trong was the fresh pride of arms and the
sweetness of honour in a first battle. Ah, unhappy first-fruits of his
youth and bitter prelude of the war upon our borders! ah, vows and
prayers of mine that no god heard! and thou, pure crown of wifehood,
happy that thou art dead and not spared for this sorrow! But I have
outgone my destiny in living, to stay here the survivor of my child.
Would I had followed the allied arms of Troy, to be overwhelmed by
Rutulian weapons! Would my life had been given, and I and not my Pallas
were borne home in this [164-198]procession! I would not blame you, O
Teucrians, nor our treaty and the friendly hands we clasped: our old age
had that appointed debt to pay. Yet if untimely death awaited my son, it
will be good to think he fell leading the Teucrians into Latium, and
slew his Volscian thousands before he fell. Nay, no other funeral than
this would I deem thy due, my Pallas, than good Aeneas does, than the
mighty Phrygians, than the Tyrrhene captains and all the army of
Tyrrhenia. Great are the trophies they bring on whom thine hand deals
death; thou also, Turnus, wert standing now a great trunk dressed in
arms, had his age and his strength of years equalled thine. But why,
unhappy, do I delay the Trojan arms? Go, and forget not to carry this
message to your king: Thine hand it is that keeps me lingering in a life
that is hateful since Pallas fell, and Turnus is the debt thou seest son
and father claim: for thy virtue and thy fortune this scope alone is
left. I ask not joy in life; I may not; but to carry this to my son deep
in the under world.'

Meanwhile Dawn had raised her gracious light on weary men, bringing back
task and toil: now lord Aeneas, how Tarchon, have built the pyres on the
winding shore. Hither in ancestral fashion hath each borne the bodies of
his kin; the dark fire is lit beneath, and the vapour hides high heaven
in gloom. Thrice, girt in glittering arms, they have marched about the
blazing piles, thrice compassed on horseback the sad fire of death, and
uttered their wail. Tears fall fast upon earth and armour; cries of men
and blare of trumpets roll skyward. Then some fling on the fire Latin
spoils stripped from the slain, helmets and shapely swords, bridles and
glowing chariot wheels; others familiar gifts, the very shields and
luckless weapons of the dead. Around are slain in sacrifice oxen many in
number, and bristly swine and cattle gathered out of all the country
[