Jupiter sends down one of the Furies to frighten Turnus into submission. Juturna, realizing that there is nothing more that she can do to help her brother, flees into the depths of the river, moaning. Aeneas hurls his spear at the fallen Turnus, and it pierces his thigh. Aeneas approaches Turnus to end his life, but Turnus pleads for mercy, for the sake of his father.
Aeneas is moved by Turnus's words and momentarily considers sparing him, but then notices Pallas 's belt slung across Turnus's shoulders, and drives his sword through his opponent's chest. One of the most fascinating and perplexing aspects of Virgil 's epic is its ending: even though our hero Aeneas is victorious, the Aeneid ends on an unquestionably tragic note, devoting its final lines to the sad last moments of Turnus's short life.
Virgil could have ended the story with, for example, victory celebrations and the joining together of the Latins and the Trojans, but he chooses to end it in a manner that not only takes readers to the opposite emotional pole from the triumphant, positive beginning, but is consistent with his interest in creating multilayered, painfully human characters. The ending of the epic is tragic in order to convey Turnus's complexity, as well as the complexity of the situation at hand compare the funeral of Hector at the end of the Iliad , after which the second half of Virgil's epic is patterned.
Turnus is arguably one of the most inconsistent characters in the Aeneid. He is by turns courageous, antagonistic, sympathetic, impassioned, and pitiful. This very complexity lends him his humanity. Just as Virgil invests Aeneas with flaws in order to enhance the sense that he is not simply an epic hero but a real person, Turnus's capriciousness enables the audience to view him not merely as a villain but as a person whose misdeeds are motivated by internal conflicts and flaws.
Indeed, his motivations, while vastly different from those of Aeneas, are in some ways no less pure. Turnus seems to be truly passionate about Lavinia, while Aeneas wishes to marry her simply because it his destiny to do so; Turnus wishes to uphold his sense of honor regardless of the challenges that face him, while Aeneas can, to some degree, rest in the security of knowing he is destined to succeed.
In the final episode, Turnus's willingness to fight Aeneas even though he knows that he is fated to lose demonstrates his courage, placing him on a level closer to Aeneas than any other warrior.
Yet in the last moments of his life he is reduced to begging on his knees to be spared. Readers cannot help but feel pity for this fallen man, and it is exactly this sentiment that Virgil hopes to elicit. Even though the ending is "happy" in that the protagonist, Aeneas, is victorious, the focus on Turnus's sad end demonstrates that no victory is without its downside.
Aeneas takes up his arms again and returns to the battle, where the Latin troops before him scatter in terror. Both he and Turnus kill many men, turning the tide of the battle back and forth. He gathers a group of soldiers and attacks the city, panicking its citizens.
Queen Amata, seeing the Trojans within the city walls, loses all hope and hangs herself. Turnus hears cries of suffering from the city and rushes back to the rescue. Not wanting his people to suffer further, he calls for the siege to end and for Aeneas to emerge and fight him hand-to-hand, as they had agreed that morning. First, Aeneas and Turnus toss their spears. They then exchange fierce blows with their swords. Turnus flees from Aeneas, calling for his real sword, which Juturna finally furnishes for him.
Jupiter, waiving his rule against intervention, allows Juno to save Turnus by creating a shadow-Aeneas as a diversion. Turnus mistakes the fake Aeneas for the real man and pursues him on board a ship, which Juno then floats off to sea, preventing the Rutulian prince from risking his life in combat against his Trojan counterpart. As Turnus rages with frustration aboard the ship, Aeneas, after a vain search for him, vents his bloodlust on the Etruscans's former king, Mezentius, whom he wounds in the groin.
Unable to continue fighting, Mezentius drags himself to safety while Lausus takes up the fight. Aeneas warns Lausus not to fight him, but when Lausus scoffs at this advice, Aeneas effortlessly kills him, only to be moved to pity by Lausus's death and the young man's selfless love for his father.
Mezentius, who receives Lausus's body from his son's comrades, is overcome by grief and remorse. Although he is gravely wounded and knows that he will probably be slain, he mounts his horse and rides off to fight Aeneas. He is determined to avenge Lausus's death, which has made his own life meaningless, and to atone for his evil deeds. Mezentius fights bravely, but Aeneas finally kills him after felling his horse, which pins him to the ground.
Before receiving the fatal stroke, Mezentius begs Aeneas to see that his body is buried in the same grave as his son's.
In Book X, with both protagonist and antagonist present for the first time, the war enters its crucial phase. Turnus's killing Pallas will lead eventually to his own death, for Turnus arouses in Aeneas a lust for vengeance that transforms the Trojan leader into an unrelenting enemy.
Aeneas's fury will be heightened by the sight of Pallas's swordbelt, which Turnus unceremoniously wears as a war trophy during his battle with Aeneas in Book XII. There, the Trojan hero will dismiss from his mind the fleeting thought of sparing Turnus and will lead him instead to give the final, killing thrust that brings an end to both Turnus's life and the epic poem. Book X concludes with Aeneas slaying his other great antagonist, Mezentius. This incident is one of the most powerful in the Aeneid and offers an outstanding example of Virgil's ability to introduce, at the very moment of triumph for the victor, a note of pathos that opens us to sympathy for the victim.
Virgil's power to awaken this feeling is all the more remarkable because in this case the victim, Mezentius, is monstrous. In the final campaign, the Trojans were tricked when they accepted into their city walls a wooden horse that, unbeknownst to them, harbored several Greek soldiers in its hollow belly. He tells how he escaped the burning city with his father, Anchises; his son, Ascanius; and the hearth gods that represent their fallen city.
Assured by the gods that a glorious future awaited him in Italy, he set sail with a fleet containing the surviving citizens of Troy. Aeneas relates the ordeals they faced on their journey. Twice they attempted to build a new city, only to be driven away by bad omens and plagues. Harpies, creatures that are part woman and part bird, cursed them, but they also encountered friendly countrymen unexpectedly. Finally, after the loss of Anchises and a bout of terrible weather, they made their way to Carthage.
They live together as lovers for a period, until the gods remind Aeneas of his duty to found a new city. He determines to set sail once again.
As the Trojans make for Italy, bad weather blows them to Sicily, where they hold funeral games for the dead Anchises.
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