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