Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/395

Rh Still prompt injurious taunts to fling,

Makes answer to Dardania's king:

'O great in fame, in deeds more great!

What eloquence your worth can mate?

Say, which may first our praise demand,

The just man's heart, the brave man's hand?

Soon shall this grateful train convey

Back to our peers the words you say,

And, let but chance the means afford,

Unite you to our gracious lord.

Should Turnus gainsay or deny,

Let Turnus seek some new ally.

Nay, Latium's sons shall spend their pains

To build the walls your fate ordains,

And nerve and sinew task with joy

In shouldering up the stones of Troy.'

So Drances spoke: and all the rest

With loud acclaim their mind expressed.

For twice six days a truce is fixed,

And there, while concord reigns betwixt,

Teucrian and Latin, freely mixed,

O'er hill and woodland stray.

The sharp axe rings upon the ash;

Heaven-kissing elms in ruin crash;

The forceful wedge with stroke on stroke

Splits cedarn core and heart of oak;

And bullocks, groaning 'neath the yoke,

Bear the full wains away.

Now Fame, sad harbinger of grief,

Comes flying to the Arcadian chief,

And fills with doleful trumpet blast

The palace and the town;

Fame, whose shrill voice, a moment past,

Had told the tale of slaughter vast

And Pallas' young renown.