le and preserve him for his father Daunus in safety. Now let
him perish, and pay forfeit to the Trojans of his innocent blood. Yet he
traces his birth from our name, and Pilumnus was his father in the
fourth generation, and oft and again his bountiful hand hath heaped thy
courts with gifts.'
To her the king of high heaven thus briefly spoke: 'If thy prayer for
him is delay of present death and respite from his fall, and thou dost
understand that I ordain it thus, remove thy Turnus in flight, and
snatch him from the fate that is upon him. For so much indulgence there
is room. But if any ampler grace mask itself in these thy prayers, and
thou dreamest of change in the whole movement of the war, idle is the
hope thou nursest.'
And Juno, weeping: 'Ah yet, if thy mind were gracious where thy lips are
stern, and this gift of life might remain confirmed to Turnus! Now his
portion is bitter and guiltless death, or I wander idly from the truth.
Yet, oh that I rather deluded myself with false alarms, and thou who
canst wouldst bend thy course to better counsels.'
These words uttered, she darted through the air straight from high
heaven, cloud-girt in driving tempest, and sought the Ilian ranks and
camp of Laurentum. Then the goddess, strange and ominous to see,
fashions into the likeness of Aeneas a thin and pithless shade of hollow
mist, decks it with Dardanian weapons, and gives it the mimicry of
shield and divine helmet plume, gives unsubstantial [640-673]words and
senseless utterance, and the mould and motion of his tread: like shapes
rumoured to flit when death is past, or dreams that delude the
slumbering senses. But in front of the battle-ranks the phantom dances
rejoicingly, and with arms and mocking accents provokes the foe. Turnus
hastens up and sends his spear whistling from far on it; it gives back
and turns its footsteps. Then indeed Turnus, when he believed Aeneas
turned and fled from him, and his spirit madly drank in the illusive
hope: 'Whither fliest thou, Aeneas? forsake not thy plighted bridal
chamber. This hand shall give thee the land thou hast sought overseas.'
So clamouring he pursues, and brandishes his drawn sword, and sees not
that his rejoicing is drifting with the winds. The ship lay haply moored
to a high ledge of rock, with ladders run out and gangway ready, wherein
king Osinius sailed from the coasts of Clusium. Here the fluttering
phantom of flying Aeneas darts and hides itself. Nor is Turnus
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