Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/297

 sorrowing embassy with tidings from Diomede's mighty town: the cost of all their labours has gained them nought: gifts and gold and earnest prayers are alike in vain: the Latians must look for arms elsewhere, or sue for peace     5 from the Trojan chief. King Latinus himself is crushed to earth by the weight of agony. The wrath of the gods, the fresh-made graves before his eyes, tell him plainly that Æneas is the man of destiny, borne on by heaven's manifest will. So he summons by royal mandate a mighty                 10 council, the chiefs of his nation, and gathers them within his lofty doors. They have mustered from all sides, and are streaming to the palace through the crowded streets. In the midst Latinus takes his seat, at once eldest in years and first in kingly state, with a brow that knows not joy. 15 Hereupon he bids the envoys returned from the Ætolian town to report the answers they bear, and bids them repeat each point in order. Silence is proclaimed, and Venulus, obeying the mandate, begins to speak:
 * moil is at its height, see, as a crowning blow, comes back the

"Townsmen, we have looked on Diomede and his Argive      20 encampment: the journey is overpast, and every chance surmounted, and we have touched the hand by which the realm of Ilion fell. We found him raising his city of Argyripa, the namesake of his ancestral people, in the land of Iapygian Garganus which his sword had won. Soon as           25 the presence was gained and liberty of speech accorded, we proffer our gifts, inform him of our name and country, who is our invader, and what cause has led us to Arpi. He listened, and returned as follows with untroubled mien: 'O children of fortune, subjects of Saturn's reign, men of      30 old Ausonia, what caprice of chance disturbs you in your repose, and bids you provoke a war ye know not? Know that all of us, whose steel profaned the sanctity of Ilion's soil—I pass the hardships of war, drained to the dregs under those lofty ramparts, the brave hearts which that         35 fatal Simois covers—yea, all of us the wide world over have paid the dues of our trespass in agonies unutterable, a company that might have wrung pity even from Priam: