Bewildered by disaster’s shifting image, Turnus is silent, staring; shame and sadness Boil up in that great heart, and grief and love Driven by frenzy. He shakes off the shadows; The light comes back to his mind. His eyes turn, blazing, From the wheels of the car to the walls of that great city Where the flame billowed upward, the roaring blast Catching a tower, one he himself had fashioned With jointed beams and rollers and high gangways. “Fate is the winner now; keep out of my way, My sister: now I follow god and fortune. I am ready for Aeneas, ready to bear Whatever is bitter in death. No longer, sister, Shall I be shamed, and you behold me. Let me, Before the final madness, be a madman!” He bounded from the chariot, came rushing Through spears, through enemies; his grieving sister He left behind, forgotten. As a boulder Torn from a mountain-top rolls headlong downward, Impelled by wind, or washed by storm, or loosened By time’s erosion, and comes down the hillside A mass possessed of evil, leaping and bounding, And rolling with it men and trees and cattle, So, through the broken columns, Turnus rushes On to the city, where the blood goes deepest Into the muddy ground, and the air whistles With flying spears. He makes a sudden gesture, Crying aloud:--“No more, no more, Rutulians! Hold back your weapons, Latins! Whatever fortune There may be here is mine. I am the one, Not you, to make the treaty good, to settle The issue with the sword. That will be better.” They all made way and gave him room.
Aeneas, Hearing the name of Turnus, leaves the city, Forsakes the lofty walls; he has no patience With any more delay, breaks off all projects, Exults, a terrible thunderer in armor, As huge as Athos, or as huge as Eryx, Or even father Apennine, that mountain Roaring above the oaks, and lifting high His crown of shimmering trees and snowy crest. Now all men turned their eyes, Rutulians, Trojans, Italians, those who held the lofty ramparts, Those battering at the wall below; their shoulders Were eased of armor now. And king Latinus Could hardly, in amazement, trust his senses Seeing these two big men, born worlds apart Meeting to make decision with the sword. The plain was cleared, and they came rushing forward, Hurling, far off, their spears; the fight is on, The bronze shields clang and ring. Earth gives a groan. The swords strike hard and often; luck and courage Are blent in one. And as on mighty Sila Or on Taburnus’ mountain, when two bullocks Charge into fight head-on, and trembling herdsmen Fall back in fear, and the herd is dumb with terror, And heifers, hardly lowing, stare and wonder Which one will rule the woodland, which one the herd Will follow meekly after, and all the time They gore each other with savage horns, and shoulders And necks and ribs run streams of blood, and bellowing Fills all the woodland,--even so, Aeneas And Daunus’ son clash shield on shield; the clamor Fills heaven. And Jupiter holds the scales in balance With each man’s destiny as weight and counter, And one the heavier under the doom of death.