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