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 where he may. Nay, it will be our pride to uprear those massive walls of destiny, and heave on our shoulders the stones of your new Troy." He spoke, and the rest all murmured assent. For twelve days they make truce, and with amity to mediate, Trojans and Latians mingled roam     5 through the forest on the mountain slopes unharming and unharmed. The lofty ash rings with the two-edged steel: they bring low pines erst uplifted to the sky, nor is there pause in cleaving with wedges the oak and fragrant cedar, or in carrying ashen trunks in the groaning wains.            10

And now flying Fame, the harbinger of that cruel agony, is filling with her tidings the ears of Evander, his palace and his city—Fame that but few hours back was proclaiming Pallas the conqueror of Latium. Forth stream the Arcadians to the gates, with funeral torches in ancient fashion,      15 snatched up hurriedly; the road gleams with the long line of fire, which parts the breath of fields on either hand. To meet them comes the train of Phrygians, and joins the wailing company. Soon as the matrons saw them pass under the shadow of the houses, they set the mourning city     20 ablaze with their shrieks. But Evander—no force can hold him back; he rushes into the midst: there as they lay down the bier he has flung himself upon Pallas, and is clinging to him with tears and groans, till choking grief at last lets speech find her way: "No, my Pallas! this was     25 not your promise to your sire, to trust yourself with caution in the War-god's savage hands. I knew what a spell there lay in the young dawn of a soldier's glory, the enrapturing pride of the first day of battle. Alas for the ill-starred first-fruits of youth, the cruel foretaste of the      30 coming war! alas for those my vows and prayers, that found no audience with any of the gods! alas too for thee, my blessed spouse, happy as thou art in the death that spared thee not for this heavy sorrow! while I, living on, have triumphed over my destiny, that I might survive in      35 solitary fatherhood. Had I but followed the friendly standards of Troy, and fallen whelmed by Rutulian javelins! had I rendered my own life up, so that this funeral