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