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