With Aeneas’s camp under siege by his enemy Turnus, King of the Rutuli, two friends and lovers, Nisus and Euryalus, volunteer to find him and bring him back from his diplomatic mission. Passing Turnus’s lines, they find many of his warriors helpless from sleep and wine. They pause to kill many and to take trophies before continuing on their mission. To judge from the address that Virgil makes to the pair at the end of this piece, this slaughter of the defenceless seemed a nobler exploit to his age than it might now, but, in the age of Tarantino movies and computer war games, perhaps we should not feel too superior. The friends become separated, and, with the arrival of a troop of horsemen on their way to join Turnus, their way is blocked and the younger, Euryalus, is captured. The older, Nisus, concealed in the shadows, is tortured by anxiety. Praying to the Moon to guide his aim, as this extract begins he prepares to attack the force that is holding Euryalus.
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.
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