Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/290



Meanwhile, the Goddess of Dawn has risen and left the ocean. Æneas, though duty presses to find leisure for interring his friends, and his mind is still wildered by the scene of blood, was paying his vows to heaven as conqueror should at the day-star's rise. A giant oak, lopped all     5 round of its branches, he sets up on a mound, and arrays it in gleaming arms, the royal spoils of Mezentius, a trophy to thee, great Lord of War: thereto he attaches the crest yet raining blood, the warrior's weapons notched and broken, and the hauberk stricken and pierced by twelve     10 several wounds: to the left hand he binds the brazen shield, and hangs to the neck the ivory-hilted sword. Then he begins thus to give charge to his triumphant friends, for the whole company of chiefs had gathered to his side: "A mighty deed, gallants, is achieved already: dismiss     15 all fear for the future: see here the spoils, the tyrant's first-fruits: see here Mezentius as my hands have made him. Now our march is to the king and the walls of Latium. Set the battle in array in your hearts and let hope forestall the fray, that no delay may check your ignorance      20 at the moment when heaven gives leave to pluck up the standards and lead forth our chivalry from the camp, no coward resolve palsy your steps with fear. Meanwhile, consign we to earth the unburied carcases of our friends, that solitary honour which is held in account in the pit      25 of Acheron. "Go," he says, "grace with the last tribute those glorious souls, who have bought for us this our fatherland with the price of their blood: and first to Evander's sorrowing town send we Pallas, who, lacking nought of manly worth, has been reft by the evil day, and whelmed     30 in darkness before his time."