Aeneid Book 11, lines 539 - 566

The infant Camilla

by Virgil

This extract from Book 11 of the Aeneid follows some important developments which have swung the fortunes of war in the favour of Aeneas and the Trojans. After the battle for the Trojan camp, in which Prince Pallas has been killed, Aeneas has made an offer to his adversaries to settle the conflict by single combat with Turnus. On the Latin side, efforts to make new alliances have failed, and King Latinus is regretting going to war. In council, Turnus’s rivals raise Aeneas’s offer of single combat, and encourage the King’s inclination to offer Aeneas peace, suggesting that he also give him his daughter, Lavinia’s, hand in marriage. Turnus reacts with his characteristic anger and barely controlled violence, but no sooner has he said he is prepared to accept Aeneas’s challenge than news arrives that Aeneas is advancing, and the Latin council breaks up in confusion. Hurrying off to arm, Turnus has met Camilla, a warrior-queen and protegée of Diana, Goddess of the hunt, who has arrived offering her and her followers’ help. As the two lay plans for the battle against Aeneas’s advancing force, Virgil tells the story of Camilla and her origins.

The English is by the poet John Dryden. 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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Pulsus ob invidiam regno virisque superbas
Priverno antiqua Metabus cum excederet urbe,
infantem fugiens media inter proelia belli
sustulit exsilio comitem, matrisque vocavit
nomine Casmillae mutata parte Camillam.
ipse sinu prae se portans iuga longa petebat
solorum nemorum: tela undique saeva premebant
et circumfuso volitabant milite Volsci.
ecce fugae medio summis Amasenus abundans
spumabat ripis, tantus se nubibus imber
ruperat. ille innare parans infantis amore
tardatur caroque oneri timet. omnia secum
versanti subito vix haec sententia sedit:
telum immane manu valida quod forte gerebat
bellator, solidum nodis et robore cocto,
huic natam libro et silvestri subere clausam
implicat atque habilem mediae circumligat hastae;
quam dextra ingenti librans ita ad aethera fatur:
“alma, tibi hanc, nemorum cultrix, Latonia virgo,
ipse pater famulam voveo; tua prima per auras
tela tenens supplex hostem fugit. accipe, testor,
diva tuam, quae nunc dubiis committitur auris.”
dixit, et adducto contortum hastile lacerto
immittit: sonuere undae, rapidum super amnem
infelix fugit in iaculo stridente Camilla.
at Metabus magna propius iam urgente caterva
dat sese fluvio, atque hastam cum virgine victor
gramineo, donum Triviae, de caespite vellit.

Her father Metabus, when forc’d away
From old Privernum, for tyrannic sway,
Snatch’d up, and sav’d from his prevailing foes,
This tender babe, companion of his woes.
Casmilla was her mother; but he drown’d
One hissing letter in a softer sound,
And call’d Camilla. thro’ the woods he flies;
Wrapp’d in his robe the royal infant lies.
His foes in sight, he mends his weary pace;
With shout and clamors they pursue the chase.
The banks of Amasene at length he gains:
The raging flood his farther flight restrains,
Rais’d o’er the borders with unusual rains.
Prepar’d to plunge into the stream, he fears,
Not for himself, but for the charge he bears.
Anxious, he stops a while, and thinks in haste;
Then, desp’rate in distress, resolves at last.
A knotty lance of well-boil’d oak he bore;
The middle part with cork he cover’d o’er:
He clos’d the child within the hollow space;
With twigs of bending osier bound the case;
Then pois’d the spear, heavy with human weight,
And thus invok’d my favor for the freight:
‘Accept, great goddess of the woods,’ he said,
‘Sent by her sire, this dedicated maid!
Thro’ air she flies a suppliant to thy shrine;
And the first weapons that she knows, are thine.’
He said; and with full force the spear he threw:
Above the sounding waves Camilla flew.
Then, press’d by foes, he stemm’d the stormy tide,
And gain’d, by stress of arms, the farther side.
His fasten’d spear he pull’d from out the ground,
And, victor of his vows, his infant nymph unbound;

`

More Poems by Virgil

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