Both to the city bend. Æneas sees,
Through smoking fields, his hastening enemies;
And Turnus views the Trojans in array,
And hears the approaching horses proudly neigh.
Soon had their hosts in bloody battle joined ;
But westward to the sea the sun declined.
Intrenched before the town, both armies lie,
While night with sable wings involves the sky.

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Æ NEÏS.

BOOK XII.

ARGUMENT.

Turnus challenges Eneas to a single combat: articles are agreed on, but broken by the Rutuli, who wound Eneas. He is miraculously cured by Venus, forces Turnus to a duel, and concludes the poem with his death.

WHEN Turnus saw the Latins leave the field,
Their armies broken, and their courage quelled,
Himself become the mark of public spite,
His honour questioned for the promised fight-
The more he was with vulgar hate opprest,
The more his fury boiled within his breast:
He roused his vigour for the last debate,
And raised his haughty soul, to meet his fate.
As, when the swains the Libyan lion chase,
He makes a sour retreat, nor mends his pace;
But, if the pointed javelin pierce his side,
The lordly beast returns with double pride:
He wrenches out the steel, he roars for pain,
His sides he lashes, and erects his mane:
So Turnus fares his eyeballs flash with fire;
Through his wide nostrils clouds of smoke expire.
Trembling with rage, around the court he ran,
At length approached the king, and thus began:-

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"No more excuses or delays: I stand
In arms prepared to combat, hand to hand,
This base deserter of his native land.
The Trojan, by his word, is bound to take
The same conditions which himself did make.
Renew the truce; the solemn rites prepare,
And to my single virtue trust the war.
The Latians unconcerned shall see the fight:
This arm unaided shall assert your right:
Then, if my prostrate body press the plain,
To him the crown and beauteous bride remain."
To whom the king sedately thus replied
"Brave youth! the more your valour has been
tried,

The more becomes it us, with due respect,
To weigh the chance of war, which you neglect.
You want not wealth, or a successive throne,
Or cities which your arms have made your

own:

My towns and treasures are at your command,
And stored with blooming beauties is my land:
Laurentum more than one Lavinia sees,
Unmarried, fair, of noble families.

Now let me speak, and you with patience hear,
Things which perhaps may grate a lover's ear,
But sound advice, proceeding from a heart
Sincerely yours, and free from fraudful art.
The gods, by signs, have manifestly shown,
No prince, Italian born, should heir my throne:
Oft have our augurs, in prediction skilled,
And oft our priests, a foreign son revealed.
Yet, won by worth that cannot be withstood,
Bribed by my kindness to my kindred blood,
Urged by my wife, who would not be denied,
I promised my Lavinia for your bride:
Her from her plighted lord by force I took;
All ties of treaties, and of honour, broke:

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On your account I waged an impious war-
With what success, it is needless to declare;
I and my subjects feel, and you have had your
Twice vanquished while in bloody fields we strive,
Scarce in our walls we keep our hopes alive :
The rolling flood runs warm with human gore;
The bones of Latians blanch the neighbouring shore. 60
Why put I not an end to this debate,
Still unresolved, and still a slave to fate?
If Turnus' death a lasting peace can give,

Why should I not procure it whilst you live?
Should I to doubtful arms your youth betray,
What would my kinsmen, the Rutulians, say?
And, should you fall in fight (which heaven
defend!),

How curse the cause, which hastened to his end
The daughter's lover, and the father's friend?
Weigh in your mind the various chance of war;
Pity your parent's age, and ease his care."

Such balmy words he poured, but all in vain :
The proffered medicine but provoked the pain.
The wrathful youth, disdaining the relief,
With intermitting sobs thus vents his grief:-
"The care, O best of fathers! which you take
For my concerns, at my desire forsake.
Permit me not to languish out my days,
But make the best exchange of life for praise.
This arm, this lance, can well dispute the prize;
And the blood follows, where the weapon flies.
His goddess mother is not near, to shroud
The flying coward with an empty cloud."

But now the queen, who feared for Turnus' life,
And loathed the hard conditions of the strife,
Held him by force; and, dying in his death,
In these sad accents gave her sorrow breath :-
"O Turnus! I adjure thee by these tears,
And whate'er price Amata's honour bears

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Within thy breast, since thou art all my hope,
My sickly mind's repose, my sinking age's prop-
Since on the safety of thy life alone
Depends Latinus, and the Latian throne-
Refuse me not this one, this only prayer,
To waive the combat, and pursue the war.
Whatever chance attends this fatal strife,
Think it includes, in thine, Amata's life.
I cannot live a slave, or see my throne
Usurped by strangers, or a Trojan son.'

At this, a flood of tears Lavinia shed;

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A crimson blush her beauteous face o'erspread,

Varying her cheeks by turns with white and red.*
The driving colours, never at a stay,

Run here and there, and flush, and fade away.
Delightful change! thus Indian ivory shows,
Which with the bordering paint of purple glows;
Or lilies damasked by the neighbouring rose.
The lover gazed, and, burning with desire,
The more he looked, the more he fed the fire :
Revenge, and jealous rage, and secret spite,
Roll in his breast, and rouse him to the fight.

* Amata, ever partial to the cause of Turnus, had just before desired him, with all manner of earnestness, not to engage his rival in single fight; which was his present resolution. Virgil, though (in favour of his hero) he never tells us directly that Lavinia preferred Turnus to Æneas, yet has insinuated this preference twice before. For mark, in the Seventh Eneïd, she left her father (who had promised her to Æneas without asking her consent), and followed her mother into the woods, with a troop of Bacchanals, where Amata sung the marriage-song, in the name of Turnus; which, if she had disliked, she might have opposed. Then, in the Eleventh Æneïd, when her mother went to the temple of Pallas, to invoke her aid against Æneas, whom she calls by no better name than Phrygius prædo, Lavinia sits by her in the same chair or litter, juxtaque comes Lavinia virgo,-oculos dejecta decoros. What greater sign of love, than fear and concernment for the lover? In the lines which I have quoted, she not only sheds tears, but changes colour. She had been bred up with Turnus; and Æneas was wholly a stranger

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