But from the Latin city now were fair speech-masters come,100
Half-hidden by the olive-boughs, and praying for a grace,
That he would give them back their men who lay about the place
O'erthrown by steel, and let them lie in earth-mound duly dight;
Since war was not for men o'ercome, or those that lack the light—
That he would spare his whileome hosts, the kinsmen of his bride.
But good Æneas, since their prayer might not be put aside,
Let all his pardon fall on them, and sayeth furthermore:
"O Latin folk, what hapless fate hath tangled you in war
So great and ill? From us, your friends, why must ye flee away?
For perished men, dead thralls of Mars, a little peace ye pray,110
But to your living folk indeed fain would I grant the grace.
I had not come here, save that Fate here gave me home and place:
No battle with your folk I wage; nay, rather 'twas your lord
Who left my friendship, trusting him to Turnus' shield and sword.
For Turnus to have faced the death were deed of better worth:
If he deems hands should end the war and thrust the Teucrians forth,
'Twere lovely deed to meet my hand amid the rain of strife;
Then let him live to whom the Gods have given the gift of life.
Go ye, and 'neath your hapless ones lay ye the bale-fire's blaze."
He made an end; but still they stood and hushed them in amaze,120
And each on each they turned their eyes, and every tongue refrained,
Till elder Drances, whom for foe child Turnus well had gained
By hate-filled charges, took the word, and in such wise began:
"O great in fame, in dint of war yet greater, Trojan man!
What praise of words is left to me to raise thee to the sky?
For justice shall I praise thee most, or battle's mastery?
Now happy, to our fathers' town this answer back we bear,
And if good-hap a way thereto may open anywhere,
Thee to Latinus will we knit—let Turnus seek his own!—
Yea, we shall deem it joy forsooth about your fateful town:130
To raise the walls, and Trojan stones upon our backs to lay."
Such words he spake, and with one mouth did all men murmur yea.
For twice six days they covenant; and in war-sundering peace
The Teucrians and the Latins blent about the woods increase,
About the hill-sides wander safe; the smitten ash doth know
The ring of steel; the pines that thrust heaven-high they overthrow;
Nor cease with wedge to cleave the oak and cedar shedding scent,
Or on the wains to lead away the rowan's last lament.
And now the very Wingèd Fame, with that great grief she bears,
Filleth Evander's town and house, filleth Evander's ears;140
Yea, Fame, who erst of Pallas' deeds in conquered Latium told:
Rush the Arcadians to the gates, and as they used of old,
Snatch up the torches of the dead, and with the long array
Of flames the acre-cleaving road gleams litten far away:
Then meeteth them the Phrygian crowd, and swells the wailing band;
And when the mothers saw them come amid the house-built land,
The woeful town they set afire with clamour of their ill.
But naught there is hath any might to hold Evander still;
He comes amidst, and on the bier where Pallas lies alow
He grovels, and with weeping sore and groaning clings thereto;150
And scarce from sorrow at the last his speech might win a way:
"Pallas, this holdeth not the word thou gavest me that day,
That thou wouldst ward thee warily in game of bitter Mars:
Though sooth I knew how strong it is, that first fame of the wars;
How strong is that o'er-sweet delight of earliest battle won.
O wretched schooling of my child! O seeds of war begun,
How bitter hard! O prayers of mine, O vows that none would hear
Of all the Gods! O holiest wife, thy death at least was dear,
And thou art happy to be gone, not kept for such a tide.
But I—my life hath conquered Fate, that here I might abide160
A lonely father. Ah, had I gone with the Trojan host,
To fall amid Rutulian spears! were mine the life-days lost;
If me, not Pallas, this sad pomp were bringing home today!—
Yet, Teucrians, on your troth and you no blaming would I lay,
Nor on our hands in friendship joined: 'twas a foreordered load
For mine old age: and if my son untimely death abode,
'Tis sweet to think he fell amidst the thousand Volscians slain,
And leading on the men of Troy the Latin lands to gain.
Pallas, no better funeral rites mine heart to thee awards
Than good Æneas giveth thee, and these great Phrygian lords,170
The Tyrrhene dukes, the Tyrrhene host, a mighty company;
While they whom thine own hand hath slain great trophies bear for thee.
Yea, Turnus, thou wert standing there, a huge trunk weapon-clad,
If equal age, if equal strength from lapse of years ye had.
—But out!—why should a hapless man thus stay the Teucrian swords?
Go, and be mindful to your king to carry these my words:
If here by loathèd life I bide, with Pallas dead and gone,
Thy right hand is the cause thereof, which unto sire and son
Owes Turnus, as thou wottest well: no other place there is
Thy worth and fate may fill. God wot I seek no life-days' bliss,180
But might I bear my son this tale amid the ghosts of earth!"
Meanwhile the loveliness of light Aurora brought to birth
For heartsick men, and brought aback the toil of heart and hand:
Father Æneas therewithal down on the hollow strand,
And Tarchon with him, rear the bales; and each man thither bears
His dead friend in the ancient guise: beneath the black flame flares,
The heaven aloft for reek thereof with night is overlaid:
Three times about the litten bales in glittering arms arrayed
They run the course; three times on steed they beat the earth about
Those woeful candles of the dead and sing their wailing out;190
The earth is strewn with tears of men, and arms of men forlorn,
And heavenward goes the shout of men and blaring of the horn:
But some upon the bale-fires cast gear stripped from Latins slain:
War-helms, and well-adornèd swords, and harness of the rein,
And glowing wheels: but overwell some knew the gifts they brought,
The very shields of their dead friends and weapons sped for nought.
Then oxen manifold to Death all round about they slay,
And bristled boars, and sheep they snatch from meadows wide away,
And hew them down upon the flame; then all the shore about
They gaze upon their burning friends, and watch the bale-fires out.200
Nor may they tear themselves away until the dewy night
Hath turned the heavens about again with gleaming stars bedight.
Nor less the unhappy Latins build upon another stead
The bale-fires numberless of tale: but of their warriors dead,
A many bodies there they dig into the earth adown,
And bear them into neighbouring lands, or back into the town:
The rest, a mighty heap of death piled up confusedly,
Untold, unhonoured, there they burn: then that wide-lying lea
Glareth with fires that thick and fast keep rising high and high.
But when the third dawn drew away cold shadows from the sky,210
Weeping, great heaps of ashes there and blended bones they made,
And over them the weight of earth yet warm with fire they laid.
But in the houses, in the town of that rich Latin king
More heavy was the wail, more sore the long-drawn sorrowing:
Here mothers, wretched fosterers here, here sisters loved and lorn,
And sorrowing sore, and lads whose lives from fathers' care were torn,
Were cursing of the cruel war, and Turnus and his bride,
"He, he, in arms, he with the sword should play it out," they cried,
"Who claims the realm of Italy and foremost lordship there."
And bitter Drances weights the scale, and witnessing doth bear220
That Turnus only is called forth, the battle-bidden man.
But divers words of many folk on Turnus' side yet ran,
And he was cloaked about withal by great Amata's name,
And plenteous signs of battle won upheld his fair-won fame.
Now midst these stirs and flaming broils the messengers are here
From Diomedes' mighty walls; and little is the cheer
Wherewith they bring the tidings back that every whit hath failed
Their toil and pains: that not a whit hath gold or gifts availed,
Or mighty prayers, that Latin folk some other stay in war
Must seek, or from the Trojan king a craven peace implore.230
Then e'en Latinus' counsel failed amid such miseries:
The wrath of God, the tombs new-wrought that lay before their eyes,
Made manifest Æneas come by will of God and Fate.
Therefore a mighty parliament, the firstlings of estate,
By his commandment summoned there, unto his house he brings.
Wherefore they gather, streaming forth unto that house of kings
By the thronged ways: there in the midst Latinus sitteth now,
First-born of years, first lord of rule, with little joyful brow.
Hereon the men come back again from that Ætolian wall
He biddeth tell their errand's speed, what answers did befall,240
Each in their order: thereupon for speech was silence made,
And Venulus, obeying him, suchwise began and said: