The Aeneid (37 page)
With that he hurled his spear, his whole body behind it—
whirring on through the dark night, it flies at Sulmo
and striking his turned back it splits—crack!—
and a splinter stabs his midriff through.
He twists over, vomiting hot blood from his chest,
chill with death, his flanks racked with his last gasps.
The Rutulians reel, looking about, but now Nisus,
all the bolder, watch, cocking another spear
beside his ear as the enemy panics—hurls and
the shaft goes hissing right through Tagus’ brow,
splitting it, sticking deep in the man’s warm brains.
Volcens burns with fury, stymied—where can he find
the one who threw it? Where can he aim his rage?
“No matter!” he cries. “Now you’ll pay me
in full with your hot blood for both my men!”
With that he rushes Euryalus, sword drawn as
Nisus terrified, frenzied—no more hiding in shadows,
no enduring such anguish any longer—he breaks out:
“Me—here I am, I did it! Turn your blades on me,
Rutulians! The crime’s all mine, he never dared,
could never do it! I swear by the skies up there,
the stars, they know it all! All he did was love
his unlucky friend too well!”
But while he begged
the sword goes plunging clean through Euryalus’ ribs,
cleaving open his white chest. He writhes in death
as blood flows over his shapely limbs, his neck droops,
sinking over a shoulder, limp as a crimson flower
cut off by a passing plow, that droops as it dies
or frail as poppies, their necks weary, bending
their heads when a sudden shower weighs them down.
But Nisus storms the thick of them, out for Volcens,
one among all, Volcens his lone concern. His enemies
massing round him, trying to drive him back, left, right
but he keeps charging, harder, swirling his lightning sword
till facing Volcens, he sinks his blade in his screaming mouth—
Nisus dying just as he stripped his enemy of his life.
Then, riddled with wound on wound, he threw himself
on his lifeless friend and there in the still of death
found peace at last.
How fortunate, both at once!
If my songs have any power, the day will never dawn
that wipes you from the memory of the ages, not while
the house of Aeneas stands by the Capitol’s rock unshaken,
not while the Roman Father rules the world.
Triumphant,
the Rutulians gathered their battle-plunder, weeping now
as they bore the lifeless body of Volcens back to camp.
There they wept no less, finding Rhamnes bled white
and so many captains killed in one great slaughter.
Serranus, Numa too, and a growing crowd cluster
around the dead and dying men, and the ground lies warm
with the recent massacre, rivulets foam with blood.
Together they recognize the trophies of war—
Messapus’ burnished helmet
and many emblems retrieved with so much sweat.
By now,
early Dawn had risen up from the saffron bed
of Tithonus, scattering fresh light on the world.
Sunlight flooded in and the rays laid bare the earth
as Turnus, fully armed himself, calls his men to arms.
And each commander marshals his own troops for battle,
squadrons sheathed in bronze, and whets their fury
with mixed accounts of the last night’s slaughter.
They even impale the heads on brandished pikes,
the heads—a grisly sight—and strut behind them,
baiting them with outcries . . . Euryalus and Nisus.
On the rampart’s left wing—the river flanks the right—
the hardened troops of Aeneas group in battle order,
facing enemy lines and manning the broad trench
or stationed up on the towers—wrung with sorrow,
men stunned by the sight of men they know too well,
their heads stuck on pikestaffs dripping gore.
whirring on through the dark night, it flies at Sulmo
and striking his turned back it splits—crack!—
and a splinter stabs his midriff through.
He twists over, vomiting hot blood from his chest,
chill with death, his flanks racked with his last gasps.
The Rutulians reel, looking about, but now Nisus,
all the bolder, watch, cocking another spear
beside his ear as the enemy panics—hurls and
the shaft goes hissing right through Tagus’ brow,
splitting it, sticking deep in the man’s warm brains.
Volcens burns with fury, stymied—where can he find
the one who threw it? Where can he aim his rage?
“No matter!” he cries. “Now you’ll pay me
in full with your hot blood for both my men!”
With that he rushes Euryalus, sword drawn as
Nisus terrified, frenzied—no more hiding in shadows,
no enduring such anguish any longer—he breaks out:
“Me—here I am, I did it! Turn your blades on me,
Rutulians! The crime’s all mine, he never dared,
could never do it! I swear by the skies up there,
the stars, they know it all! All he did was love
his unlucky friend too well!”
But while he begged
the sword goes plunging clean through Euryalus’ ribs,
cleaving open his white chest. He writhes in death
as blood flows over his shapely limbs, his neck droops,
sinking over a shoulder, limp as a crimson flower
cut off by a passing plow, that droops as it dies
or frail as poppies, their necks weary, bending
their heads when a sudden shower weighs them down.
But Nisus storms the thick of them, out for Volcens,
one among all, Volcens his lone concern. His enemies
massing round him, trying to drive him back, left, right
but he keeps charging, harder, swirling his lightning sword
till facing Volcens, he sinks his blade in his screaming mouth—
Nisus dying just as he stripped his enemy of his life.
Then, riddled with wound on wound, he threw himself
on his lifeless friend and there in the still of death
found peace at last.
How fortunate, both at once!
If my songs have any power, the day will never dawn
that wipes you from the memory of the ages, not while
the house of Aeneas stands by the Capitol’s rock unshaken,
not while the Roman Father rules the world.
Triumphant,
the Rutulians gathered their battle-plunder, weeping now
as they bore the lifeless body of Volcens back to camp.
There they wept no less, finding Rhamnes bled white
and so many captains killed in one great slaughter.
Serranus, Numa too, and a growing crowd cluster
around the dead and dying men, and the ground lies warm
with the recent massacre, rivulets foam with blood.
Together they recognize the trophies of war—
Messapus’ burnished helmet
and many emblems retrieved with so much sweat.
By now,
early Dawn had risen up from the saffron bed
of Tithonus, scattering fresh light on the world.
Sunlight flooded in and the rays laid bare the earth
as Turnus, fully armed himself, calls his men to arms.
And each commander marshals his own troops for battle,
squadrons sheathed in bronze, and whets their fury
with mixed accounts of the last night’s slaughter.
They even impale the heads on brandished pikes,
the heads—a grisly sight—and strut behind them,
baiting them with outcries . . . Euryalus and Nisus.
On the rampart’s left wing—the river flanks the right—
the hardened troops of Aeneas group in battle order,
facing enemy lines and manning the broad trench
or stationed up on the towers—wrung with sorrow,
men stunned by the sight of men they know too well,
their heads stuck on pikestaffs dripping gore.
That moment, Rumor, flown through the shaken camp,
wings the news to the ears of Euryalus’ mother.
Suddenly warmth drains from her grief-stricken body,
the shuttle’s flung from her hand, the yarn unravels
and off she flies, poor thing. Shrilling a woman’s cries
and tearing her hair, insane, she rushes onto the high walls,
seeking the front ranks posted there—without a thought
for the fighters, none for the perils, the spears, no,
she fills the air with wails of mourning: “You—
is this
you
I see, Euryalus? You, the only balm
of my old age! How could you leave me all alone?—
so cruel! When you set out on that deadly mission,
couldn’t your mother have said some last farewell?
What heartbreak, now you lie in an unknown land,
fresh game for the dogs and birds of Latium!
Nor did your own mother lead her son’s cortege
or seal your eyes in death or bathe your wounds
or shroud you round in the festive robe I wove,
speeding the work for you, laboring day and night,
lightening with the loom the pains of my old age.
Where can I go? What patch of ground now holds
your body cut to pieces, your mutilated corpse?
This head—it’s all you bring me back, my son?—
it’s all that I followed, crossing land and sea?
Stab me through, if
you
have any decency left,
whip all your lances into me, you Rutulians,
kill me first with steel! Or pity me, You,
Great Father of Gods, and whirl this hated body
down to hell with a bolt, the only way I know
to burst the chains of this, this brutal life!”
Her wails dashed their spirits, a spasm of sorrow
went throbbing through them all. They were broken men,
their lust for battle numbed. As she inflames their grief,
Idaeus and Actor, ordered by Ilioneus and Iulus
weeping freely, cradle her in their arms and
bear her back inside.
A terrific brazen blast
went blaring out from the trumpets far and wide
and war cries echo the horns and the high sky resounds.
And now the Volscians charge, ranks of them packing under
a tortoise-shell of shields, bent on filling the trenches,
tearing down stockades. Some press hard for an entry,
scaling the walls with ladders, wherever a gap shows
in the thin defensive ring and light breaks through.
The opposing Trojans fling down missiles, any and all,
thrusting off the assault with rugged pikes—expert
from their years of war at defending city ramparts.
Great boulders they trundle down on the raiders,
huge weights, trying to break their shielded troops
but under the tortoise-shell they gladly take their blows.
Yet they can’t hold out. Wherever Rutulians mass for attack,
the Trojans roll up immense rocks and heave them hurtling down,
cracking their armored carapace, crush them, send them reeling
and now the bold Rutulians lose all zest for battle under
a blind defensive shell, they struggle out in the open,
flinging spears to clear the enemy ramparts. Here
in another sector, Mezentius—grim sight—is shaking
a Tuscan pine beam, hurling fire and smoky pitch at the foe
as Messapus, breaker of horses, Neptune’s son, is ripping
open a rampart, shouting: “Ladders—scale the walls!”
wings the news to the ears of Euryalus’ mother.
Suddenly warmth drains from her grief-stricken body,
the shuttle’s flung from her hand, the yarn unravels
and off she flies, poor thing. Shrilling a woman’s cries
and tearing her hair, insane, she rushes onto the high walls,
seeking the front ranks posted there—without a thought
for the fighters, none for the perils, the spears, no,
she fills the air with wails of mourning: “You—
is this
you
I see, Euryalus? You, the only balm
of my old age! How could you leave me all alone?—
so cruel! When you set out on that deadly mission,
couldn’t your mother have said some last farewell?
What heartbreak, now you lie in an unknown land,
fresh game for the dogs and birds of Latium!
Nor did your own mother lead her son’s cortege
or seal your eyes in death or bathe your wounds
or shroud you round in the festive robe I wove,
speeding the work for you, laboring day and night,
lightening with the loom the pains of my old age.
Where can I go? What patch of ground now holds
your body cut to pieces, your mutilated corpse?
This head—it’s all you bring me back, my son?—
it’s all that I followed, crossing land and sea?
Stab me through, if
you
have any decency left,
whip all your lances into me, you Rutulians,
kill me first with steel! Or pity me, You,
Great Father of Gods, and whirl this hated body
down to hell with a bolt, the only way I know
to burst the chains of this, this brutal life!”
Her wails dashed their spirits, a spasm of sorrow
went throbbing through them all. They were broken men,
their lust for battle numbed. As she inflames their grief,
Idaeus and Actor, ordered by Ilioneus and Iulus
weeping freely, cradle her in their arms and
bear her back inside.
A terrific brazen blast
went blaring out from the trumpets far and wide
and war cries echo the horns and the high sky resounds.
And now the Volscians charge, ranks of them packing under
a tortoise-shell of shields, bent on filling the trenches,
tearing down stockades. Some press hard for an entry,
scaling the walls with ladders, wherever a gap shows
in the thin defensive ring and light breaks through.
The opposing Trojans fling down missiles, any and all,
thrusting off the assault with rugged pikes—expert
from their years of war at defending city ramparts.
Great boulders they trundle down on the raiders,
huge weights, trying to break their shielded troops
but under the tortoise-shell they gladly take their blows.
Yet they can’t hold out. Wherever Rutulians mass for attack,
the Trojans roll up immense rocks and heave them hurtling down,
cracking their armored carapace, crush them, send them reeling
and now the bold Rutulians lose all zest for battle under
a blind defensive shell, they struggle out in the open,
flinging spears to clear the enemy ramparts. Here
in another sector, Mezentius—grim sight—is shaking
a Tuscan pine beam, hurling fire and smoky pitch at the foe
as Messapus, breaker of horses, Neptune’s son, is ripping
open a rampart, shouting: “Ladders—scale the walls!”
I pray you, Calliope—Muses—inspire me as I sing
what carnage and death the sword of Turnus spread that day,
what men each fighter speeded down to darkness. Come,
help me unroll the massive scroll of war!
Now a tower
reared high, a commanding, salient point with rampways
climbing up to it. All the Italians fought to storm it,
full strength, straining to drag it down, full force
while Trojans, jammed inside, fought to defend it,
barricade it with stones, hurling salvos of spears
through gaping loopholes. Turnus, first to attack,
whirled a flaming torch that stuck in the tower’s flanks
and whipped by the wind it quickly seized on planking,
clinging fast to the doorway’s posts it ate away.
Inside, panic, chaos, soldiers fighting to find
some way out of the flames—no hope. Men went cramming
back to the safe side, back from the killing heat but under
the sudden lurch of weight the tower came toppling down,
making the whole wide heaven thunder back its crash.
Fighters writhe in death, crushed on the ground,
the enormous wreckage right on top of them, yes,
impaling them on their own weapons, stabbing
splintered timbers through their chests.
Only
Helenor and Lycus slip to safety, just—Helenor
still in the flush of youth. A slave, Licymnia,
bore him once to Maeonia’s king in secret,
sent him to Troy, light-armed in forbidden gear,
a naked sword and a shield still blank, unblazoned.
Now he found himself in the thick of Turnus’ thousands,
Latin battalions crowding, pressing at all points—
as a wild beast snared in a closing ring of hunters,
raging against their weapons flings itself at death,
staring doom in the face, leaping straight at the spears—
just so wild the young soldier leaps at the enemy’s center,
rushing at death where he sees the spearheads densest.
But Lycus, far faster, escapes through enemy lines
and spears to reach the wall, clawing up to the coping,
trying to grasp his comrades’ hands when Turnus, chasing
him down with a lance, shouts out in triumph:
“Fool,
you hoped to escape my clutches?”—
seizing him as he dangles,
tearing the man down along with a hefty piece of wall.
As the eagle that bears Jove’s lightning snatches up
in his hooking talons a hare or snow-white swan
and towers into the sky, or the wolf of Mars that rips
a lamb from the pens and its mother desperate to find it
fills the air with bleating.
War cries rising, everywhere,
on and on they charge, packing the trench with earth,
some men hurling fiery torches onto the rooftops.
Ilioneus heaving a rock, a huge crag of a rock,
brings down Lucetius just assaulting the gates
with a flaming torch in hand as Liger kills Emathion,
Asilas lays out Corynaeus, one adept with javelin,
one with arrows blindsiding in from a distance—
Caeneus kills Ortygius—Turnus, triumphant Caeneus—
Turnus cuts down Itys, Clonius, Dioxippus and Promolus,
Sagaris, Idas, posted out in front of the steepest towers,
and Capys kills Privernus. Themillas’ spear grazed him first,
he dropped his shield, the idiot, raised his hand to the gash
as the arrow flew and digging deep in his left side, deeper,
burst the ducts of his life breath with a deadly wound.
There stood Arcens’ son, decked out in brilliant gear
and a war-shirt stitched blood-red with Spanish dye,
a fine, striking boy. His father reared him once
in the grove of Mars where Symaethus’ waters swirl
and a shrine to the gods of Sicily stands, the Palaci,
quick to forgive, their altar rich with gifts—
and he sent his son to war . . .
Mezentius’ hissing sling—
keeping its strap taut and dropping his spears, three times
he whipped it around his head, let fly and the lead shot,
sizzling hot in flight, split his enemy’s skull and
splayed him out headfirst on a bank of sand.
Then,
they say, Ascanius shot for the first time in war
the flying arrow he’d saved till now for wild game,
routing, terrorizing them, now his bow-hand cut down
strong Numanus—Remulus by family name, just lately
bound in marriage to Turnus’ younger sister. Numanus,
out of the front lines he swaggered, chest puffed up
with his newfound royal rank and he let loose
an indiscriminate string of ugly insults,
flaunting his own power to high heaven: “What,
have you no shame? You Phrygians twice enslaved,
penned up twice over inside blockaded ramparts,
skulking away from death behind your walls! Look
at the heroes who’d seize our brides in battle!
What god drove you to Italy? What insanity?
No sons of Atreus here, no spinner of tales, Ulysses.
We’re rugged stock, from the start we take our young ones
down to the river, toughen them in the bitter icy streams.
Our boys—they’re up all night, hunting, scouring the woods,
their sport is breaking horses, whipping shafts from bows.
Our young men, calloused by labor, used to iron rations,
tame the earth with mattocks or shatter towns with war.
All our lives are honed to the hard edge of steel,
reversing our spears we spur our oxen’s flanks.
No lame old age can cripple our high spirits,
sap our vigor, no, we tamp our helmets down
on our gray heads, and our great joy is always
to haul fresh booty home and live off all we seize.
But you, with your saffron braided dress, your flashy purple,
you live for lazing, lost in your dancing, your delight,
blowzy sleeves on your war-shirts, ribbons on bonnets.
Phrygian women—that’s what you are—not Phrygian men!
Go traipsing over the ridge of Dindyma, catch the songs
on the double pipe you dote on so! The tambourines,
they’re calling for you now, and the boxwood flutes
of your Berecynthian Mother perched on Ida!
Leave the fighting to men. Lay down your swords!”
what carnage and death the sword of Turnus spread that day,
what men each fighter speeded down to darkness. Come,
help me unroll the massive scroll of war!
Now a tower
reared high, a commanding, salient point with rampways
climbing up to it. All the Italians fought to storm it,
full strength, straining to drag it down, full force
while Trojans, jammed inside, fought to defend it,
barricade it with stones, hurling salvos of spears
through gaping loopholes. Turnus, first to attack,
whirled a flaming torch that stuck in the tower’s flanks
and whipped by the wind it quickly seized on planking,
clinging fast to the doorway’s posts it ate away.
Inside, panic, chaos, soldiers fighting to find
some way out of the flames—no hope. Men went cramming
back to the safe side, back from the killing heat but under
the sudden lurch of weight the tower came toppling down,
making the whole wide heaven thunder back its crash.
Fighters writhe in death, crushed on the ground,
the enormous wreckage right on top of them, yes,
impaling them on their own weapons, stabbing
splintered timbers through their chests.
Only
Helenor and Lycus slip to safety, just—Helenor
still in the flush of youth. A slave, Licymnia,
bore him once to Maeonia’s king in secret,
sent him to Troy, light-armed in forbidden gear,
a naked sword and a shield still blank, unblazoned.
Now he found himself in the thick of Turnus’ thousands,
Latin battalions crowding, pressing at all points—
as a wild beast snared in a closing ring of hunters,
raging against their weapons flings itself at death,
staring doom in the face, leaping straight at the spears—
just so wild the young soldier leaps at the enemy’s center,
rushing at death where he sees the spearheads densest.
But Lycus, far faster, escapes through enemy lines
and spears to reach the wall, clawing up to the coping,
trying to grasp his comrades’ hands when Turnus, chasing
him down with a lance, shouts out in triumph:
“Fool,
you hoped to escape my clutches?”—
seizing him as he dangles,
tearing the man down along with a hefty piece of wall.
As the eagle that bears Jove’s lightning snatches up
in his hooking talons a hare or snow-white swan
and towers into the sky, or the wolf of Mars that rips
a lamb from the pens and its mother desperate to find it
fills the air with bleating.
War cries rising, everywhere,
on and on they charge, packing the trench with earth,
some men hurling fiery torches onto the rooftops.
Ilioneus heaving a rock, a huge crag of a rock,
brings down Lucetius just assaulting the gates
with a flaming torch in hand as Liger kills Emathion,
Asilas lays out Corynaeus, one adept with javelin,
one with arrows blindsiding in from a distance—
Caeneus kills Ortygius—Turnus, triumphant Caeneus—
Turnus cuts down Itys, Clonius, Dioxippus and Promolus,
Sagaris, Idas, posted out in front of the steepest towers,
and Capys kills Privernus. Themillas’ spear grazed him first,
he dropped his shield, the idiot, raised his hand to the gash
as the arrow flew and digging deep in his left side, deeper,
burst the ducts of his life breath with a deadly wound.
There stood Arcens’ son, decked out in brilliant gear
and a war-shirt stitched blood-red with Spanish dye,
a fine, striking boy. His father reared him once
in the grove of Mars where Symaethus’ waters swirl
and a shrine to the gods of Sicily stands, the Palaci,
quick to forgive, their altar rich with gifts—
and he sent his son to war . . .
Mezentius’ hissing sling—
keeping its strap taut and dropping his spears, three times
he whipped it around his head, let fly and the lead shot,
sizzling hot in flight, split his enemy’s skull and
splayed him out headfirst on a bank of sand.
Then,
they say, Ascanius shot for the first time in war
the flying arrow he’d saved till now for wild game,
routing, terrorizing them, now his bow-hand cut down
strong Numanus—Remulus by family name, just lately
bound in marriage to Turnus’ younger sister. Numanus,
out of the front lines he swaggered, chest puffed up
with his newfound royal rank and he let loose
an indiscriminate string of ugly insults,
flaunting his own power to high heaven: “What,
have you no shame? You Phrygians twice enslaved,
penned up twice over inside blockaded ramparts,
skulking away from death behind your walls! Look
at the heroes who’d seize our brides in battle!
What god drove you to Italy? What insanity?
No sons of Atreus here, no spinner of tales, Ulysses.
We’re rugged stock, from the start we take our young ones
down to the river, toughen them in the bitter icy streams.
Our boys—they’re up all night, hunting, scouring the woods,
their sport is breaking horses, whipping shafts from bows.
Our young men, calloused by labor, used to iron rations,
tame the earth with mattocks or shatter towns with war.
All our lives are honed to the hard edge of steel,
reversing our spears we spur our oxen’s flanks.
No lame old age can cripple our high spirits,
sap our vigor, no, we tamp our helmets down
on our gray heads, and our great joy is always
to haul fresh booty home and live off all we seize.
But you, with your saffron braided dress, your flashy purple,
you live for lazing, lost in your dancing, your delight,
blowzy sleeves on your war-shirts, ribbons on bonnets.
Phrygian women—that’s what you are—not Phrygian men!
Go traipsing over the ridge of Dindyma, catch the songs
on the double pipe you dote on so! The tambourines,
they’re calling for you now, and the boxwood flutes
of your Berecynthian Mother perched on Ida!
Leave the fighting to men. Lay down your swords!”
Flinging his slander, ranting taunts—Ascanius
had enough. Facing him down and aiming a shaft
from his bowstring, horse-gut, tense, he stood there,
stretching both arms wide, praying first to Jove
with a fervent heartfelt vow: “Jove almighty,
nod assent to the daring work I have in hand!
All on my own I’ll bring your temple yearly gifts!
I’ll steady before your altar a bull with gilded brows,
bright white with its head held high as its mother’s,
butting its horns already, young hoofs kicking sand!”
had enough. Facing him down and aiming a shaft
from his bowstring, horse-gut, tense, he stood there,
stretching both arms wide, praying first to Jove
with a fervent heartfelt vow: “Jove almighty,
nod assent to the daring work I have in hand!
All on my own I’ll bring your temple yearly gifts!
I’ll steady before your altar a bull with gilded brows,
bright white with its head held high as its mother’s,
butting its horns already, young hoofs kicking sand!”
And the Father heard and thundered on the left
from a cloudless sky—the instant the lethal bow sings out
and the taut shaft flies through Remulus’ head with a vicious hiss
and rends his empty temples with its steel. “Go on,
now mock our courage with high and mighty talk!
Here’s the reply the Phrygians, twice enslaved,
return to you Rutulians!”
That’s all he says.
The Trojans echo back with a roar of joy,
their spirits sky-high.
By chance Apollo,
god of the flowing hair enthroned on a cloud
in the broad sweeping sky, was glancing down
at Ausonia’s troops and camp and calls to Iulus
flushed with triumph now: “Bravo, my boy, bravo,
your newborn courage! That’s the path to the stars—
son of the gods, you’ll father gods to come!
All fated wars to come will end in peace,
justly, under Assaracus’ future sons—
Troy can never hold you!”
In the same breath
the god Apollo dives from the vaulting skies and
cleaving the gusty winds searches for Ascanius.
He assumes the form and features of old Butes,
armor-bearer, once, to Dardan Anchises,
trusty guard of his gates until Aeneas
made him Ascanius’ aide. So Apollo approached
like Butes head to foot—the man’s age, his voice,
the shade of his skin, white hair, weapons clanging grimly,
and counsels Iulus now in his full glow of triumph:
“Son of Aeneas, stop! Enough that Numanus fell
to your flying shafts and you’ve not paid a price.
Apollo has granted this, your first flush of glory,
he never envied your arrows, a match for the Archer’s own.
For the battles to come, hold back for now, dear boy!”
from a cloudless sky—the instant the lethal bow sings out
and the taut shaft flies through Remulus’ head with a vicious hiss
and rends his empty temples with its steel. “Go on,
now mock our courage with high and mighty talk!
Here’s the reply the Phrygians, twice enslaved,
return to you Rutulians!”
That’s all he says.
The Trojans echo back with a roar of joy,
their spirits sky-high.
By chance Apollo,
god of the flowing hair enthroned on a cloud
in the broad sweeping sky, was glancing down
at Ausonia’s troops and camp and calls to Iulus
flushed with triumph now: “Bravo, my boy, bravo,
your newborn courage! That’s the path to the stars—
son of the gods, you’ll father gods to come!
All fated wars to come will end in peace,
justly, under Assaracus’ future sons—
Troy can never hold you!”
In the same breath
the god Apollo dives from the vaulting skies and
cleaving the gusty winds searches for Ascanius.
He assumes the form and features of old Butes,
armor-bearer, once, to Dardan Anchises,
trusty guard of his gates until Aeneas
made him Ascanius’ aide. So Apollo approached
like Butes head to foot—the man’s age, his voice,
the shade of his skin, white hair, weapons clanging grimly,
and counsels Iulus now in his full glow of triumph:
“Son of Aeneas, stop! Enough that Numanus fell
to your flying shafts and you’ve not paid a price.
Apollo has granted this, your first flush of glory,
he never envied your arrows, a match for the Archer’s own.
For the battles to come, hold back for now, dear boy!”
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