Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/295

 train should have borne me home, and not my Pallas! Nor yet would I blame you, men of Troy, nor the treaty we made, nor the hands we plighted in friendship; it is but the portion ordained long ago as fitting for my gray hairs. If it was written that my son should die ere his     5 time, it shall be well that he fell after slaying his Volscian thousands, while leading a Teucrian army to the gates of Latium. Nay, my Pallas, I would wish for you no worthier funeral than that accorded to you by Æneas the good and his noble Phrygians, by the Tyrrhene leaders,     10 and the whole Tyrrhene host. Each bears you a mighty trophy whom your right hand sends down to death. And you, too, proud Turnus, would be standing at this moment, a giant trunk hung round with armour, had your age been but as his, the vigour of your years the same. But why      15 should misery like mine hold back the Teucrians from the battle? Go, and remember to bear my message to your king. If I still drag the wheels of my hated life now my Pallas is slain, it is because of your right hand, which owes the debt of Turnus' life to son and sire, yourself being witness. 20 This is the one remaining niche for your valour and your fortune to fill. I ask not for triumph to gild my life: that thought were crime: I ask but for tidings that I may bear to my son down in the spectral world."

Meantime the Goddess of Dawn had lifted on high her      25 kindly light for suffering mortality, recalling them to task and toil. Already father Æneas, already Tarchon, have set up their funeral piles along the winding shore. Hither each man brings the body of friend or kinsman as the rites of his sires command; and as the murky flames are applied      30 below, darkness veils the heights of heaven in gloom. Thrice they ran their courses round the lighted pyres, sheathed in shining armour; thrice they circled on their steeds the mournful funeral flame, and uttered the voice of wailing. Sprinkled is the earth with their tears,      35 sprinkled is the harness. Upsoars to heaven at once the shout of warriors and the blare of trumpets. Others fling upon the fire plunder torn from the Latian slain,