#8 Visit from Fury, Allecto

Episode #8:  A Fury Visits Queen Amata and Turnus

Vergil Aeneid Book 7 (lines 286-472)

[summarized in ‘Search for a Homeland’ pp. 69-70]

But, behold, the ferocious queen of Olympus, Juno,

saw the delighted Aeneas and his Trojan fleet,

from the distant sky, already in Italy, their destined homeland.

She gazed at them, already building houses, already confident

in their land, the ships deserted: she halted, pierced by a bitter pang.

Then shaking her head, she poured these words from her breast:

‘Ah loathsome people, and Trojan destiny, opposed to my

own destiny! Could they not have fallen on the Trojan plains,

could they not have been held as captives? Could burning Troy

not have consumed these men? They find a way through

the heart of armies and flames. And I think my powers must

be exhausted at last, or I have come to rest, my anger satisfied.

Why, when they were thrown out of their country I ventured

to follow hotly through the waves, and challenge them on every ocean.

The forces of sea and sky have been wasted on these Trojans.

What use have the storms been to me, or Scylla, or gaping

Charybdis? They now take refuge near their longed-for Tiber river.

‘But I, Jupiter’s great Queen, who in my wretchedness had the power

to leave nothing untried, who have turned myself to every means,

am conquered by Aeneas. But if my divine strength is not

enough, I won’t hesitate to seek help wherever it might be:

if I cannot sway the gods, I’ll stir the Acheron.

I accept it’s not granted to me to withhold the Latin kingdom,

and by destiny Lavinia will still, unalterably, be his bride:

but I can draw such things out and add delays,

and I can destroy the people of these two kings.

Let father and son-in-law unite at the cost of their nations’ lives:

virgin, your dowry will be Italian and Trojan blood,

and Bellona, the goddess of war, waits to attend your marriage.

Nor was it Hecuba, Cisseus’ daughter, alone who was pregnant

with a fire-brand, or gave birth to nuptial flames.

Why, Venus is alike in her child, another Paris,

another funeral torch for a resurrected Troy.’

When she had spoken these words, fearsome, she sought the earth:

and summoned Allecto, the grief-bringer, from the house

of the Fatal Furies, from the infernal shadows: in whose

mind are sad wars, angers and deceits, and guilty crimes.

A monster, hated by her own father Pluto, hateful

to her Tartarean sisters: she assumes so many forms,

her features are so savage, she sports so many black vipers.

Juno roused her with these words, saying:

‘Grant me a favor of my own, virgin daughter of Night,

this service, so that my honor and glory are not weakened,

and give way, and the people of Aeneas cannot woo

Latinus with intermarriage, or fill the bounds of Italy.

You’ve the power to rouse brothers, who are one, to conflict,

and overturn homes with hatred: you bring the scourge

and the funeral torch into the house: you’ve a thousand names,

and a thousand noxious arts. Search your fertile breast,

shatter the peace accord, sow accusations of war:

let men in a moment need, demand and seize their weapons.’

So Allecto, steeped in the Gorgon’s poison, first searches out

Latium and the high halls of the Latin king,

and sits at the silent threshold of Queen Amata, whom

concerns and angers have troubled, with a woman’s passion,

concerning the Trojan’s arrival, and Turnus’ marriage.

The goddess flings a snake at her from her dark locks,

and plunges it into the breast, to her innermost heart, so that

maddened by the creature, she might trouble the whole palace.

Sliding between her clothing, and her polished breast,

it winds itself unfelt and unknown to the frenzied woman,

breathing its viperous breath: the powerful snake becomes her

twisted necklace of gold, becomes the loop of her long ribbon,

knots itself in her hair, and roves slithering down her limbs.

And while at first the sickness, sinking within as liquid venom,

pervades her senses, and clasps her bones with fire,

and before her mind has felt the flame through all its thoughts,

Amata speaks, softly, and in a mother’s usual manner,

weeping greatly over the marriage of her daughter to the Trojan:

‘O, have you her father no pity for your daughter or yourself?

Have you no pity for her mother, when the faithless seducer

will leave with the first north-wind, seeking the deep, with the girl

as prize? Wasn’t it so when Paris, that Trojan shepherd,

entered Sparta, and snatched Helen off to the Trojan cities?

What of your sacred pledge? What of your former care for your own

people, and your right hand given so often to your kinsman Turnus?’

When, though trying in vain with words, Amata sees Latinus

stand firm against her, and when the snake’s maddening venom

has seeped deep into her flesh, and permeated throughout,

then, truly, the unhappy queen, goaded by monstrous horrors,

rages madly unrestrainedly through the vast city.

Rumor travels: and the same frenzy drives all the women,

inflamed, with madness in their hearts, to rage through the city.

They leave their homes, and bare their head and neck to the winds.

The wild Queen Amata herself brandishes a blazing pine-branch

in their midst, turning her bloodshot gaze on them, and sings

the wedding-song for Turnus and her daughter, and, suddenly

fierce, cries out: ‘O, women of Latium, wherever you are, hear me:

if you still have regard for unhappy Amata  in your pious hearts,

if you’re stung with concern for a mother’s rights,

loose the ties from your hair, demand war against the Trojans with me.’

So Allecto drives forth the Queen and Italian women to war.

When the Fury saw she had stirred these first frenzies enough,

and had disturbed Latinus’ plans, and his whole household,

the grim goddess was carried from there, at once, on dark wings,

to the walls of Turnus, the brave Italian, the city called Ardea

by our ancestors, and Ardea still remains as a great name,

its good-fortune past. Here, in the dark of night,

Turnus was now in a deep sleep, in his high palace.

Allecto approached him, and a sudden tremor seized his body,

and his eyes became fixed, the Fury hissed with so many snakes,

such a form revealed itself: then she turned her fiery gaze on him,

and raised up a pair of serpents amidst her hair,

and cracked her whip, and hissed these words through rabid lips:

‘Look on me! I am here from the house of the Fatal Sisters,

and I bring war and death in my hand.’

So saying, the Fury Allecto flung a burning branch at Turnus,

and planted the brand, smoking with murky light, in his chest.

An immense terror shattered his sleep, and sweat, pouring

from his whole body drenched flesh and bone.

Frantic, he shouted for weapons, looked for weapons by the bedside,

and through the palace: desire for the sword raged in him,

and the accursed madness of war, anger above all.

So, violating the peace, he commanded his young leaders

to march against King Latinus, and ordered the troops to be readied,

to defend Italy, to drive the enemy from her borders.