Death of Turnus

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Dramatic Interpretation #3: 

 

Death of Turnus

(adapted from Kline’s online translation)

 

 

Aeneas pressed on, brandishing his great spear like a tree,

and, angered at heart, he cried out in this way:

‘Why now yet more delay? Why do you still retreat, Turnus?

We must compete hand to hand with fierce weapons, not by running.

Change into every form: summon up all your powers

of mind and art, wing your way if you wish

to the high stars, or hide in earth’s hollow prison.’

 

Turnus shook his head: ‘Fierce man, your fiery words

don’t frighten me: the gods terrify me and Jupiter’s enmity.’

 

Saying no more he looked round seeing a great rock,

a vast ancient stone, that happened to lie there in the plain,

set up as a boundary marker, to distinguish fields in dispute.

Twelve picked men, men of such form as Earth

now produces, could scarcely have lifted it on their shoulders,

but the hero, grasping it quickly, rising to his full height

and as swiftly as he could, hurled it at his enemy.

But he did not know himself, running or moving

raising the great rock in his hands, or throwing:

his knees gave way, his blood was frozen cold.

The stone itself, whirled by the warrior through the empty air,

failed to travel the whole distance, or drive home with force.

 

As in dreams when languid sleep weighs down our eyes at night,

we seem to try in vain to follow our eager path,

and collapse helpless in the midst of our efforts,

the tongue won’t work, the usual strength is lacking

from our limbs, and neither word nor voice will come:

so the dread goddess denied Turnus success,

however courageously he sought to find a way.

 

Then shifting visions whirled through his brain:

he gazed at the Rutulians, and at the city, faltered

in fear, and shuddered at the death that neared,

he saw no way to escape, no power to attack his enemy,

nor sign of his chariot, nor his sister, his charioteer.

 

As he wavered, Aeneas shook his fateful spear,

seeing a favourable chance, and hurled it from the distance

with all his might. Stone shot from a siege engine

never roared so loud, such mighty thunder never burst

from a lightning bolt. Like a black hurricane the spear flew on

bearing dire destruction, and pierced the outer circle

of the seven-fold shield, the breastplate’s lower rim,

and, hissing, passed through the centre of the thigh.

Great Turnus sank, his knee bent beneath him, under the blow.

The Rutulians rose up, and groaned, and all the hills around

re-echoed, and, far and wide, the woods returned the sound.

 

He lowered his eyes in submission and stretched out his right hand:

‘I have earned this, I ask no mercy’ he said,

‘seize your chance. If any concern for a parent’s grief

can touch you (you too had such a father, in Anchises)

I beg you to pity Daunus’s old age and return me,

or if you prefer it my body robbed of life, to my people.

You are the victor, and the Ausonians have seen me

stretch out my hands in defeat: Lavinia is your wife,

don’t extend your hatred further.’

 

                                                          Aeneas stood, fierce

in his armour, his eyes flickered, and he held back his hand:

and even now, as he paused, the words began to move him

more deeply, when high on Turnus’s shoulder young Pallas’s

luckless sword-belt met his gaze, the strap glinting with its familiar

decorations, he whom Turnus, now wearing his enemy’s emblems

on his shoulder, had wounded and thrown, defeated, to the earth.

As soon as his eyes took in the trophy, a memory of cruel grief,

Aeneas, blazing with fury, and terrible in his anger, cried:

‘Shall you be snatched from my grasp, wearing the spoils

of one who was my own? Pallas it is, Pallas, who sacrifices you

with this stroke, and exacts retribution from your guilty blood.’

So saying, burning with rage, he buried his sword deep

in Turnus’s breast: and then Turnus’s limbs grew slack

with death, and his life fled, with a moan, angrily, to the Shades.