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