Aeneid Book 12, lines 161 - 194

Aeneas’s oath

by Virgil

The Goddess Juno, Turnus’s patron and Aeneas’s enemy, has gone to great lengths to avoid a duel between the two to decide the outcome of the conflict between the Trojans and the Latins. Now, however, as the fortunes of war have turned against the Latins, it looks as though it is finally going to happen. At the duelling ground, Aeneas and King Latinus swear to abide by the outcome. Aeneas goes further, and swears that, if he wins, he will not treat the Italians as a conquered people, but will live harmoniously with them in a spirit of justice and equity. As we will see, the actions of others could be seen as freeing him from his oath, but Virgil’s Roman audience would know – or believe – that this was the course that history had indeed taken. In describing how the human conflicts and aspirations that give the Aeneid its theme will be resolved, this is an important part of the poem’s ending.

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Interea reges ingenti mole Latinus
quadriiugo vehitur curru (cui tempora circum
aurati bis sex radii fulgentia cingunt,
Solis avi specimen), bigis it Turnus in albis,
bina manu lato crispans hastilia ferro.
hinc pater Aeneas, Romanae stirpis origo,
sidereo flagrans clipeo et caelestibus armis
et iuxta Ascanius, magnae spes altera Romae,
procedunt castris, puraque in veste sacerdos
saetigeri fetum suis intonsamque bidentem
attulit admovitque pecus flagrantibus aris.
illi ad surgentem conversi lumina solem
dant fruges manibus salsas et tempora ferro
summa notant pecudum, paterisque altaria libant.
Tum pius Aeneas stricto sic ense precatur:
‘esto nunc Sol testis et haec mihi terra vocanti,
quam propter tantos potui perferre labores,
et pater omnipotens et tu Saturnia coniunx
(iam melior, iam, diva, precor), tuque inclute Mavors,
cuncta tuo qui bella, pater, sub numine torques;
fontisque fluviosque voco, quaeque aetheris alti
religio et quae caeruleo sunt numina ponto:
cesserit Ausonio si fors victoria Turno,
convenit Evandri victos discedere ad urbem,
cedet Iulus agris, nec post arma ulla rebelles
Aeneadae referent ferrove haec regna lacessent.
sin nostrum adnuerit nobis victoria Martem
(ut potius reor et potius di numine firment),
non ego nec Teucris Italos parere iubebo
nec mihi regna peto: paribus se legibus ambae
invictae gentes aeterna in foedera mittant.
sacra deosque dabo; socer arma Latinus habeto,
imperium sollemne socer; mihi moenia Teucri
constituent urbique dabit Lavinia nomen.’

The Kings come, Latinus borne in great state
in his four-horse car, shining temples girt with
twelve golden rays, token of his ancestor,
the Sun, Turnus with his white team, hand
gripping twin, broad-bladed spears. Father
Aeneas, fount of the Roman race, shining
with starry shield and heavenly arms,
by him Ascanius, other great hope of Rome,
come from the camp, the priest in spotless robes
brings the offspring of bristly pigs and an unshorn
sheep and takes the beasts to the blazing altars.
Gaze turned to the rising sun, they pour from their
hands the salted grain and mark the top of the beasts’
brows with the knife, pour libations on the altars from
the cups. Then, sword drawn, pious Aeneas prays:
“Let the Sun, and this land for which I was able
to bear such great troubles stand witness as I call,
and the almighty Father, and you, divine consort,
hence a kinder deity, I pray, and you, glorious Mars,
Father who hold all wars fast under your sway,
and I call on springs, rivers and whatever powers are
in the lofty sky and gods in the blue ocean:
should victory chance to fall to Ausonian Turnus,
it is agreed that the vanquished shall withdraw to
Evander’s city, Iulus leave these lands, nor will my
people take up rebellious arms or harm this realm
with steel. If victory grants our arms the cause,
as rather I believe, and may the authority of the Gods
confirm, I will not command Italians to obey the Trojans,
nor seek dominion myself: both peoples, undefeated,
shall combine under equal laws in an eternal compact.
I’ll give my gods and holy relics: as my father-in-law,
Let Latinus keep solemn authority and sway our arms:
the Trojans shall build my town, Lavinia give her name.

`

More Poems by Virgil

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