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