Aeneid Book 7, lines 445 - 470

A Fury rouses Turnus to war

by Virgil

Angry at the prospect of peaceful settlement for the Trojans in Italy, Juno the Queen of the Gods has called on the help of Allecto the Fury to thwart it. Under the influence of the fearsome Allecto, Latinus’s Queen has gathered a band of Latin women and girls round her and abandoned the city for a Bacchic rampage across the mountains in protest at her husband’s plan to marry their daughter to Aeneas, instead of Turnus, the chief of the neighbouring Rutuli. Now Allecto, disguised as an old woman, has  gone to Turnus as he sleeps to try to rouse him to action. At first he brushes her rudely off. But then …

This will not be the last time that we see Turnus burning with the violent anger that will be his trademark, perhaps because that is his character, perhaps because the effects of the fire that the Fury kindles in him in this extract will prove to be lasting.

See the illustrated blog post here.

To follow the story of Aeneas in sequence, use this link to the full Pantheon Poets selection of extracts from the Aeneid. See the next episode here.

To listen, press play:

To scroll the original and English translation of the poem at the same time - tap inside one box to select it and then scroll.

Talibus Allecto dictis exarsit in iras,
at iuveni oranti subitus tremor occupat artus,
deriguere oculi: tot Erinys sibilat hydris
tantaque se facies aperit; tum flammea torquens
lumina cunctantem et quaerentem dicere plura
reppulit et geminos erexit crinibus anguis
verberaque insonuit rabidoque haec addidit ore:
‘En ego victa situ, quam veri effeta senectus
arma inter regum falsa formidine ludit.
respice ad haec: adsum dirarum ab sede sororum,
bella manu letumque gero.’
sic effata facem iuveni coniecit et atro
lumine fumantis fixit sub pectore taedas.
olli somnum ingens rumpit pavor, ossaque et artus
perfundit toto proruptus corpore sudor;
arma amens fremit, arma toro tectisque requirit;
saevit amor ferri et scelerata insania belli,
ira super: magno veluti cum flamma sonore
virgea suggeritur costis undantis aeni
exsultantque aestu latices, furit intus aquai
fumidus atque alte spumis exuberat amnis,
nec iam se capit unda, volat vapor ater ad auras.
ergo iter ad regem polluta pace Latinum
indicit primis iuvenum et iubet arma parari,
tutari Italiam, detrudere finibus hostem:
se satis ambobus Teucrisque venire Latinisque.

Hearing this, Allecto blazed into anger. Sudden
shaking took the youth’s limbs even as he spoke, his
eyes froze: so many snakes hissed round the Fury,
so titanic was her form. Rolling fiery eyes, she
hurled him back, wondering what else to say,
reared up twin serpents in her hair, cracked
her scourge and, raging, cried: “See now! Wasted,
am I? Tired old age has lost the truth and deludes me
with fears of kings at war, does it? Look well; I am here
from the home of the Furies, my dire sisters, and bring
war and death in hand!”
Then she hurled her torch at the youth and
lit a fire in his breast, smoking with dark flame.
A great terror tore away his sleep, sweat broke
out across his limbs and body and drenched
him to the bone. Wild for weapons, he seeks them
in the room, in the house; he burns with lust
for steel and the madness and crime of war,
as when with a loud crackling the firewood is set
to the boiling cauldron and the smoking brew
leaps and overflows with foam, uncontrollable,
and the dark vapour mounts into the air. He tells
his best young warriors they must march on King Latinus,
that peace has been defiled, orders them to arms,
to the defence of Italy, to drive the enemy out:
he is coming, enough for Trojans and the Latins combined.

`

More Poems by Virgil

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

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.