Aeneid Book 12, lines 311 - 340

Aeneas is wounded

by Virgil

A long-delayed duel between Aeneas and Turnus to settle the conflict without further bloodshed is about to begin, and Aeneas and his opposite number, King Latinus, have both sworn to respect the outcome. But Aeneas’s enemy, the Goddess Juno, is at work again. Turnus has a sister, Juturna, who has been granted immortality by Jupiter as thanks for her favours. In disguise, just as the Latin warriors fear that Turnus looks no match for the mighty Aeneas, she goads them into breaking the truce, and yet another bloody general conflict breaks out, in which, to make matters worse, Aeneas is hit by a stray arrow while trying to stop the fighting.

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At pius Aeneas dextram tendebat inermem
nudato capite atque suos clamore vocabat:
‘quo ruitis? quaeve ista repens discordia surgit?
o cohibete iras! ictum iam foedus et omnes
compositae leges. mihi ius concurrere soli;
me sinite atque auferte metus. ego foedera faxo
firma manu; Turnum debent haec iam mihi sacra.’
has inter voces, media inter talia verba
ecce viro stridens alis adlapsa sagitta est,
incertum qua pulsa manu, quo turbine adacta,
quis tantam Rutulis laudem, casusne deusne,
attulerit; pressa est insignis gloria facti,
nec sese Aeneae iactavit vulnere quisquam.
Turnus ut Aenean cedentem ex agmine vidit
turbatosque duces, subita spe fervidus ardet;
poscit equos atque arma simul, saltuque superbus
emicat in currum et manibus molitur habenas.
multa virum volitans dat fortia corpora leto.
seminecis volvit multos: aut agmina curru
proterit aut raptas fugientibus ingerit hastas.
qualis apud gelidi cum flumina concitus Hebri
sanguineus Mavors clipeo increpat atque furentis
bella movens immittit equos, illi aequore aperto
ante Notos Zephyrumque volant, gemit ultima pulsu
Thraca pedum circumque atrae Formidinis ora
Iraeque Insidiaeque, dei comitatus, aguntur:
talis equos alacer media inter proelia Turnus
fumantis sudore quatit, miserabile caesis
hostibus insultans; spargit rapida ungula rores
sanguineos mixtaque cruor calcatur harena.

Pious Aeneas bared his head, held out an unarmed
hand and shouted to his men: “where
are you running? Why this sudden discord?
Control your anger! The pact is struck and all
the rules settled. Only I can fight – leave all
to me, and have no fear. I will enforce the treaty
with a firm hand: by these rites, Turnus is mine!”
Even as these words were uttered, an arrow, flights hissing, struck Aeneas, who knows shot by whom, propelled by what wind, and whether chance or a god had brought the Rutuli such glory; the kudos of the deed
high, but hidden, and none boasted of Aeneas’s wound.
Turnus, seeing Aeneas leave his army, its leaders
perturbed, burned hotly with sudden hope, called for
his horses and armour, and with a bound leapt proud
and splendid onto his chariot and shook the reins.
As he went, he gave many strong men’s bodies to
death, sorely wounded many, crushed the ranks
with his chariot, grabbed spears to use on the fleeing.
As bloody Mars, roused to clash his shield in frenzy
by the rivers of icy Hebrus, looses war and gives their
head to his raging team, that flies over the open sea
before the north and west winds; farthest Thrace groans
with the shock of their hooves, while around the God are
borne the faces of black fear, wrath and ambush,
his retinue; just so swift Turnus whips his horses,
smoking with sweat, into the midst of battle,
riding his sadly slaughtered enemies down;
his horses’ swift hooves scatter the bloody dew
and kicks up gore blended with the sand.

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  2. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  3. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  4. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  5. New allies for Aeneas
  6. Turnus is lured away from battle
  7. Aeneas and Dido meet
  8. The death of Priam
  9. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  10. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  11. The farmer’s happy lot
  12. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  13. Charon, the ferryman
  14. Catastrophe for Rome?
  15. Love is the same for all
  16. The infant Camilla
  17. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  18. Aeneas’s oath
  19. Dido falls in love
  20. Jupiter’s prophecy
  21. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  22. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  23. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  24. Vulcan’s forge
  25. The natural history of bees
  26. King Mezentius meets his match
  27. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  28. The boxers
  29. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  30. Into battle
  31. Venus speaks
  32. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  33. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  34. The death of Dido
  35. The death of Priam
  36. Sea-nymphs
  37. Storm at sea!
  38. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  39. Juno is reconciled
  40. The portals of sleep
  41. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  42. Turnus the wolf
  43. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  44. Dido’s story
  45. Helen in the darkness
  46. The Trojan horse opens
  47. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  48. In King Latinus’s hall
  49. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  50. Cassandra is taken
  51. Rumour
  52. Signs of bad weather
  53. The Syrian hostess
  54. The Harpy’s prophecy
  55. The Aeneid begins
  56. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  57. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  58. Virgil begins the Georgics
  59. The Trojans reach Carthage
  60. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  61. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  62. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  63. What is this wooden horse?
  64. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  65. Mourning for Pallas
  66. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  67. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  68. The battle for Priam’s palace
  69. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  70. Juno’s anger
  71. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  72. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  73. Juno throws open the gates of war
  74. Rites for the allies’ dead
  75. Aristaeus’s bees
  76. Turnus at bay
  77. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  78. Dido’s release
  79. The farmer’s starry calendar
  80. Aeneas joins the fray
  81. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  82. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  83. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  84. The journey to Hades begins
  85. The death of Pallas
  86. Laocoon and the snakes
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