The Aeneid

by Virgil

Caesar Augustus leading Italy into battle,

Caesar in triple triumph, borne home through the walls of Rome, was paying eternal vows of thanks to the gods of Italy: three hundred imposing shrines throughout the city. 840 The roads resounded with joy, revelry, clapping hands,

lifting onto his shoulders now the fame and fates of all his children’s children.

“If any crisis comes while I am away, don’t risk a pitched battle, no, don’t trust to the open field, just guard the camp and ramparts, safe behind the walls.”

Turnus gallops along the walls—a way in?—no way in. As a wolf prowling in wait around some crowded sheepfold, bearing the wind and rain in the dead of night, howls 70 at chinks in the fence, and the lambs keep bleating on, snug beneath their dams. The wolf rages, desperate, how can he maul a quarry out of reach? Exhausted, frenzied with building hunger, starved so long, his jaws parched for blood.

One love bound them, side by side they’d rush to attack, so now, standing the same watch, they held one gate. “Euryalus,” Nisus asks, “do the gods light this fire in our hearts 220 or does each man’s mad desire become his god?

Oh my god they’re so kissing

You keep guard at our back, so no patrol can attack us from the rear— you be on the alert, a hawk’s eye all around. I’ll make a slaughter, cut you a good clean swath.”

Here Nisus halts, looking back for his lost friend, no use— “My poor Euryalus! Where did I lose you? Where can I find you now?” Nisus already picks his way, wheeling, groping back through the whole deceptive wood,

“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, 490 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,

NOOOOOOOOOO THEY WWRE LOVERS

Then, riddled with wound on wound, he threw himself 510 on his lifeless friend and there in the still of death found peace at last.

They even impale the heads on brandished pikes, the heads—a grisly sight—and strut behind them, baiting them with outcries…Euryalus and Nisus.

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

Pandarus hurls his spear, unpolished, knotted, bark still rough but the breezes whisk it away, Saturnian Juno flicks

Turnus hard on its heels, nothing can keep him back, 780 bounding over the gangways, leaping the high decks. He had barely touched the prow when Juno bursts the cables, rips the ship from her moorings, blows her out to sea on the tide ebbing fast.

Will I ever see my Laurentine walls and camp again? What of those gallant men who backed my sword and me? All of them—what disgrace—I deserted them all to die an unspeakable death.

And the Tuscan fighter, gazing up at the sky and drinking in the air as he returned to his senses, said: “My mortal enemy, why do you ridicule me, threaten me with death? Killing is no crime. I never engaged in combat on such terms. No such pact did Lausus seal 1070 between you and me that you would spare my life. One thing is all I ask, if the vanquished may ask a favor of the victor: let my body be covered by the earth.

“Man of Troy, great in fame, greater in battle, how can I sing your praises to the skies? What to commend first? Your sense of justice, your awesome works of war? Surely we’ll carry back to our walls these words of yours with grateful hearts, 150 and if Fortune points the way, ally you with our king, Latinus. Turnus can find his allies for himself. We’ll even be glad to raise your mighty walls ordained by Fate, glad to shoulder up the foundation stones of Troy!”

“Camilla’s moving out to a brutal war, dear girl, strapping on our armor all for nothing. I love her like no one else! And it’s no new love, you know, that stirs Diana, no sweet lightning bolt of passion…

I love the gods they literally do not GAF they just love everyone with such passion for no reason

Whoever defiles her sacred body with a wound— 700 Trojan, Italian: make him pay me an equal price in blood! Then I will fold her in cloud, poor girl, with all her gear and bear Camilla’s unsullied body home to a tomb and lay her to rest in her own native land.”

the day has come when a woman’s weapons prove your daydreams wrong! Still, you carry no mean fame to your fathers’ shades— just tell them this: You died by Camilla’s spear!”

the spear went ripping through her, under her naked breast and it struck deep, it hammered home and drank her virgin blood. Her frightened comrades hurry to brace their falling queen

once, fades away. Then as she breathes her last, 960 she calls to Acca, alone of her young comrades, more than all the others true to Camilla, the only one with whom she shares her cares, and here is what she says: “This far, Acca, my sister, and I can go no further.

your queen has not deserted you, shorn of honor, not in your hour of death, nor will your death lack glory among the race of man, nor will you bear the shame of dying unavenged. Whoever defiled your body with that wound will pay with the death that he deserves!”

“Hurry! Pluck your brother from death, if there’s a way, or drum up war and abort that treaty they conceived. The design is mine. The daring, yours.” Spurring her on, 190 Juno left Juturna torn, distraught with the wound that broke her heart.

May both nations, undefeated, under equal laws, march together toward an eternal pact of peace.

“Aren’t you ashamed, Rutulians, putting at risk the life of one to save us all?

But we, if we lose our land, will bow to the yoke, enslaved by our new high lords and masters— we who idle on amid our fields!”

they pack in wedge formation bent on battle,

Wege formation wedg formation

never command the Latins, here on native soil, to exchange their age-old name, to become Trojans, called the kin of Teucer, alter their language, change their style of dress. Let Latium endure.