divine oracles of doom the Phrygians insolently advance. Fate and Venus are satisfied, in that the Trojans have touched our fruitful Ausonian fields. I too have my fate in reply to theirs, to put utterly to the sword the guilty nation who have robbed me of my bride; not the sons of Atreus alone are touched by that pain, nor may Mycenae only rise in arms. But to have perished once is enough! To have sinned once should have been enough, in all but utter hatred of the whole of womankind. Trust in the sundering rampart, and the hindrance of their trenches, so little between them and death, gives these their courage: yet have they not seen Troy town, the work of Neptune's hand, sink into fire? But you, my chosen, who of you makes ready to breach their palisade at the sword's point, and join my attack on their fluttered camp? I have no need of Vulcanian arms, of a thousand ships, to meet the Teucrians. All Etruria may join on with them in alliance: nor let them fear the darkness, and the cowardly theft of their Palladium, and the guards cut down on the fortress height. Nor will we hide ourselves unseen in a horse's belly; in daylight and unconcealed are we resolved to girdle their walls with flame. Not with Grecians will I make them think they have to do, nor a Pelasgic force kept off till the tenth year by Hector. Now, since the better part of day is spent, for what remains refresh your bodies, glad that we have done so well, and expect the order of battle.'
Meanwhile charge is given to Messapus to blockade the gates with pickets of sentries, and encircle the works with watchfires. Twice seven are chosen to guard the walls with Rutulian soldiery; but each leads an hundred men, crimson-plumed and sparkling in gold. They spread themselves about and keep alternate watch, and, lying along the grass, drink deep and set brazen bowls atilt. The fires glow, and the sentinels spend the night awake in games. . . .
Down on this the Trojans look forth from the rampart, as they hold the height in arms; withal in fearful haste they try the gates and lay gangways from bastion to bastion, and bring up missiles. Mnestheus and valiant Serestus speed the work, whom lord Aeneas appointed, should misfortune call, to be rulers of the people and governors of the state. All their battalions, sharing the lot of peril, keep watch along the walls, and take alternate charge of all that requires defence.
On guard at the gate was Nisus son of Hyrtacus, most valiant in arms, whom Ida the huntress had sent in Aeneas' company with fleet javelin and light arrows; and by his side Euryalus, fairest of all the Aeneadae and the wearers of Trojan arms, showing on his unshaven boy's face the first bloom of youth. These two were one in affection, and charged in battle together; now likewise their common guard kept the gate. Nisus cries: 'Lend the gods this fervour to the soul, Euryalus? or does fatal passion become a proper god to each? Long ere now my soul is restless to begin some great deed of arms, and quiet peace delights it not. Thou seest how confident in fortune the Rutulians stand. Their lights glimmer far apart; buried in drunken sleep they have sunk to rest; silence stretches all about. Learn then what doubt, what purpose, now rises in my spirit. People and senate, they all cry that Aeneas be summoned, and men be sent to carry him tidings. If they promise what I ask in thy name—for to me the glory of the deed is enough—methinks I can find beneath yonder hillock a path to the walls of Pallanteum town.'
Euryalus stood fixed, struck through with high ambition, and therewith speaks thus to his fervid friend: 'Dost thou shun me then, Nisus, to share thy company in highest deeds? shall I send thee alone into so great perils? Not thus did my warrior father Opheltes rear and nurture me amid the Argive terror and the agony of Troy, nor thus have I borne myself by thy side while following noble Aeneas to his utmost fate. Here is a spirit, yes here, that scorns the light of day, that deems lightly bought at a life's price that honour to which thou dost aspire.'
To this Nisus: 'Assuredly I had no such fear of thee; no, nor could I; so may great Jupiter, or whoso looks on earth with equal eyes, restore me to thee triumphant. But if haply—as thou seest often and often in so forlorn a hope—if haply chance or deity sweep me to adverse doom, I would have thee survive; thine age is worthier to live. Be there one to commit me duly to earth, rescued or ransomed from the battlefield: or, if fortune deny that, to pay me far away the rites of funeral and the grace of a tomb. Neither would I bring such pain on thy poor mother, she who singly of many matrons hath dared to follow her boy to the end, and slights great Acestes' city.'
And he: 'In vain dost thou string idle reasons; nor does my purpose yield or change its place so soon. Let us make haste.' He speaks, and rouses the watch; they come up, and relieve the guard; quitting their post, he and Nisus stride on to seek the prince.
The rest of living things over all lands were soothing their cares in sleep, and their hearts forgot their pain; the foremost Trojan captains, a chosen band, held council of state upon the kingdom; what should they do, or who would now be their messenger to Aeneas? They stand, leaning on their long spears and grasping their shields, in mid level of the camp. Then Nisus and Euryalus together pray with quick urgency to be given audience; their matter is weighty and will be worth the delay. Iülus at once heard their hurried plea, and bade Nisus speak. Thereon the son of Hyrtacus: 'Hear, O people of Aeneas, with favourable mind, nor regard our years in what we offer. Sunk in sleep and wine, the Rutulians are silent; we have stealthily spied the open ground that lies in the path through the gate next the sea. The line of fires is broken, and their smoke rises darkly upwards. If you allow us to use the chance towards seeking Aeneas in Pallanteum town, you will soon descry us here at hand with the spoils of the great slaughter we have dealt. Nor shall we miss the way we go; up the dim valleys we have seen the skirts of the town, and learned all the river in continual hunting.'
Thereon aged Aletes, sage in counsel: 'Gods of our fathers, under whose deity Troy ever stands, not wholly yet do you purpose to blot out the Trojan race, when you have brought us young honour and hearts so sure as this.' So speaking, he caught both by shoulder and hand, with tears showering down over face and feature. 'What guerdon shall I deem may be given you, O men, what recompense for these noble deeds? First and fairest shall be your reward from the gods and your own conduct; and Aeneas the good shall speedily repay the rest, and Ascanius' fresh youth never forget so great a service.'—'Nay,' breaks in Ascanius, 'I whose sole safety is in my father's return, I adjure thee and him, O Nisus, by our great household gods, by the tutelar spirit of Assaracus and hoar Vesta's sanctuary—on your knees I lay all my fortune and trust—recall my father; give him back to sight; all sorrow disappears in his recovery. I will give a pair of cups my father took in vanquished Arisba, wrought in silver and rough with tracery, twin tripods, and two large talents of gold, and an ancient bowl of Sidonian Dido's giving. If it be indeed our lot to possess Italy and grasp a conquering sceptre, and to assign the spoil; thou sawest the horse and armour of Turnus as he went all in gold; that same horse, the shield and the ruddy plume, will I reserve from partition, thy reward, O Nisus, even from now. My father will give besides twelve mothers of the choicest beauty, and men captives, all in their due array; above these, the space of meadow-land that is now King Latinus' own domain. Thee, O noble boy, whom mine age follows at a nearer interval, even now I welcome to all my heart, and embrace as my companion in every fortune. No glory shall be sought for my state without thee; whether peace or war be in conduct, my chiefest trust for deed and word shall be in thee.'
Answering whom Euryalus speaks thus: 'Let but the day never come to prove me degenerate from this daring valour; fortune may fall prosperous or adverse. But above all thy gifts, one thing I ask of thee. My poor mother of Priam's ancient race, whom neither the Ilian land nor King Acestes' city kept from following me forth, her I now leave in ignorance of this danger, such as it is, and without a farewell, because—night and thine hand be witness!—I cannot bear a parent's tears. But thou, I pray, support her want and relieve her loneliness. Let me take with me this hope in thee, I shall go more daringly to every fortune.' Deeply stirred at heart, the Dardanians shed tears, fair Iülus before them all, as the likeness of his own father's love wrung his soul. Then he speaks thus: . . . 'Assure thyself all that is due to thy mighty enterprise; for she shall be a mother to me, and only in name fail to be Creüsa; nor slight is the honour reserved for the mother of such a son. What chance soever follow this deed, I swear by this head whereby my father was wont to swear, what I promise to thee on thy prosperous return shall abide the same for thy mother and kindred.' So speaks he weeping, and ungirds from his shoulder the sword inlaid with gold, fashioned with marvellous skill by Lycaon of Gnosus and fitly set in a sheath of ivory. Mnestheus gives Nisus the shaggy spoils of a lion's hide; faithful Aletes exchanges his helmet. They advance onward in arms, and as they go all the company of captains, young and old, speed them to the gates with vows. Likewise fair Iülus, with a man's thought and a spirit beyond his years, gave many messages to be carried to his father. But the breezes shred all asunder and give them unaccomplished to the clouds.
They issue and cross the trenches, and through the shadow of night seek the fatal camp, themselves first to be the death of many a man. All about they see bodies strewn along the grass in drunken sleep, chariots atilt on the shore, the men lying among their traces and wheels, with their armour by them, and their wine. The son of Hyrtacus began thus: 'Euryalus, now for daring hands; all invites them; here lies our way; see thou that none raise a hand from behind against us, and keep far-sighted watch. Here will I deal desolation, and make a broad path for thee to follow.' So speaks he and checks his voice; therewith he drives his sword at lordly Rhamnes, who haply on carpets heaped high was drawing the full breath of sleep; a king himself, and King Turnus' best-beloved augur, but not all his augury could avert his doom. Three of his household beside him, lying carelessly among their arms, and the armour-bearer and charioteer of Remus go down before him, caught at the horses' feet. Their drooping necks he severs with the sword, then beheads their lord likewise and leaves the trunk spouting blood; the dark warm gore soaks ground and cushions. Therewithal Lamyrus and Lamus, and beautiful young Serranus, who that night had played long and late, and lay with the conquering god heavy on every limb; happy, had he played out the night, and carried his game to day! Even thus an unfed lion riots through full sheepfolds, for the madness of hunger urges him, and champs and rends the fleecy flock that are dumb with fear, and roars with blood-stained mouth. Nor less is the slaughter of Euryalus; he too rages all aflame; an unnamed multitude go down before his path, and Fadus and Herbesus and Rhoetus and Abaris, unaware; Rhoetus awake and seeing all, but he hid in fear behind a great bowl; right in whose breast, as he rose close by, he plunged the sword all its length, and drew it back heavy with death. He vomits forth the crimson life-blood, and throws up wine mixed with blood in the death agony. The other presses hotly on his stealthy errand, and now bent his way towards Messapus' comrades, where he saw the last flicker of the fires go down, and the horses tethered in order cropping the grass; when Nisus briefly speaks thus, for he saw him carried away by excess of murderous desire; 'Let us stop; for unfriendly daylight draws nigh. Vengeance is sated to the full; a path is cut through the enemy.' Much they leave behind, men's armour wrought in solid silver, and bowls therewith, and beautiful carpets. Euryalus tears away the decorations of Rhamnes and his sword-belt embossed with gold, a gift which Caedicus, wealthiest of men of old, sends to Remulus of Tibur when plighting friendship far away; he on his death-bed gives them to his grandson for his own; after his death the Rutulians captured them as spoil of war; these he fits on the shoulders valiant in vain, then puts on Messapus' light helmet with its graceful plumes. They issue from the camp and make for safety.
Meanwhile an advanced guard of cavalry were on their way from the Latin city, while the rest of their marshalled battalions linger on the plains, and bore a reply to King Turnus; three hundred men all under shield, in Volscens' leading. And now they approached the camp and drew near the wall, when they descry the two turning away by the pathway to the left; and in the glimmering darkness of night the forgotten helmet betrayed Euryalus, glittering as it met the light. It seemed no thing of chance. Volscens cries aloud from his column: 'Stand, men! why on the march, or how are you in arms? or whither hold you your way?' They offer nothing in reply, but quicken their flight into the forest, and throw themselves on the night. On this side and that the horsemen bar the familiar crossways, and encircle every outlet with sentinels. The forest spread wide in tangled thickets and dark ilex; thick growth of briars choked it all about, and the muffled pathway glimmered in a broken track. Hampered by the shadowy boughs and his cumbrous spoil, Euryalus in his fright misses the line of way. Nisus gets clear; and now unthinkingly he had passed the enemy, and the place afterwards called Albani from Alba's name; then the deep coverts were of King Latinus' domain; when he stopped, and looked back in vain for his lost friend. 'Euryalus, unhappy! on what ground have I left thee? or where shall I follow, again unwinding all the entanglement of the treacherous woodland way?' Therewith he marks and retraces his footsteps, and wanders down the silent thickets. He hears the horses, hears the clatter and signal-notes of the pursuers. Nor had he long to wait, when shouts reach his ears, and he sees Euryalus, whom even now, in the perplexity of ground and darkness, the whole squadron have borne down in a sudden rush, and seize in spite of all his vain struggles. What shall he do? with what force, what arms dare his rescue? or shall he rush on his doom amid their swords, and find in their wounds a speedy and glorious death? Quickly he draws back his arm with poised spear, and looking up to the moon on high, utters this prayer: 'Do thou give present aid to our enterprise, O Latonian goddess, glory of the stars and guardian of the woodlands: by all the gifts my father Hyrtacus ever bore for my sake to thine altars, by all mine own hand hath added from my hunting, or hung in thy dome, or fixed on thy holy roof, grant me to confound these masses, and guide my javelin through the air.' He ended, and with all the force of his body hurls the steel. The flying spear whistles through the darkness of the night, and comes full on the shield of Sulmo, and there snaps, and the broken shaft passes on through his heart. Spouting a warm tide from his breast he rolls over chill in death, and his sides throb with long-drawn gasps. Hither and thither they gaze round. Lo, he all the fiercer was poising another weapon high by his ear; while they hesitate, the spear went whizzing through both Tagus' temples, and pierced and stuck fast in the warm brain. Volscens is mad with rage, and nowhere espies the sender of the weapon, nor where to direct his fury. 'Yet meanwhile thy warm blood shalt pay me vengeance for both,' he cries; and unsheathing his sword, he made at Euryalus. Then indeed frantic with terror Nisus shrieks out; no longer could he shroud himself in darkness or endure such agony. 'On me, on me, I am here, I did it, on me turn your steel, O Rutulians! Mine is all the guilt; he dared not, no, nor could not; to this heaven I appeal and the stars that know; he only loved his hapless friend too well.' Such words he was uttering; but the sword driven hard home is gone clean through his ribs and pierces the white breast. Euryalus rolls over in death, and the blood runs over his lovely limbs, and his neck sinks and settles on his shoulder; even as when a lustrous flower cut away by the plough droops in death, or weary-necked poppies bow down their head if overweighted with a random shower. But Nisus rushes amidst them, and alone among them all makes at Volscens, keeps to Volscens alone: round him the foe cluster, and on this side and that hurl him back: none the less he presses on, and whirls his sword like lightning, till he plunges it full in the face of the shrieking Rutulian, and slays his enemy as he dies. Then, stabbed through and through, he flung himself above his lifeless friend, and there at last found the quiet sleep of death.
Happy pair! if my verse is aught of avail, no length of days shall ever blot you from the memory of time, while the house of Aeneas shall dwell by the Capitoline's stedfast stone, and the lord of Rome hold sovereignty.
The victorious Rutulians, with their spoils and the plunder regained, bore dead Volscens weeping to the camp. Nor in the camp was the wailing less, when Rhamnes was found a bloodless corpse, and Serranus and Numa and all their princes destroyed in a single slaughter. Crowds throng towards the corpses and the men wounded to death, the ground fresh with warm slaughter and the swoln runlets of frothing blood. They mutually recognise the spoils, Messapus' shining helmet and the decorations that cost such sweat to win back.
And now Dawn, leaving the saffron bed of Tithonus, scattered over earth her fresh shafts of early light; now the sunlight streams in, now daylight unveils the world. Turnus, himself fully armed, awakes his men to arms, and each leader marshals to battle his brazen lines and whets their ardour with varying rumours. Nay, pitiable sight! they fix on spear-points and uprear and follow with loud shouts the heads of Euryalus and Nisus. . . . The Aeneadae stubbornly face them, lining the left hand wall (for their right is girdled by the river), hold the deep trenches and stand gloomily on the high towers, stirred withal by the faces they know, alas, too well, in their dark dripping gore. Meanwhile Rumour on fluttering wings rushes with the news through the alarmed town and glides to the ears of Euryalus' mother. But instantly the warmth leaves her woeful body, the shuttle starts from her hand and the threads unroll. She darts forth in agony, and with woman's wailing and torn hair runs distractedly towards the walls and the foremost columns, recking naught of men, naught of peril or weapons; thereon she fills the air with her complaint: 'Is it thus I behold thee, O Euryalus? Couldst thou, the latest solace of mine age, leave me alone so cruelly? nor when sent into such danger was one last word of thee allowed thine unhappy mother? Alas, thou liest in a strange land, given for a prey to the dogs and fowls of Latium! nor was I, thy mother, there for chief mourner, to lay thee out or close thine eyes or wash thy wounds, and cover thee with the garment I hastened on for thee whole nights and days, an anxious old woman taking comfort from the loom. Whither shall I follow? or what land now holds thy mangled corpse, thy body torn limb from limb? Is this all of what thou wert that returns to me, O my son? is it this I have followed by land and sea? Strike me through of your pity, on me cast all your weapons, Rutulians; make me the first sacrifice of your steel. Or do thou, mighty lord of heaven, be merciful, and with thine own weapon hurl this hateful life to the nether deep, since in no wise else may I break away from life's cruelty.' At this weeping cry their courage falters, and a sigh of sorrow passes all along; their strength is benumbed and broken for battle. Her, while her grief kindled, at Ilioneus' and weeping Iülus' bidding Idaeus and Actor catch up and carry home in their arms.
But the terrible trumpet-note afar rang on the shrill brass; a shout follows, and is echoed from the sky. The Volscians hasten up in even line under their advancing roof of shields, and set to fill up the trenches and tear down the palisades. Some seek entrance by scaling the walls with ladders, where the defenders' battle-line is thin, and light shows through gaps in the ring of men. The Teucrians in return shower weapons of every sort, and push them down with stiff poles, practised by long warfare in their ramparts' defence: and fiercely hurl heavy stones, so be they may break the shielded line; while they, crowded under their shell, lightly bear all the downpour. But now they fail; for where the vast mass presses close, the Teucrians roll a huge block tumbling down that makes a wide gap in the Rutulians and crashes through their armour-plating. Nor do the bold Rutulians care longer to continue the blind fight, but strive to clear the rampart with missiles. . . . Elsewhere in dreadful guise Mezentius brandishes his Etruscan pine and hurls smoking brands; but Messapus, tamer of horses, seed of Neptune, tears away the palisading and calls for ladders to the ramparts.
Thy sisterhood, O Calliope, I pray inspire me while I sing the destruction spread then and there by Turnus' sword, the deaths dealt from his hand, and whom each warrior sent down to the under world; and unroll with me the broad borders of war.
A tower loomed vast with lofty gangways at a point of vantage; this all the Italians strove with main strength to storm, and set all their might and device to overthrow it; the Trojans in return defended it with stones and hurled showers of darts through the loopholes. Turnus, leading the attack, threw a blazing torch that caught flaming on the side wall; swoln by the wind, the flame seized the planking and clung devouring to the standards. Those within, in hurry and confusion, desire retreat from their distress; in vain; while they cluster together and fall back to the side free from the destroyer, the tower sinks prone under the sudden weight with a crash that thunders through all the sky. Pierced by their own weapons, and impaled on hard splinters of wood, they come half slain to the ground with the vast mass behind them. Scarcely do Helenor alone and Lycus struggle out; Helenor in his early prime, whom a slave woman of Licymnos bore in secret to the Maeonian king, and sent to Troy in forbidden weapons, lightly armed with sheathless sword and white unemblazoned shield. And he, when he saw himself among Turnus' encircling thousands, ranks on this side and ranks on this of Latins, as a wild beast which, girt with a crowded ring of hunters, dashes at their weapons, hurls herself unblinded on death, and comes with a bound upon the spears; even so he rushes to his death amid the enemy, and presses on where he sees their weapons thickest. But Lycus, far fleeter of foot, holds by the walls in flight midway among foes and arms, and strives to catch the coping in his grasp and reach the hands of his comrades. And Turnus pursuing and aiming as he ran, thus upbraids him in triumph: 'Didst thou hope, madman, thou mightest escape our hands?' and catches him as he clings, and tears him and a great piece of the wall away: as when, with a hare or snowy-bodied swan in his crooked talons, Jove's armour-bearer soars aloft, or the wolf of Mars snatches from the folds some lamb sought of his mother with incessant bleating. On all sides a shout goes up. They advance and fill the trenches with heaps of earth; some toss glowing brands on the roofs. Ilioneus strikes down Lucetius with a great fragment of mountain rock as, carrying fire, he draws nigh the gate. Liger slays Emathion, Asylas Corinaeus, the one skilled with the javelin, the other with the stealthy arrow from afar. Caeneus slays Ortygius; Turnus victorious Caeneus; Turnus Itys and Clonius, Dioxippus, and Promolus, and Sagaris, and Idas where he stood in front of the turret top; Capys Privernus: him Themillas' spear had first grazed lightly; the madman threw down his shield to carry his hand to the wound; so the arrow winged her way, and pinning his hand to his left side, broke into the lungs with deadly wound. The son of Arcens stood splendid in arms, and scarf embroidered with needlework and bright with Iberian blue, the beautiful boy sent by his father Arcens from nurture in the grove of our Lady about the streams of Symaethus, where Palicus' altar is rich and gracious. Laying down his spear, Mezentius whirled thrice round his head the tightened cord of his whistling sling, pierced him full between the temples with the molten bullet, and stretched him all his length upon the sand.