Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/338

 for Turnus' life, for his very heart's blood. It chanced that there had stood there a wild olive with its bitter leaves, sacred to Faunus, a tree in old days reverenced by seamen, where when saved from ocean they used to fasten their offerings to the Laurentian god and hang up their              5 votive garments: but the unrespecting Trojans had lately lopped the hallowed trunk, that the lists might be clear for combat. There was lodged Æneas' spear: thither its force had carried it, and was now holding it fast in the unyielding root. The Dardan chief bent over it, fain to              10 wrench forth the steel that his weapon may catch whom his foot cannot overtake. Then cried Turnus in the moment of frenzied agony: "Have mercy, I conjure thee, good Faunus, and thou, most gracious earth, hold fast the steel if I have ever reverenced your sanctities, which           15 Æneas' crew for their part have caused battle to desecrate." He said, nor were his vows unanswered by heavenly aid. Hard as he struggled, long as he lingered over the stubborn stock, by no force could Æneas make the wood unclose its fangs. While he strains with keen insistence, the          20 Daunian goddess, resuming the guise of charioteer Metiscus, runs forward and restores to her brother his sword. Then Venus, resenting the freedom taken by the presumptuous Nymph, came nigh, and plucks the weapon from the depth of the root. And now towering high,                   25 with restored weapons and recruited force, this in strong reliance on his sword, that fiercely waving his spear tall as he, the two stand front to front in the breath-draining conflict of war.

Meanwhile the king of almighty Olympus accosts Juno,                 30 as from a golden cloud she gazes on the battle: "Where is this to end, fair spouse? what last stroke have you in store? you know yourself, by your own confession, that Æneas has his place assured in heaven among Italia's native gods, that destiny is making him a ladder to the              35 stars. What plan you now? what hope keeps you seated on those chilly clouds? was it right that mortal wound should harm a god, or that Turnus—for what power