The Aeneid (47 page)

260         And now, as soon as Aeneas, standing high on the stern of
                his ship, could see the Trojans and his own camp, at that moment
                he lifted the shield on his left arm and made it flash. The Trojans
                on the wall raised a shout to heaven, fresh hope renewing their
                anger, and they hurled their spears, like cranes from the river
                Strymon in Thrace giving out their signals under the black
                clouds, trumpeting as they cross the sky and flying before the
                storm winds with exultant cries. The Rutulian king and the
                leaders of Italy were amazed until they turned round and saw a
                fleet making for the shore and a whole sea of ships gliding in
270         towards them. On the head of Aeneas there blazed a tongue of
                fire, baleful flames poured from the top of his crest and the
                golden boss of his shield belched great streams of fire, like the
                gloomy, blood-red glow of a comet on a clear night, or the
                dismal blaze of Sirius the Dog-star shedding its sinister light
                across the sky and bringing thirst and disease to suffering
                mortals.

                But the bold confidence of Turnus never wavered as he quickly
                took up position on the shore to repel the landing. ‘This is the
                answer to your prayer,’ he cried, ‘now is the time to break them.
280         Brave men have the God of War in their own right arms. Each
                of you must now think of his own wife and his own home and
                remember the great deeds which brought glory to our fathers.
                Let us go down to the sea to meet them while they are still in
                confusion and finding their feet after landing. Fortune favours
                the bold.’ So he spoke and pondered in his mind who could be
                led against the fleet and who could be trusted to keep up the
                siege of the walls.

                Meanwhile Aeneas was landing his allies by gang-planks from
                the high sterns. Many waited for the spent waves to be sucked
290         back and then took a leap into the shallow water. Others were
                clambering down the oars. Tarchon, who had been looking out
                for a stretch of shore where there seemed to be no shoals and
                no grumbling of broken water, where the swelling tide could
                come in without obstruction, suddenly swung his ship round
                
and appealed to his comrades: ‘Now, my chosen band, now
                bend to your stout oars. Up with your ships out of the water.
                Take the weight of them. Split with your rams this land that we
                hate, and let each keel plough its own furrow. I do not care if
                my ship is wrecked by such a mooring, if only we take possession
                of this land.’ When Tarchon had spoken, his comrades rose to
300         their oars and drove their ships foaming at the prow, hard on
                to the soil at Latium, till their beaks struck home on dry land
                and their keels were safely settled. But not yours, Tarchon.
                You ran aground on a shoal and hung there see-sawing on a
                dangerous ridge of rock, till at last the waves were weary of you
                and your ship broke up, throwing your men into the sea to be
                tangled in smashed oars and floating thwarts, as the undertow
                of the waves kept taking the feet from them.

                Turnus was no sluggard. Wasting no time he eagerly led his
                whole force to face the Trojans and drew them up at the ready
310         on the shore. The trumpets sounded, and Aeneas was the first
                to move against the army of the country people of Latium and
                lay them low. This was an omen of the battle that was to come.
                Theron was the first to fall. He was the tallest of their warriors,
                and had taken it upon himself to attack Aeneas. Through the
                mesh of his chain mail of bronze, through his tunic stiffened
                with threads of gold, Aeneas tore a huge gash with his sword in
                the flesh of his side. He then struck Lichas. His mother was
                already dead when Lichas was cut from her womb and dedicated
                to Phoebus Apollo, the God of Healing. Little good did it do the
                baby to escape the hazard of steel at birth. Next Aeneas saw
                huge Gyas and tough Cisseus felling the embattled Trojans with
                their clubs, and sent them down to death. Nothing could help
320         them now: not the weapons of Hercules, nor the strength of
                their hands, nor their father Melampus, who had stood by the
                side of Hercules as long as the earth supplied him with heavy
                labours to perform. There was Pharus, hurling his empty threats,
                till Aeneas spun the javelin and planted it in his throat even as
                he shouted. You too, Cydon, desperately following your latest
                beloved Clytius, with the first gold down on his cheeks, would
                have forgotten the young men you were always in love with.
                You would have fallen by the right hand of a Trojan and lain
                
there for men to pity, had not Aeneas been confronted by seven
330         brothers in serried ranks, the sons of Phorcus, hurling their
                seven spears. Some rebounded harmlessly from his helmet or
                his shield. Others his loving mother Venus deflected so that they
                only grazed his body, and Aeneas addressed his faithful Achates:
                ‘Pile up some javelins for me. No weapon that has stood in the
                body of a Greek on the plains of Troy will spin in vain from my
                right hand against Rutulians!’ He then caught up a great spear
                and hurled it. Flying through the air it beat through the bronze
                of Maeon’s shield and shattered in one instant the breastplate
                and the breast. Alcanor came to help him as he fell, a brother’s
340         right hand to support a brother. Through Alcanor’s arm went
                the spear of Aeneas and flew on its way dripping with his blood,
                while the dying arm hung by its tendons from the shoulder.
                Another brother, Numitor, snatched the weapon from Maeon’s
                body and aimed at Aeneas in return, but was not allowed to
                strike him, only to graze the thigh of great Achates. Then came
                Clausus of Cures in all the pride of his youthful strength and
                with a long-range cast of his unbending spear he struck Dryops
                full force under the chin. It went straight through his throat and
                took from him in one moment, even as he spoke, his voice and
                his life’s breath. His forehead struck the ground and his mouth
350         vomited great gouts of blood. Then Aeneas laid three Thracians
                low, men from the exalted stock of Boreas, then three more sent
                by their father Idas from their fatherland Ismara, all by different
                forms of death. Halaesus came running to the spot with his
                Auruncans; Messapus too, son of Neptune, whose horses drew
                every eye. Trojans and Latins were battling on the very threshold
                of Italy, each striving to dislodge the other, like opposing winds
                fighting their wars in the great reaches of the sky, equal in spirit
                and equal in strength; they do not give way to one another,
                neither the winds themselves nor the clouds nor the sea, but
                long rages the fight, undecided, and they all stand locked in
360         battle – just so clashed the armies of Troy and the armies of
                Latium, foot planted against foot, and man face to face with
                man.

                In another part of the battle, where a torrent had rolled down
                boulders and trees uprooted from its banks and strewn them
                
everywhere, Pallas saw his Arcadians, who had for once
                advanced on foot, now retreating with Latins in hot pursuit –
                the floods had so roughened the ground that they had decided
                to abandon their horses. One course alone remained – to fire
                the valour of his men by appeals and bitter reproaches: ‘Where
                are you running to, comrades? I beg you by your pride in
370         yourselves, by your bravery in time past, by the name of Evander
                your leader, by the wars you have won, by the hopes rising in
                me to gain glory like my father’s, this is no time to trust to your
                feet! It is swords you need, to cut your way through the enemy.
                There, where the moil is thickest, where the attack is fiercest,
                that is where your proud fatherland requires you and your
                leader Pallas to go. These are not gods who are pressing you so
                hard; they are mortals pursuing mortals. Like us they have two
                hands, and like us they have one life to lose. Look about you!
                The great barrier of ocean closes us in. There is no more land to
                run to. Shall we take to the sea? Shall we set course for Troy?’
                With these words he threw himself into the thick of his enemies.

380         The first man to meet him, drawn there by an unkindly fate,
                was Lagus. While he was trying to tear loose a great heavy rock,
                Pallas hurled his spear and struck him in the middle of the back
                where the spine divides the ribs. Pallas was pulling out the
                weapon, which had wedged between the bones, when Hisbo
                swooped on him, hoping to take him by surprise, but Pallas
                caught him first in the fury of his charge, made reckless by the
                cruel death of his comrade. Hisbo’s lungs were swollen. Pallas
                buried his sword in them. He then turned on Sthenius; then on
                Anchemolus of the ancient stock of Rhoetus, who had shamefully
390         debauched his own stepmother. You too fell on the
                Rutulian fields, Larides and Thymber, sons of Daucus, identical
                twins, a source of confusion and delight to your parents. But
                Pallas made a grim difference between you: with the sword of
                his father Evander he removed the head of Thymber, and cut
                off the hand of Larides. As it lay there, it groped for its owner
                and the fingers twitched, still half alive, and kept clutching at
                the sword. The Arcadians were stung by Pallas’ reproaches, and
                as they watched his glorious feats, remorse and shame armed
                them against their enemies.

400         
Then Pallas put a spear through Rhoeteus as he fled past on
                his two-horse chariot, and gave that much respite and reprieve
                to Ilus. For it was against Ilus that Pallas had aimed a long throw
                with his mighty spear, but Rhoeteus had come between them
                and taken the blow while fleeing from great Teuthras and his
                brother Tyres. He rolled from his chariot, and died with his
                heels drumming on the Rutulian ploughland. Just as a shepherd
                fires a wood at different points when the summer winds get up
                at last, and suddenly all the flames merge in the middle to make
                one bristling battle-front of fire stretching over the broad plain,
                and there he sits in triumph looking down on the exulting blaze
410         – just so, Pallas, did the valour of your men all come together in
                one, and put joy in your heart. But Halaesus was a fierce warrior,
                and he made straight for the enemies that stood in front of him,
                gathering all his strength behind his weapons. Ladon and Pheres
                and Demodocus he slew, and his flashing sword ripped off the
                right hand of Strymonius as it was poised to lunge at his throat.
                Thoas he struck with a rock in the face, shattering the bones
                and grinding them into the blood-soaked brains. Halaesus was
                next. His father, foreseeing the future, had hidden him in the
                woods, but when the father grew old and his whitening eyes
                dissolved in death, the Fates laid a hand on the son and consecrated
420         him to Evander’s spear. This was the prayer of Pallas
                before he attacked: ‘Grant now, O Father Thybris, that the
                spear I am holding poised to throw may reach the mark and go
                through the stout breast of Halaesus, and I shall strip these arms
                of his from his body and hang them on your sacred oak as
                spoils.’ The god heard his prayer. As the hapless Halaesus
                protected Imaon, he left his breast exposed to the Arcadian
                spear.

                But Lausus, who was bearing the brunt of the battle, did not
                allow his men to be dismayed by all this slaughter done by
                Pallas. First of all he slew Abas as he stood before him, the very
                knot and stumbling-block of war. The youth of Arcadia were
430         laid low and the Etruscans fell beside them, and you too,
                Trojans, who had faced the Greeks unscathed. The armies
                clashed, equal in their leaders and in their strength, and the
                wings of the battle line were forced into the centre so that men
                
could not raise a hand or a weapon in the crowd. On the one
                side Pallas thrust and pressed, on the other Lausus. They were
                almost of an age, and noble in appearance, but Fortune had
                denied each of them a homecoming. Yet the ruler of high
                Olympus did not yet allow their paths to cross, reserving for
                each his own death at the hand of a stronger enemy.