Aeneid Book 9, lines 54 - 66

Turnus the wolf

by Virgil

When Turnus, the chief of the Rutuli, receives a message from his protectress, the Goddess Juno, that Aeneas is far away from his men seeking alliances, he decides to march straight away on the camp that the Trojans have built and fortified. He expects a pitched battle, but Aeneas has instructed the Trojans to stay on the defensive if attacked in his absence. When they retreat to their camp and close the gates, Turnus is beside himself.

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.

Clamorem excipiunt socii fremituque sequuntur
horrisono; Teucrum mirantur inertia corda,
non aequo dare se campo, non obvia ferre
arma viros, sed castra fovere. huc turbidus atque huc
lustrat equo muros aditumque per avia quaerit.
ac veluti pleno lupus insidiatus ovili
cum fremit ad caulas ventos perpessus et imbris
nocte super media; tuti sub matribus agni
balatum exercent, ille asper et improbus ira
saevit in absentis; collecta fatigat edendi
ex longo rabies et siccae sanguine fauces:
haud aliter Rutulo muros et castra tuenti
ignescunt irae, duris dolor ossibus ardet.

The allies take up the cry, and press on with a fearsome
racket, amazed at the Teucrians’ lack of pluck,
in not engaging in the open or taking up arms like men,
but keeping to the camp. Seething, Turnus scours
the defences up and down on horseback,
seeking some obscure way in. But he is like
a wolf with designs on a packed sheepfold who, beset
by winds and rain, at midnight roars at every chink;
the lambs bleat, safe under their dams, but he, agonised
and beside himself with anger, fumes at the separation,
gnawed by his chronic hunger and the lack of blood
on his maw; just so the anger kindles in the Rutulian
looking on, and anguish smoulders in his hard bones.

`

More Poems by Virgil

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