Aeneid Book 12 Translation

But Father Aeneas, with the name of Turnus having been heard deserted both walls and high towers and set aside all delays, he burst through all the fortifications rejoicing with happiness and he thundered a dreadful sound with his weapons: as great as Athos or as great as Ery or as great as father Appennius himself with waving oak trees he roared and rejoiced, uplifting himself with his snowy top to the wind.Now indeed both the Rutilians and the Trojans and the Italians turned their eyes eagerly, whoever was holding the high walls or whoever was hitting the low parts with the ram, they placed down their weapons from their shoulders. Latinus himself was astonished that huge men born in different parts of the world were coming together among themselves and deciding the matter by the sword. And they, when the fields have become open with an empty plain with a rushing they charged up after spears having been thrown from afar they press on into war with shields and with clanging of brass/bronze.The earth gives a groan; then they redouble the repeated blows with their swords. Luck and courage are mixed into one. And just as on great Sila or on the highest Tabernus when two bulls with their foreheads turned against each other charge into hostile battles, their masters have retreated fearfully; all the herd stands dumb with dread and the heifers are silent, murmuring about who is to rule the grove, whom the whole herd is to follow;they deal out wounds between themselves with much violence and planted firmly, they drive their horns and battle their necks and shoulders with copious blood, the whole grove bellowed back with a groan: just so did the Trojan Aeneas and the Daunian hero run together with (their) shields and a great crash filled the heavens, Jupiter himself held up two scales with the balance set equal, and put in the different fates of the two men, whom the struggle may condemn and on which side death might sink down with its weight.Here Turnus, thinking he is safe, springs forward and with his whole body he rises with his sword lifted high and strikes. the Trojans shout out and the nervous Latins, and the armies/battle-line of both are made to stand up. But the treacherous sword breaks and abandons (him), burning in the middle of the blow, unless flight could come to rescue (him). He flees, swifter than the East wind, when he noticed an unfamiliar sword-hilt and his defenceless right hand.The take is that as he was heading into the first battle, when mounting his yoked horses, he left his father's blade behind; as he rushed, he snatched the sword of his charioteer Metiscus; and it sufficed for a long time, while the Trojans were retreating ('giving their backs'), scattering; after it came up against the arms made by the god Vulcan, the man-made bladed shattered with the blow, just like brittle ice: the fragments glittered on the yellow sand. 

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