Aeneid

the Volscians all turned eager thought and eyes

toward their Queen. She only did not heed

that windy roar, nor weapon dropped from heaven,

till in her bare, protruded breast the spear

drank, deeply driven, of her virgin blood.

Her terror-struck companians swiftly throng

around her, and uplift their sinking Queen.

But Arruns, panic-stricken more than all,

makes off, half terror and half joy, nor dares

hazard his lance again, nor dares oppose

a virgin's arms. As creeps back to the hills

in pathless covert ere his foes pursue,

from shepherd slain or mighty bull laid low,

some wolf, who, now of his bold trespass ware,

curls close against his paunch a quivering tail

and to the forest tries: so Arruns speeds

from sight of men in terror, glad to fly,

and hides him in the crowd. But his keen spear

dying Camilla from her bosom drew,

though the fixed barb of deeply-wounding steel

clung to the rib. She sank to earth undone,

her cold eyes closed in death, and from her cheeks

the roses fled. With failing breath she called

on Acca—who of all her maiden peers

was chiefly dear and shared her heart's whole pain—

and thus she spoke: “O Acca, sister mine,

I have been strong till now. The cruel wound

consumes me, and my world is growing dark.

Haste thee to Turnus! Tell my dying words!

'T is he must bear the battle and hold back

the Trojan from our city wall. Farewell!”

So saying, her fingers from the bridle-rein

unclasped, and helpless to the earth she fell;

then, colder grown, she loosed her more and more

out of the body's coil; she gave to death

her neck, her drooping head, and ceased to heed

her war-array. So fled her spirit forth

with wrath and moaning to the world below.

Then clamor infinite uprose and smote

the golden stars, as round Camilla slain

the battle newly raged. To swifter charge

the gathered Trojans ran, with Tuscan lords

and King Evander's troops of Arcady.

Fair Opis, keeping guard for Trivia

in patient sentry on a lofty hill, beheld

unterrified the conflict's rage. Yet when,

amid the frenzied shouts of soldiery,

she saw from far Camilla pay the doom

of piteous death, with deep-drawn voice of sight

she thus complained: “O virgin, woe is me!

Too much, too much, this agony of thine,

to expiate that thou didst lift thy spear

for wounding Troy. It was no shield in war,

nor any vantage to have kept thy vow

to chaste Diana in the thorny wild.

Our maiden arrows at thy shoulder slung

availed thee not! Yet will our Queen divine

not leave unhonored this thy dying day,

nor shall thy people let thy death remain

a thing forgot, nor thy bright name appear

a glory unavenged. Whoe'er he be

that marred thy body with the mortal wound

shall die as he deserves.” Beneath that hill

an earth-built mound uprose, the tomb

of King Dercennus, a Laurentine old,

by sombre ilex shaded: thither hied

the fair nymph at full speed, and from the mound

looked round for Arruns. When his shape she saw

in glittering armor vainly insolent,

“Whither so fast?” she cried. “This way, thy path!

This fatal way approach, and here receive

thy reward for Camilla! Thou shalt fall,

vile though thou art, by Dian's shaft divine.”

She said; and one swift-coursing arrow took

from golden quiver, like a maid of Thrace,

and stretched it on her bow with hostile aim,

withdrawing far, till both the tips of horn

together bent, and, both hands poising well,

the left outreached to touch the barb of steel,

the right to her soft breast the bowstring drew:

the hissing of the shaft, the sounding air,

Arruns one moment heard, as to his flesh

the iron point clung fast. But his last groan

his comrades heeded not, and let him lie,

scorned and forgotten, on the dusty field,

while Opis soared to bright Olympian air.

Camilla's light-armed troop, its virgin chief

now fallen, were the first to fly; in flight

the panic-stricken Rutule host is seen

and Acer bold; his captains in dismay

with shattered legions from the peril fly,

and goad their horses to the city wall.

Not one sustains the Trojan charge, or stands

in arms against the swift approach of death.

Their bows unstrung from drooping shoulder fall,

and clatter of hoof-beats shakes the crumbling ground.

On to the city in a blinding cloud

the dust uprolls. From watch-towers Iooking forth,

the women smite their breasts and raise to heaven

shrill shouts of fear. Those fliers who first passed