199-234]are slaughtered over the flames. Then, crowding the shore,
they gaze on their burning comrades, and guard the embers of the pyres,
and cannot tear themselves away till dewy Night wheels on the
star-spangled glittering sky.

Therewithal the unhappy Latins far apart build countless pyres and bury
many bodies of men in the ground; and many more they lift and bear away
to the neighbouring country, or send them back to the city; the rest, a
vast heap of undistinguishable slaughter, they burn uncounted and
unhonoured; on all sides the broad fields gleam with crowded rivalry of
fires. The third Dawn had rolled away the chill shadow from the sky;
mournfully they piled high the ashes and mingled bones from the embers,
and heaped a load of warm earth above them. Now in the dwellings of rich
Latinus' city the noise is loudest and most the long wail. Here mothers
and their sons' unhappy brides, here beloved sisters sad-hearted and
orphaned boys curse the disastrous war and Turnus' bridal, and bid him
his own self arm and decide the issue with the sword, since he claims
for himself the first rank and the lordship of Italy. Drances fiercely
embitters their cry, and vouches that Turnus alone is called, alone is
claimed for battle. Yet therewith many a diverse-worded counsel is for
Turnus, and the great name of the queen overshadows him, and he rises
high in renown of trophies fitly won.

Among their stir, and while confusion is fiercest, lo! to crown all, the
envoys from great Diomede's city bring their gloomy message: nothing is
come of all the toil and labour spent; gifts and gold and strong
entreaties have been of no avail; Latium must seek other arms, or sue
for peace to the Trojan king. For heavy grief King Latinus himself
swoons away. The wrath of heaven and the fresh graves before his eyes
warn him that Aeneas is borne on by fate's evident will. So he sends
imperial summons to [235-269]his high council, the foremost of his
people, and gathers them within his lofty courts. They assemble, and
stream up the crowded streets to the royal dwelling. Latinus, eldest in
years and first in royalty, sits amid them with cheerless brow, and bids
the envoys sent back from the Aetolian city tell the news they bring,
and demands a full and ordered reply. Then tongues are hushed; and
Venulus, obeying his word, thus begins to speak:

'We have seen, O citizens, Diomede in his Argive camp, and outsped our
way and passed all its dangers,