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