The Aeneid - Virgil (13 ebook reader .TXT) š
- Author: Virgil
Book online Ā«The Aeneid - Virgil (13 ebook reader .TXT) šĀ». Author Virgil
Onward he pressād, and kept him still in sight;
Then whirlād aloft his sword with all his might:
Thā unerring steel descended while he spoke,
Piercād his wide mouth, and throā his weazon broke.
Dying, he slew; and, staggāring on the plain,
With swimming eyes he sought his lover slain;
Then quiet on his bleeding bosom fell,
Content, in death, to be revengād so well.
O happy friends! for, if my verse can give
Immortal life, your fame shall ever live,
Fixād as the Capitolās foundation lies,
And spread, whereāer the Roman eagle flies!
The conquāring party first divide the prey,
Then their slain leader to the camp convey.
With wonder, as they went, the troops were fillād,
To see such numbers whom so few had killād.
Serranus, Rhamnes, and the rest, they found:
Vast crowds the dying and the dead surround;
And the yet reeking blood oāerflows the ground.
All knew the helmet which Messapus lost,
But mournād a purchase that so dear had cost.
Now rose the ruddy morn from Tithonās bed,
And with the dawn of day the skies oāerspread;
Nor long the sun his daily course withheld,
But added colours to the world revealād:
When early Turnus, wakāning with the light,
All clad in armour, calls his troops to fight.
His martial men with fierce harangue he firād,
And his own ardour in their souls inspirād.
This doneā āto give new terror to his foes,
The heads of Nisus and his friend he shows,
Raisād high on pointed spearsā āa ghastly sight:
Loud peals of shouts ensue, and barbarous delight.
Meantime the Trojans run, where danger calls;
They line their trenches, and they man their walls.
In front extended to the left they stood;
Safe was the right, surrounded by the flood.
But, casting from their towārs a frightful view,
They saw the faces, which too well they knew,
Thoā then disguisād in death, and smearād all oāer
With filth obscene, and dropping putrid gore.
Soon hasty fame throā the sad city bears
The mournful message to the motherās ears.
An icy cold benumbs her limbs; she shakes;
Her cheeks the blood, her hand the web forsakes.
She runs the rampires round amidst the war,
Nor fears the flying darts; she rends her hair,
And fills with loud laments the liquid air.
āThus, then, my lovād Euryalus appears!
Thus looks the prop my declining years!
Wasāt on this face my famishād eyes I fed?
Ah! how unlike the living is the dead!
And couldāst thou leave me, cruel, thus alone?
Not one kind kiss from a departing son!
No look, no last adieu before he went,
In an ill-boding hour to slaughter sent!
Cold on the ground, and pressing foreign clay,
To Latian dogs and fowls he lies a prey!
Nor was I near to close his dying eyes,
To wash his wounds, to weep his obsequies,
To call about his corpse his crying friends,
Or spread the mantle (made for other ends)
On his dear body, which I wove with care,
Nor did my daily pains or nightly labour spare.
Where shall I find his corpse? what earth sustains
His trunk dismemberād, and his cold remains?
For this, alas! I left my needful ease,
Exposād my life to winds and winter seas!
If any pity touch Rutulian hearts,
Here empty all your quivers, all your darts;
Or, if they fail, thou, Jove, conclude my woe,
And send me thunderstruck to shades below!ā
Her shrieks and clamours pierce the Trojansā ears,
Unman their courage, and augment their fears;
Nor young Ascanius could the sight sustain,
Nor old Ilioneus his tears restrain,
But Actor and Idaeus jointly sent,
To bear the madding mother to her tent.
And now the trumpets terribly, from far,
With rattling clangour, rouse the sleepy war.
The soldiersā shouts succeed the brazen sounds;
And heavān, from pole to pole, the noise rebounds.
The Volscians bear their shields upon their head,
And, rushing forward, form a moving shed.
These fill the ditch; those pull the bulwarks down:
Some raise the ladders; others scale the town.
But, where void spaces on the walls appear,
Or thin defence, they pour their forces there.
With poles and missive weapons, from afar,
The Trojans keep aloof the rising war.
Taught, by their ten yearsā siege, defensive fight,
They roll down ribs of rocks, an unresisted weight,
To break the penthouse with the pondārous blow,
Which yet the patient Volscians undergo:
But could not bear thā unequal combat long;
For, where the Trojans find the thickest throng,
The ruin falls: their shatterād shields give way,
And their crushād heads become an easy prey.
They shrink for fear, abated of their rage,
Nor longer dare in a blind fight engage;
Contented now to gall them from below
With darts and slings, and with the distant bow.
Elsewhere Mezentius, terrible to view,
A blazing pine within the trenches threw.
But brave Messapus, Neptuneās warlike son,
Broke down the palisades, the trenches won,
And loud for ladders calls, to scale the town.
Calliope, begin! Ye sacred Nine,
Inspire your poet in his high design,
To sing what slaughter manly Turnus made,
What souls he sent below the Stygian shade,
What fame the soldiers with their captain share,
And the vast circuit of the fatal war;
For you in singing martial facts excel;
You best remember, and alone can tell.
There stood a towār, amazing to the sight,
Built up of beams, and of stupendous height:
Art, and the nature of the place, conspirād
To furnish all the strength that war requirād.
To level this, the bold Italians join;
The wary Trojans obviate their design;
With weighty stones oāerwhelm their troops below,
Shoot throā the loopholes, and sharp javālins throw.
Turnus, the chief, tossād from his thundāring hand
Against the wooden walls, a flaming brand:
It stuck, the fiery plague; the winds were high;
The planks were seasonād, and the timber dry.
Contagion caught the posts; it spread along,
Scorchād, and to distance drove the scatterād throng.
The Trojans fled; the fire pursued amain,
Still gathāring fast upon the trembling train;
Till, crowding to the corners of the wall,
Down the defence and the defenders fall.
The mighty flaw makes heavān itself resound:
The dead and dying Trojans strew the ground.
The towār, that followād on the fallen crew,
Whelmād oāer their heads, and buried whom it slew:
Some stuck upon the darts themselves had sent;
All the same equal ruin underwent.
Young Lycus and Helenor only scape;
Savādā āhow, they know notā āfrom the steepy leap.
Helenor, elder of the two: by birth,
On one side royal, one a son of earth,
Whom to the Lydian king Licymnia bare,
And sent her boasted bastard to the war
(A privilege which none but freemen share).
Slight were his arms, a sword and silver shield:
No marks of honour chargād its
Comments (0)