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

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