The Aeneid (52 page)

                ‘You have heard, O best of kings, the answer of a king. You
                have heard his judgement on this great war.’

                The envoys had scarcely finished before a confused roar was
                running through the troubled ranks of the Italians, as when
                rocks resist a river in spate and the trapped waters eddy and
                growl while the banks on either side roar with the din of the
300         waves. As soon as calm returned to their minds and the words
                of fear were stilled on their lips, the king on his high throne
                addressed the gods and then began. ‘For my part, O men of
                Latium, I would have wished, and it would have been better so,
                to have decided this great issue long since, and not be summoning
                a council at a time like this with the enemy sitting by our
                walls. We are fighting a misguided war, fellow-citizens, against
                unconquerable heroes and the sons of gods. Battle does not
                weary them, and even in defeat they cannot take their hands
                
from the sword. If you had any hope of recruiting the Aetolians
                as your allies, lay it aside. To everyone his own hopes, but you
310         can see how feeble this one is. All other resource is shattered
                and lies in ruins. You can see this with your own eyes. The
                whole truth is there at your finger tips. I accuse no one. Courage
                has done all that courage could do. The whole body of the
                kingdom has fought this fight. But now the time has come for
                me to express an opinion which has formed in my doubting
                mind. Give me your attention, and I shall tell it in a few words.
                Near the Tuscan river Tiber I have long owned some land which
                stretches away to the west beyond the land of the Sicani. Here
                Auruncans and Rutulians sow their seeds, wearying the stony
320         hills with the plough and grazing the roughest of them. Let this
                whole area with the pine forests clothing its high mountains be
                given to the Trojans as a token of our friendship, and let us
                propose a treaty in just terms, inviting them to become partners
                in our kingdom. Let them settle here, if their hearts are so set
                on it, and build their walls. But if it is their wish to go elsewhere
                and seize the land of some other nation, and if it is within their
                power to leave this country of ours, let us weave the timbers of
                twenty ships in Italian oak, or more if they can man them. The
                wood is all lying on the shore. Let them say what ships they
                want and how many, and we can provide the bronze, the dockyards
330         and the hands to do the work. I propose also that a
                hundred envoys, men of the highest rank in the Latin race, be
                sent to carry this message and conclude this treaty, holding out
                the branches of peace in their hands and bearing gifts, talents of
                gold and ivory, and the throne and robe which are the emblems
                of our royal power. Consider this together, and rescue our
                crippled fortunes.’

                Then rose Drances, hostile as ever, who always looked askance
                at Turnus’ great reputation and was goaded by bitter
                jealousy. He was generous with his wealth and readier still with
                his tongue, but his hand did not warm to battle. His voice had
340         some weight in council and was always a force for discord. His
                mother’s breeding gave him pride of rank; his father’s origins
                were unknown. These were the words he spoke to add force
                and substance to their anger: ‘What you propose, good king
                
Latinus, is clear to all and needs no words of mine to support
                it. Everyone knows, and admits that he knows, what Fortune
                has in store for the people, but they are all afraid to utter it. It
                is time for the man whose auspices the gods reject to blow a
                little less hard and give us freedom to speak. It is because of his
                fatal recklessness – I, for one, shall not be silent though he draw
                his sword and threaten me with death – we have seen so many
                of our leaders, who have been the lights of our people, extinguished,
350         and the whole of our city now slumped in grief, while he
                storms the Trojan camp and frightens the sky with his weapons,
                knowing he can save his own life by taking to his heels. There
                is still one thing you must add, O best of kings, to all those
                many proposals and gifts you tell us to send to the sons of
                Dardanus, one thing only, and no man’s violence should be able
                to overrule your right as a father to give your own daughter to
                a noble husband in a marriage that will be worthy of her, sealing
                this peace in a treaty for all time. But if our hearts and minds
                are so beset with fear of the man, let us beg and beseech him to
                give her up and restore to his king and to his fatherland the
360         rights which are their due. Why do you keep throwing your
                unfortunate fellow-citizens into the jaws of danger, Turnus, you
                who are the single source and cause of all these sufferings of
                Latium? War will never save us. We are all asking you for peace,
                and the one inviolable pledge of that peace. I am the first to
                come to you as a suppliant – you imagine I am your enemy and
                that causes me no distress – look at me! I beg you to pity your
                people and lay down your pride. You are defeated. You must
                leave the field. We have been routed often enough and have seen
                enough funerals. We have stripped our wide fields bare. But if
                fame drives you on, if you have the strength in your heart, if
                you have such a yearning to receive a palace as a dowry, then
370         be bold, have the confidence to go and stand face to face with
                your enemy. So that Turnus can get himself a royal bride, our
                lives are cheap. We, the rank and file, are to litter the fields,
                unburied and unwept. But you too, if there is any strength in
                you, if you have any of the fighting spirit of your fathers, stand
                up to your challenger and look him in the face.’

                At this, Turnus groaned, and blazed up into a violent rage.

                
The words burst from the depths of his heart: ‘You have always
                a good supply of words, Drances, when war calls for action.
380         When the senate is summoned, you are the first to appear. But
                this is no time for filling the council chamber with talk, for
                pouring out high-flown speeches in comfort while our walls and
                ramparts are all that keep the enemy from us, and we are waiting
                for the ditches to fill with blood. By all means, Drances, you can
                thunder out your eloquence in your usual style and accuse me
                of cowardice, when your right hand has heaped up as many
                Trojan corpses as mine has and all the fields are studded with
                your trophies. But now is our chance to test our vigour and our
                valour. We do not have to look too far for enemies – they are
                standing all round the walls. Shall we advance to meet them?
                You hesitate? Where is your martial spirit? Will it always be in
390         your long tongue and nimble feet? You say I have been defeated.
                You scum of the earth, who can say I am defeated when he sees
                the Thybris rising, swollen with Trojan blood, the house of
                Evander destroyed root and branch and the Arcadians stripped
                of their arms? This is not how great Pandarus and Bitias found
                me, nor the thousand men I sent down to Tartarus on my day
                of victory when I was trapped inside the walls and rampart of
                the enemy. You say that war will never save us. That prophecy
400         is for the Trojan and for yourself, you fool. But go on, stirring
                up panic everywhere and praising to the skies the strength of a
                race of men who have been twice defeated. Go on insulting the
                armies of Latinus. Now, it seems, the leaders of the Myrmidons
                are afraid of Phrygian weapons! Now it seems that Diomede
                and Achilles of Larisa are taking fright, and the river Aufidus is
                flowing backwards in full retreat from the waves of the Adriatic!
                Drances even pretends to be terrified when I speak – a rogue’s
                trick! The fear is a pretence to add sting to his charges against
                me. But there is no need for you to be alarmed. My hand will
                never take the breath of life from a man like you. It is welcome
                to stay where it is in that breast of yours.

410         ‘But now, father, I come to you and to your great plan. If you
                no longer hold out any hope for our arms, if we are left to
                fight on utterly alone, if after one setback we are completely
                destroyed, and Fortune has abandoned us never to return, let us
                
stretch out our defenceless arms and sue for peace. But if only
                there were a spark of our old courage left in us! Any man who
                has fallen and bitten the dust of death rather than live to see
                such a thing, I count him fortunate in his life’s labours, the
                noblest spirit amongst us! Surely we still have untapped resources
                and warriors who have not yet engaged and there are
420         still cities and peoples in Italy to help us? And surely the Trojans
                have paid a heavy price in blood for the glory they have won!
                They too have had their funerals. The same storm has fallen on
                all of us. Why then do we disgrace ourselves by stumbling on
                the threshold? Why do our knees start shaking before we hear
                the trumpet? Many things change for the better with the passing
                of the days and the ever-varying workings of time. Fortune
                comes and goes. She has mocked many a man, and then set his
                feet back on solid ground. So the Aetolian Diomede and his city
                of Arpi will not help us. But Messapus will, and Tolumnius,
430         blessed by the gods, and all the leaders who have come to us
                from so many peoples, and great will be the glory for the chosen
                men of Latium and the Laurentine fields. We have Camilla too,
                from the noble Volscian race, leading her mounted column and
                her squadrons flowering with bronze. But if I am the only one
                the Trojans want to meet in battle, if that is your will and I am
                such a great obstacle to the good of all, then the Goddess of
                Victory has not entirely abandoned me, nor is she so ill-disposed
                to these hands of mine that I should refuse any undertaking for
                which I have such hopes. I shall go and face him with my spirits
440         high were he mightier than Achilles and with armour the equal
                of his, made like his by the hands of Vulcan. To all of you, and
                to Latinus, father of my bride, I, Turnus, second in courage to
                none of those who have gone before me, have offered up my
                life. Is Aeneas challenging me, and me alone? Let him challenge.
                It is the answer to my prayer. If this is the anger of the gods I
                would not have Drances appease it; if it is a moment for courage
                and glory, I would not give it to Drances.’

                So they disputed among themselves in deep uncertainty.
                Aeneas, meanwhile, had struck camp and was moving his army.
                Suddenly there came a messenger rushing wildly through the
                royal palace and causing panic all over the city: the Trojans,
450         
drawn up in line of battle, the Etruscan squadron with them,
                were coming down the valley of the Tiber and filling the whole
                plain. There was instant confusion and dismay among the people
                and hearts were roused by the sharp spur of anger. With wild
                gestures the young men asked for arms. ‘Arms!’ they shouted,
                while their fathers wept and murmured. On every side a great
                clamour of dissenting voices rose to the winds like the sound of
                flocks of birds settling in groves of tall trees, or swans whose
                harsh calls ring across the chattering pools of the river Padusa,
                so rich in fish. ‘Do not disturb yourselves, citizens!’ shouted
460         Turnus, seizing the moment. ‘Convene your council and sit there
                praising peace while your enemies invade your kingdom with
                swords in their hands.’ These were his only words to them as he
                leapt to his feet and rushed from the lofty palace shouting: ‘You,
                Volusus, tell the Volscian contingents to arm! And take the
                Rutulians with you! Deploy the cavalry, Messapus, and you
                too Coras with your brother, in battle array over the whole
                plain! Some of you reinforce the approaches to the city and man
                the towers. The rest of you come and advance with me where I
                order.’