Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/251

 Capitol's moveless rock, and a Roman father shall be the world's lord.

The Rutulian conquerors, enriched with spoil and booty, were bearing Volscens' body to the camp with tears in their eyes. Nor less loud is the wailing in the camp, when they            5 find Rhamnes drained of life, and those many chiefs slain by a single carnage—Serranus, Numa, and the rest. They flock in crowds to the bodies, the warriors yet breathing, the place fresh and reeking with slaughter, and the streams of gore full and foaming. They pass the spoils               10 from hand to hand, and recognize Messapus' gleaming helm, and the trappings which it cost such sweat to recover.

Now at last the goddess of the dawn was sprinkling the world with new-born light, as she rose from Tithonus'                15 saffron couch: the sun had streamed in and all was revealed by daybreak, when Turnus summons his men to arms, himself sheathed in armour; each general musters in battle array his brass-mailed bands, and, scattering divers speeches, stings them to fury. Nay, more, on                  20 uplifted spears, most piteous sight, they set up the heads, and follow them with deafening shouts—the heads of Euryalus and Nisus. Æneas' sturdy family, on the rampart's left side, set the fight in array—for the right is flanked by the river—guard the broad trenches and stand             25 on the lofty towers, deep in sorrow—touched to see those lifted human countenances, which to their grief they knew so well, dripping with black corrupted gore.

Meantime, Fame spreads her wings and flies with the news through the wildered settlement, and reaches the                30 ears of Euryalus' mother. At once the vital heat left her wretched frame: the shuttle was dashed from her hands, and the thread ran back. Forth flies the unhappy dame, and with a woman's piercing shriek, her tresses rent, makes madly for the walls and the van of battle, heeding not the           35 eyes of men, heeding not the peril and the shower of javelins, while she fills the heaven with her plaints: "Is it thus, Euryalus, that I see you again? have you, the late solace