Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/318

Fate to give my daughter to any of her early suitors;
so sang gods and men alike. Conquered by my love for
you, conquered by the ties of kindred and the sorrow of
my weeping queen, I set all pledges at naught, I snatched
the bride from her plighted husband. I drew the unhallowed 5
sword. From that fatal day you see what troubles,
what wars are let loose upon me; you know the weight of
the sufferings which you are the first to feel. Twice vanquished
in a mighty conflict, we scarce protect by our bulwarks
the hopes of Italy: Tiber's waters are yet steaming 10
with our blood, and the spacious plains are whitened by
our bones. Whither am I drifting again and again?
what madness turns my brain? If on the death of Turnus
I am ready to welcome these new allies, why should I not
end the strife while he lives and is safe? What will our 15
Rutulian kinsmen say, what the rest of Italy, if—may
Fortune forefend the omen!—I give you up to death,
you, a suitor for my alliance, for my daughter's hand?
Think of the uncertainties of war; have pity on your aged
sire, now biding forlornly far away in his Ardean home!" 20

These words abate not Turnus' vehemence a whit: it
starts up fiercer, more virulent for the healing hand.
Soon as he can find utterance, he thus begins: "The care
you take for my sake, best of fathers, lay down for my
sake, I beg, and suffer me to pledge my life for my honour. 25
My hand, too, can scatter darts and fling steel with no
feeble force; my blows, too, fetch blood. He will not have
his goddess-mother within call, to hide her craven son in an
unmanly cloud, and conceal herself by help of treacherous
shadows." 30

But the queen, appalled by the new hazard of the combat,
was all in tears, clinging to her fiery son-in-law with
the convulsive grasp of death: "Turnus, by these my
tears, by any regard you cherish for Amata—you are
now our only hope, our only solace in our forlorn old age—the 35
honour and power of the king are in your hands;
on you, its one pillar, the whole house leans. I ask but
this—forbear to cross swords with the Teucrians. What-*